The Creature in The Cauldron – Chapter 25

*Scene 01* – 07:56 (Wooden Cage)

Aridam had thought his assignment would be easy.  No horse-drawn wagon could outrun unencumbered men on horseback.  It just stood to reason.  When Hadeon had given him the order to pursue the wagon headed along the northwestern trail back toward the valley of the Xarmnian stables, he was sure that he and his men would come back soon carrying the severed heads of their quarry, or at least those in the pretentious, and odious weapons convoy who had thought to make fools of them, and steal their prize.

The trail was another ridgeline track, heavily wooded, both cut and leveled out through the steep treelined march over the lip of the highland ridge, covering the head of the valley.  Aridam knew there would eventually be a bridge to cross if the trail followed the ridgeline course, for a shallow river flowed through the stable valley and wet the lowlands filling them with rich grasses that were used to range and feed the Xarmnian stable’s remudas and herds.  He was certain that if he and his men did not catch their quarry along the wooded rode, they would certainly catch up to them before they reached whatever bridge crossed the stream that poured over the lip of the highland ridge.

What he had not counted on, however, was how the trees themselves could be used against his team to entrap them and thrust them off the edge of the steep grade into the jagged ranks of the slanted woods below.

Riding fast through the tunnel of towering trees, they could just spot the fleeing wagon racing through the dappled twilight, almost a half mile ahead.  Aridam knew that wagon would have to slow for the bridge crossing, for the stone bridge was narrow gaged, and just broad enough to allow a wagon to cross, but just barely.  Crossing too fast would risk damaging the spokes and the axel and the bridge spanned about forty to fifty feet across with only about five feet above the frothy and churn of the descending falls.  Watching ahead, he almost laughed as he saw the wagon slow, feeling that his savage victory would soon come to those impudent fools who dared to think they could evade and outrun some of the best trackers in all the kingdom lands of Xarm.

And then, the trees began to fall…

Great crackling sounds echoed down the tube of the woods, causing Aridam and his team to look up and around them.  The snap and explosive crack of breaking limbs, and a rising pitch of groaning wood, lumbered forward, popping and whooshing as a massive tree over eighty feet high leaned its massive trunk across the backtrail, roots ripping and emerging out of the ground, cutting their way of retreat off.  Another tree crackled and popped, its large canopy swishing in leafy protest, as it fell down upon Aridam and his men, crushing some, and pitching others and their horses down over the edge of the road into a wet mat of pine needles that sloughed like dead skin off of a debris field of jagged scree, and broken rock.  Falling branches rained down on them, as the massive tree folded itself between lower ranks of threes, shearing off some of its branches to trade places in formation, headed downward.  Frantically, Aridam fought through the tumble of branches, his mount buried in a leafy bower below.  Suddenly he realized that he no longer had the use of one of his arms.

Ahead the way was block by other fallen trees, their trunks extending across the narrow roadway, the shade that they had once provided was speared through with shafts of sunlight and swirling dust motes, drifting leaves, and kicked up dust from ripping through the overhead canopy.  Parts of the higher shoulder sloughed down onto the roadway, spilling gravel and gouts of earth, broken by the twists and turn of the large trees.  Aridam noticed one of the trunks missing a wedge shape from its bole.  It had been angle cut, and shimmed into place only to be removed at a future opportune time, allowing the tree to fall into a directed path that would impede further movement along the trail.  Gritting his teeth, he realized that they had lured in and had ridden into a trap, set long ahead of this instance of pursuit.  They knew as well as he did, that a fleeing wagon would not last long in a chase, without some was to slow their pursuers down.  He cursed and spat, blinded with fury…and pain, as at last he got a good look at his mangled and bloodied arm.  His legs were numb, having been struck brutally by one of the spindly limbs of the large tree that had crushed several of his riders beneath its ponderous weight.  From beyond the steep lower edge of the road he heard panicky screams and flailing as others that had been swept off the roadway found themselves scrabbling, and scratching, searching for handholds or footholds to slow their descent down a dislodged and slowly moving scree and talus pile.  Large rocks, pushed ahead by the upper shift, fell over a sheer drop, popping and breaking as they bounced and skidded over the edge.  Shorter trees that had found a grappling root through the slough rocks, now lost their grip, as their crushed roots snapped and were sheered away from their tap roots.  Those smaller trees whipped and abraded the men who had no choice but to ride to their forward fate toward the precipice and spill over the edge into the jagged ranks of pines below.

As Aridam lay back on the flattened boughs, having extracted himself from the tree limbs that had pinned him down, he knew that Hadeon would wonder what had happened to him and his men, and grow more irritated by the hour when they did not show up at the pre-arrange meeting spot, down below the main road beneath the highland rim.  He sighed, feeling his body grow numb and weary from the loss of blood.  Well, Hadeon would just have to wait, Aridam sighed, releasing a long breath of exasperation.  He would be more angered by the fact that Aridam’s quarry had gotten away, rather than over the loss of Aridam’s company and their horses.  Hadeon took losses as setbacks personally.  Dead men could not serve his ambitions, so he took no thought for them.  Aridam wondered by he had ever thought to follow such a self-centered, angry man would be a good thing.  Hadeon had garnered a reputation as being a man who could get things done.  Yes, but at what cost?  Aridam questioned his own stance.  He would receive no reward for bolstering another man’s ego and brutal reputation.  But where could he go?  If he had abandoned his life as a member of the Protectorate Guard, what would he do with himself.  One was not just allowed to leave.  The others were dutybound to clear up loose ends, lest they decide to turn against the king and help those who fancied themselves part of the laughable ‘Resistance’.  But one could not be too careful.  Protectorate Guards were to be feared by those they “protected”.  Oh, the irony! Aridam almost laughed, but winced at his own pain, trying to get a torn piece of material around his mangled arm into a tourniquet to stop further blood loss.  He managed to get the bloodied material sash around his upper bicep, and fumbling, forced the end of the sash under the loop, then feeding the end up into his mouth, tasting his own blood as he did so.  He gripped the end between his teeth and then yanked the tourniquet tight, screaming as he did so, before everything went black.

*Scene 02* – 18:15 (Going to The Graveyard – Part 1 of 3 “The Disposition of One”)

Lord Nem and I had an early breakfast of small baked barley loaves with a fruit compote inside, possibly of blended figs, and berries, brushed with a fragrant coating of olive oil and honey made from dates.  It was accompanied by a poached egg, and flat potato latkes, with blueberries baked in.

I did not say anything about the disturbance during the night and Nem graciously did not bring it up.  It was still dark when we stepped out side, and I could tell that the strong winds had done some damage.  Branches and leaves were scattered down the steps from the porch and odd jointed frames had been lifted and blown off of some of the flat rooftops.

“Looks like some of the roof scaffolding were blown down during the windstorm last night.” I commended, seeing the joined wooden poles, with sheaf of thatch and leaves still clinging to them.

“Those are booths,” Nem answered.

“All the way from the marketplace courts?” I asked incredulous.  “That was some storm!”

“Not from there.  These are booths coverings.  Temporary structures we put on our roof tops.  In the seventh month, we camp under them for a week during the festival.  All families here observe this custom.  It honors our tradition from a period when we were displaced and did not have homes to shelter in.  And… they make great camoflage canopies from aerial observers.  Not every enemy of ours in the Mid-World walk on their feet.  This we do by tradition, don’t just have to serve a singular purpose, you know.”

“Huh!” I exclaimed, “I didn’t think of that.”

We made our way down through the debris and eventually arrived at a stone stairwell that descended further down toward the lower parts of the city.

As Nem had said, the region between the outer wall and the interior wall was both dead and yet alive with wildness.  The absence of people living there made it a graveyard as much as the fact that many had perished there as well.  The wild beasts and stray animals moving among the thick grasses gave the place an eerie feel.  Their rustling and bleating and occasional growling sporadically heard beneath the leafy canopy of overgrowth.

“Walk with me.  There is something very particular I need to show you.  Something we need your help with and some private issues we need to speak about concerning your leadership.”

We walked together in silence for a bit, moving away from the hearing of the others until we reached a stone stairway that led down into the older remnants of the city.

“This quest you are on…,” he began, “It will take one of us from here with you into unknown dangers ahead.”

Intuitively, I knew who he was speaking of, but did not interrupt.

He paused, carefully navigating the broken steps downward that had become covered with wet moss, lichen, and an ever-spreading, ever-growing carpet of vines that seemed to swallow the crumbling steps into a throat of leafy greenery.  He lifted his feet high, indicating that I should do the same, to keep our feet from being caught in the treacherous tangles.  Our footfalls, pressing on the top of the vines, crushing the leaves, and crackling thin branches underneath caused the mat to give off a sickeningly cloying custard-like odor.  A dusting of bile-yellow pollen covered our boots and legs as we carefully scrambled over the tops of the densely woven mat.

Soon, we found a partial clearing of stone again and the semblance of steps resuming downward into a thickly overgrown courtyard enveloped in leafy kudzu and gnarled branches that twisted and descended into and out of the overgrowth, dislodging stones from the walls and the ancient structure buried beneath.  It was almost as if this leafy green surface was some alien ocean in tumult, where the surface of the water had been replaced with foliage and some monstrous Kraken-like creature from the fathomless depths below extended its wooden twisted tentacles through the floating mat, seizing and tugging anything it could wrap its searching, probing and coiling appendages around.  Once standing again on a small flat island of stone, in the midst of this leafy ocean, Nem resumed his address to me.

“While we are on the precipice of war and can hardly spare anyone, we understand the vital role of these quests.  Others and I agree that it is now Maeven’s time to go with you on this one.  We knew this time would eventually come, but it is hard now that this time is upon us.”

Nem paused thoughtfully.  Reflecting on memories of her with a wistful smile.

“She has been adopted into the village of Azragoth.  We are like family to her and she to us, though we know she originally came to us from the Surface World.  She has grown much and learned far more than others of your kind who pass through here.  But she is still part of your world, and her future depends on finding for herself what your quest will offer her.  She is like a daughter to us.  One who has brought much delight to us as she grew up among us, and like doting parents, we struggle to release her into finding her own life for herself.

We continued forward, again stepping from the stone shore of the green sea, to walk across the crackling and spongy surface of its verdant and tangled waters, making for a break in the wall and another set of vine-covered steps leading upwards and beyond.

“I know why you have come, perhaps better than you do.  I can sense your uneasiness, your self-doubt, and your feelings of inadequacy.  But you should know that what you were called to is very important, and something our erstwhile daughter needs to be able to find the wholeness she has been seeking her entire life.”

I sighed involuntarily before realizing I had done so.  It seemed that he might be making more out of my calling than I was, and embarrassingly, I had the deep-down sense that he was correct.

Nem studied me a moment with disturbingly perceptive eyes that seemed to probe and unpack my secrets and my every weakness.

“For anything you set out to do, Mr. O’Brian, you must always…Always,” he emphasized, “Be able to clearly state the purpose for which you undertake the task.  If you are not clear on this point, you doom your enterprise and everyone who may hope to follow you into it.  Since you will take a daughter of this city into your particular undertaking, I cannot allow you to proceed with such uncertainty, so let me restate the purpose of your mission for you, as I perceive it to be.  Afterward, if you see it differently, I need to know it now before we commit her to go with you on this quest.”

I hesitated, but Nem did not, and like a father protecting the daughter he loves from the ill-defined intentions of a prospective suitor, he restated and clarified the essential nature of my purpose for being here, and my having been given the quest in the first place.

“You are here to bring awareness to the daydreamers who have lost who they are.  Those who have become disconnected from their own self-worth and from the memory that their stories are intertwined with our histories.  They have escaped, for lack of a better term, into the dream but have found only the nightmare because they are ungrounded.  Split between who they believe themselves to be and what they at one time wished to be.  Despair has clouded their vision and made them believe that to hope for anything else is a foolish myth.  You too were under that delusion, but I think you are finally waking up to it now.  But you have a difficult task ahead of you.  You are still groggy from the restlessness of being roused to awareness, sorting through the real and the unreal, belief and doubts.  You speak words of the Ancient Text and swiftly call them forth from your memory in warrior fashion, but you are still disconnected from the reason they come to you, and the power they offer to restore your ability to become more than you are now.  Faith without works is dead, Mr. O’Brian, and you are still shrouded in funeral garments, yet you purport to lead these others who are presently unaware of why they specifically were brought here through the portal between our worlds.  What roles they are yet to play in the discoveries yet to come.  Nell is not the only Seer here, you know.  Azragoth has others within our township who dream as well.  Some of your travelers are known through those dreams, yet your people are unaware of this.  We have kept our Seers from interacting with your people because they might recognize them and not yet know why they do.  I needed to speak with you first, before allowing those meetings.  To assess what steps have been taken to make your company a unit and a family who could survive the rigors of what is ahead of you when you leave Azragoth and prepare them for the psychological shock of finding out that all of them have been here at least once before yet have lost their memory of it.  Their stories will come back to them in time.  But you must be prepared for it.  For how it will affect each of them when they do.  But before you can do that you must first contend with who you are and come to terms with it.  Then you must come to know each of them and earn their trust.”

Something within me.  Something integral to my very soul and spirit resonated in affirmation of what Nem was saying, and I could feel the truth of it even as he spoke it forth.

“How do you know such things?  How can you…?”

“Because Mr. O’Brian, or Brian as you are known in the above world…In this world, I am the particular Seer who has dreams of what your life is in the other world.  I feel I have known of you before you even knew yourself.  Each of us, here in the Mid-world, dreams of another’s story.  It is part of the inherited connection we have with our ancestors who first came here from there.  I happen to be the one of the few persons in this world who sees you particularly and foresaw your coming back here.  It is the only reason you were allowed into the city and entrusted with its secret of existence.”

He was silent for a moment, allowing me to recover from my shock at this revelation.

“You are dreaming me?” I asked under my breath, more to myself than to Lord Nem.

He proceeded up the stone steps to the remnants of a stone structure that looked in part like a pavilion or gazebo, unaware that I had voiced a question.

I hesitated and then followed.

When I reached the top, I could see that beneath the stone pavilion, there was what looked to be the remains of a fountain basin with a series of recessed and concentric pits gradually descending in depth until the smaller inner basin revealed a grate covered well in its center.  The fountain was dry, and no water remained in it, but its floor was strewn with the remains of dead and decaying leaves, grayed and blackened with rot over time.  Though the gazebo/pavilion was raised on a tree-shrouded hillock within the city walls, the air there felt dry and still.  Musty in some way.  As if the stone canopy were the ceiling of a cave smelling of lime, smoke, and fire-scorched earth.  The fecund and sickly-sweet smell of rotting leaves one might expect to smell from the floor of the fountain was instead replaced with the slightly coppery tang of dry dust that had aged well beyond decay until all moisture was leeched out of it.

We stood together at the raised edge of the fountain basin looking down into its waterless cavities, and into the iron-grated dark blackness of the central basin.

“What is this place?” I asked, looking around me.

“It is one of the oldest places in the city,” Lord Nem said.   “Azragoth was built upon the ruins of a much older site.  Many of the older layers are buried below under tons of crushed rock and rubble.  There are voids beneath that never filled in, but they are almost impossible to reach under so much stone.  This place was once a hot bath pavilion, known for its healing properties.  Can you tell me what is missing from this place?”

I glanced from the empty basins to the covered cabanas, now choked with crawling vines, dried and exposed roots and a fine powdered dust that covered everything.  “There are no attendants here…” I muttered.

“And why would there be?  What would they attend?  What would make this place require workers?”

I felt dense, missing the obvious answer to his question, but still he waited for my reply.  “The water?” I offered, hesitant to mention it because it seemed a too obvious answer, but Nem nodded.

“Exactly.  Natural hot water springs once filled these pools with mineral rich waters that soothed sore muscles, increased blood flow, and helped soldiers and physical laborers alike recuperate from their work in the fields or on fields of battle.  Without the underground flow of water to replenish these pools, this place becomes meaningless to attend to.  Its purpose was to contain that which filled it.  People did not come here for the basins; they came here for what filled them: healing waters.”

He let that thought sink in.  Then voiced quietly, “Without the filling, you will be ever bit as dry and hollow as anyone of these dusty bowls littered with dead leaves and bits of dry broken branches.  Whatever it is inside of you that you keep in an unfilled room, will eventually be filled with something else to occupy it.  You must let the well within you spring forth to flow into those spaces.  To wash away those things that don’t belong and cleanse it for healing to occur.”

“I am told, last night you caused quite a stir in my household.”

“There was…  I don’t know, it felt like there were presences in my room.  I must’ve been dreaming.  I heard voices and thought something might’ve been threatening little Miray.  I apologize for waking the others up.  Causing a stir.  You weren’t there?”

“After I left you, I slipped away and spent the evening in the temple, fasting and praying for you.  I noticed a change in you this morning.  A heaviness lifted.  Perhaps prayers answered, but clearing the way for you.  I only broke the fast this morning with you, before we departed, for it seemed that I was released to do so.”

I was both stunned and humbled by his admission.  I knew the power of prayer but had had very few occasions where people prayed specifically for me.   I did not know what to feel about someone who had so many other responsibilities on his mind, that he would spend so much particular time with me and thinking of my situation, even to the point of foreseeing my coming in dreams.  Who was I that my life and calling would mean so much, when it ranked so low in my own mind and thoughts?

I thought to probe a little into that question, so I asked him, “If you can see who I am back in the Surface World, and knew I would one day be coming here, leading an expedition, can you also see what will be ahead of us?”

Nem shook his head.  “It doesn’t work like that.  I could only catch glimpses of what would be up to this moment.  When the time of your journey and our times join into the present, no Seer, no matter how gifted can see beyond it.  We are not soothsayers, Brian, or fortune-tellers who can give you a sight of a future in which you are a passive player.  The desire to know the future from anyone other than The One reflects your present state of fear.  All future steps are accounted for according to your choices and actions from this moment forward.  As it is written: The just shall live by faith.  And you are justified and accountable for the choices you make.  Only The Word of The One can say what will be beyond these moments, for only He knows the end from the beginning.  It is folly to seek knowledge of the future in anything other than this.  Neither you nor any other being in all of creation from one end of the heavens to the other can get out of The Word’s permissive will.  Your safest, and the most fulfilling course is to seek the path He desires for you and experience the goodness that will certainly come of it.  If you would rather seek your own will, and your own definition of good, you will find the hard and lonely path of His provisional will.  It is your choice to make.  Either route you take, you will find always that His Will will be done in the end.”

We were silent for a time, each pondering the words spoken and the responsibility they portended.

*Scene 02* – 16:21 (Going to The Graveyard – Part 2 of 3 “Reluctant Leadership”)

“What do you think Azragoth represents to the outside world?”

“I know it was a great commercial center once.  But I am not sure that is what you are asking.”

“Death, Mr. O’Brian.  As I told you last night, it represents loss, death, and destruction.  In a way, it is the very thing you need right now because otherwise, you will be an agent of death to these followers you lead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Every great quest begins with a kind of death.  For one who is called to lead, that death is their own.  Have you ever heard of the concept of dying to live?  That one must surrender their desire to master their circumstances, otherwise, they will become mastered by them?”

“The concept is not unfamiliar to me.  The Ancient Text speaks of such things:

“If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” [Luke 9:24-25 NLT]

“Ah yes.  To my very point, which is why there is some hope for you.  You do seem to have a sense of what is the right thing to do, even if you are not grasping the way to get there.  But if you do not get there, you will still endanger everyone who follows your lead and tragically so, because you knew what you must do but failed to execute upon it.

“What do you mean?  How is my leadership endangering them?”

Nem was quiet a moment, letting my question linger between us before finally considering an approach to answering it.

“I am told you bore an honor sword when you arrived through the backwoods.  Why did you surrender it?”

“We were told to surrender our weapons, or we would not be let into the city.”

“That is true, but you are evading my question.  Why did you, personally, surrender the honor sword?”

I paused, thinking back to my conversation with Maeven, and sighed at the memory.  “I was promised I would get it back again.”

“Were you?” Nem studied me, “Was getting into Azragoth more important than the lives of the company you lead?”

“I am not following.”

“Nor are you leading, Mr. O’Brian.  You are presently in the thrall of an invisible creature, and because of it, you represent a grave danger to us all.”

“I don’t feel like I’m in the thrall of anything.”

“Yes, you are.  If you weren’t you would never have surrendered your honor sword, nor would you have allowed your people to be led blindly into a city that represents death to the outside world.  A city of a plague that even the Xarmnians have feared and let be for a season.  There are some others in this city that also know you from the before times.  The time in which you were something much different than what you are now presenting yourself to be.  Did you think we would not find out, who it was that we allowed into our confidence?”

I sighed involuntarily, feeling exposed for a fraud and a certain embarrassing shame colored my face.  I leaned across the fountain’s edge, my hands clasped together, breathing deeply, carefully thinking through my response.

Nem continued, allowing me the dignity of not being pressed to say something I might regret later.

“You have a reputation that precedes you, even if most have forgotten it because it was so many years ago.  You once were what Maeven, as the Storm Hawk, has become now.  A legend, a hero, a fierce fighter and a crusading leader against both the Xarmnians and the races of Half-men.  She has filled in the gap of what you left.”

“Then I certainly pity her for it,” I said, revealing more bitterness than I intended in my tone, “She does not know what she is in for.”

“What has happened to you to make you so different from the stories?  Were those who remember you from back then deceived?  Are they wrong?”

“As many legends are, they were exaggerated into something I could never live up to.  I felt the weight of them, and I tried very hard not to disappoint people who were inspired by them to hope.  But I failed them, and I failed those I loved in the worst way.  I was eventually captured, tortured and my family taken from me.  I betrayed them and everything I ever stood for to seek relief from the pressure of being more than I could humanly be.  The expectations of people, even well-meaning people, can become a cruel taskmaster, so eventually, I sought seclusion and withdrew into what I thought was a quiet existence.”  I let out an exasperated breath, an continued, “Until…I was found again.  By the very creatures, I unwittingly brought over from the Surface World.  My own personal demons, who bound me and drove me to the brink of utter despair.

“So here you are again.  Leading a quest with people who do not know you.  For what?  Penance over past failings?”

“I was given a second chance.  And was called out of the past darkness into which I tried to hide.  I don’t know why.  I don’t feel up to this, and I certainly didn’t want anyone to know of my past.  I cannot live up to it, so these should only know that I am called and am hoping that the equipping and the quickening power comes back to me as it did before with the calling.  I figured enough time had passed in these lands that those I knew would have forgotten me.  These travelers from the Surface World are mostly strangers to me.  Begglar and I have a history not so dissimilar to each other.  We both left the crusadership about the same time and sought a quieter life.  Though Begglar, I have since learned has not abandoned it so much as I.”

“I would’ve thought that if any of us should be called back to lead, it should have been him.  He derives a certain energy from interaction with others that I have difficulty with.  He could not escape his natural propensity for it, so, he opened a bakery and then an Inn.”

“Me, well, I found a small cabin in the mountains near a brook.  Seclusion is my natural go to when I am overwhelmed.  So, I planted a small garden and lived monk-like as much as I could, occasioning visiting Begglar and then Nell when they married and a few times later before they had Dominic.  Begglar was the only one of the old company that I have had any contact with, in the years following.  I had been to Azragoth during trade days, before the attack and plague, and have sometimes wandered the forests and hills, and lake country, avoiding heavily populated towns as much as I could.  Never staying anywhere for very long, to avoid being recognized again.  I’ve put on a few pounds here and there; this slightly greying beard is new.  No one who knew me then would easily recognize me now, …or so I thought.”

“So, how do you envision things will be different this time?  This different identity that you’ve built up around yourself as this meek and bumbling and confused leader serves what purpose, do you think?”

I shrugged, “I don’t really know.  I believed it would set the bar of their expectations lower for me.  It feels a little liberating to not carry the weight of former victories in a new company of those unaware of them.  To be underestimated.”

“It sounds like a lazy man’s way out.  It will inspire no confidence in those you are leading and will make them afraid to follow you anywhere.”

Before thinking, I blurted out, “Perhaps they should be afraid to.  Some degree of fear is wise and makes them cautious.”

“It will also make them hesitant and unsure.  Those things will get them killed in a conflict.  You want your enemies to underestimate you, not your friends.”

“For me, friendships have become a liability.  I try to maintain a distance so that I don’t lose objectivity and play no favorites.  It is hard enough to commit others to take personal risks for the benefit of the group.  It becomes extremely harder to do so if those with whom you risk their lives are personal and intimate friends.  I did that with a dear friend before and it cost him his life.  After losing that friend, I could not focus for the grief and ended up leading others into danger and near death because I could not recover from the loss to remain clear-headed in battle.  I was desperate to make amends, but worry and fear for my friends crippled my leadership.  I bore the responsibility for putting them in harm’s way, and when Caleb died, I could not take it any longer.”

Nem nodded, but countered my arguments.  “That particular distancing may work in a relation to hirelings, but not for those with whom you will lead into battle.  When the threat increases, hirelings will flee and abandon you.  Only those who respect and love you will remain by your side to stand and if need be, die fighting with you.  As painful as that might be, it is the only way to move into the kind of leadership required of the mission you pursue.”

I sighed, and nodded, knowing, as difficult as it was to reconcile with my past, Lord Nem’s words rung true.

“Have you made plain the risks that are involved in this quest to your company?”

“I have…up to a point.”

“What do you mean ‘up to a point’?”

“Somethings are hard to believe coming from a Surface World experience.  I do have to address them from their context.  Some of the dangers here have to be shown and experienced before Surface Worlders will believe them.  We, Surface Worlders have a very hard time acknowledging the dual nature of existence.  That we are both physical and spiritual beings with both being real and connected in the same instance.  We separate the possibility of the supernatural from the natural world and insist that the one we are more comfortable with, the physical being, the empirically measurable world, is the one more important when the opposite is true.  The presently reigning god of our Surface World is very astute in his pernicious ability to blind their eyes to that critical truth.  Even the called forth in the Surface World, who allow into their beliefs the truth of the supernatural rarely see it presented in their experience and are often lured back into the dual thinking of a secular and non-secular existence.  We have labels that we put on everything there.  Faith-based, non-faith based.  Religious, non-religious.  Such things were never intended by the One who created all things.  Almost everything they experience here seems both natural and supernatural.  That is an advantage of perspective that this place has over the Surface World.  The effects of the first death are not as advanced here in this younger world with its own time flow.  For all of our advances in the Surface World, we come under greater deceptions and illusions there than those living here in the dream image.  They fictionalize their faith until it seems ludicrous to rely upon it.  It is our deadly vice and a product of our age.  In their minds this place cannot exist, because they can’t measure it empirically and they must keep their image of a Creator and Purposeful God, for those that claim to believe in Him, small enough to fit into their limited experience and interpretations.”

“You do that.”

“Yes, I know.  But I am aware I am doing it, and struggle with that paradox raging within me.  Being in the world but not of the world is a very hard balance to keep.”

“A balance no one is intended to maintain alone.  Much like this waterless and dry fountain.  You will not find the quickening coming until you acknowledge and seek to clear your connection to the authority behind your calling.  For that to happen you must die to self, and let The Vine cause you to be fruitful once again.  So, I ask you once more.  Why did you surrender the honor sword that was bound to you?”

“What would have happened, if I had refused to give up the sword?  My company narrowly escaped the hunting band of the Protectorate.  We came by trails unknown to find a walled city lost in a wood.  A fortification that might provide some temporary place of refuge until we could move on to the next place.  I cannot lead them if I cannot go where they go and face whatever they face.”

“Yet even now, you are separated from them so easily.  Even now you place the care and responsibility and welfare of them into the hands of others.  You are evading leadership because it requires a death to yourself.  The mantle of leadership is a cross you are refusing to carry, to die upon so that others may live.  You underestimate the power and need for friendships among those you lead.  Friends are not so easily separated as strangers are.  Your team needs the cohesion of relationships if they are to stand together and aid in the mission of your quest.

I considered Nem’s words and the wisdom in them.  My focus had been only on my personal struggle with the responsibility of leadership, but I had failed to see how addressing my own shortcomings and uncertainties were clouding my sight to the larger vision of what needed to be done and how to help my team survive it.

“It seems our coming to Azragoth was fortuitous.  I needed to hear this before going further.”

Nem fielded another question.

“Who told you to come to Azragoth?”

“Begglar told me we needed to get there.”

“And Begglar is called to lead this quest, is he?”

“No, but a person who leads cannot follow his own counsel alone.  He must rely on and extend trust to others to provide context and experience to the decisions he makes in leadership.  I was never called to a dictatorship.”

“You are correct; however, you would be wise to remember the consequences that may come of extending trust are to be laid at your feet.  Be careful whom you place your trust in.  Especially if you have not been in contact with them for a while.  A friend of the past could come to meet you on a battlefield as an enemy.  I’ve seen it happen.”

“I trust Begglar.”

“Yes, but do you trust everyone he trusts?  Ultimately, you may need to decide on a course of action even when those you would trust in all other cases are against it.  What will you do then?  Will you defer and hesitate or be quickly decisive?  Maeven has been recommending that Nell and Begglar and Dominic all come to Azragoth, but we were against it for some strategic reasons.  But Maeven only saw the danger and feared for them.  Decisions made on fear alone are often not the best choice.  She’s the reason Begglar and Nell and Dominic were coming here to escape their former life.

“Your coming was not planned for by the others, but it seems your involvement with a Troll was the catalyst for them leaving the Inn.  Begglar’s position was tenuous, I’ll grant you, but his value as a spy and delaying agent against the Xarmnian’s forward forays for those fleeing and our agents was oftentimes the very difference between life and death.”

“But now the Inn has been burned so that no potential haven for travelers fleeing from Xarmnian oppression or others from the outside coming through our land exist in the outer reach country.  With no one running the Inn at Crowe, there will be no need to let it remain.  Xarmnians are hasty and short-sighted but they, like we, benefited from Begglar’s presence so they did not wipe him out before now.  Friends and foe alike have stayed at that Inn.  It was the only neutral ground still remaining.”

He left me to ponder that point, while he reached into his cloak, released some tie-back on his belt and brought out something I recognized…the honor sword taken from me while outside of the city, sheathed with its polished leather scabbard.

*Scene 02* – 05:46 (Going to The Graveyard – Part 3 of 3 “The Sword of The City”)

“I believe this is yours,” he said, handing it to me, lying across his open palms, its blade sheathed in a scabbard that seemed to belong to it.  I took it from him, feeling its weight only slightly made heavier by the gilded and leather scabbard.  When I had wrapped the belt of the scabbard around my waist and pulled the belt through the cinch ring, Nem had stepped back from me, and stood closer to one of the pillars of the pavilion, near a rusted wench and chain intertwined with smaller vines that had wrapped the around the column, but had been cut short of interfering with the wench mechanism, so that, for whatever purpose the wench served, it could still be operated according to its function.

I turned to face him, my back to the fountain now.

“That sword you carry,” Nem gestured at my hip, “Did you know that it has a history?”

I shook my head, “I was not made aware of it.”

“I recognized that Honor Sword immediately, for I have carried it before.”

I looked up at him, stunned. “You…you carried it?”

“It is a very special sword.  It has a special connection to Azragoth.  It is The Honor Sword that was forged and commemorated for this city, but it is more than that.”

“More?”

“I and another one you know all too well took that sword from this forgotten city.  It was secretly hidden from the Xarmnians in a lower vault, when their armies invaded this place.  The Xarmnians take a city’s Honor Sword when they invade it as plunder.  A trophy that demoralizes the city’s citizenry by the taking.  They typically break the blade publicly before the captive populace, symbolizing their contempt for our traditions and our values.  This one was preserved…supernaturally.”

“I was given specific instructions relating to its disposition, and for anyone who returned to this city bearing it,” he eyed me fixedly.

“If this sword belongs to the city, why are you returning it to me?” I asked, my voice shaking with the myriad thoughts rushing through my mind.

“I think you know well why I was commanded to return it to you.  You could not bear it now, if you were not meant to.  That fact that you carry it indicates that the waters of The Grove have reawakened.  That the Stone Quests have begun again and the hopeful promise of liberation shines once more.  And to that point, there is something else required of the one who bears that sword.  An act of honor.  You are to use it on behalf of this fallen city, before it is to be used on behalf of our world for Honor begins at home.”  Nem gestured widely to the area of ruins, and the way in which they had just come, “You may have noticed that we arrived at the location of this fountain, by means of a path untended, and untraveled.  I brought you to this place by that route so that our discussion would not be overheard.  What I have told you, I told you in confidence.  And what happens next will also require that we are not seen or overheard by any one of your company or the general citizens of Azragoth, for they will not understand what must happen next and what has been happening underneath the city since you and your band of travelers arrived.”

“What do you mean?”

“There were three of us, standing together as witnesses to a pact and covenant made, when we drove it into the crux point of The Grove.  I was there.  Jeremiah was there.  And the Ancient Walker, Hanokh.  We knew at the time, the next one to take up the Stone Quest, would be an unlikely vessel, to be used to suit the purposes of The One.  I was given the dreams of you.  Jeremiah was given visions of you, though, he rejected their import for a very long time.  And The Walker was given signs that he would see you once more and be instrumental in helping you in fulfilling your calling.  It is time for you, Brian, to remember your past, and to reconnect with those abilities you have neglected while in self-appointed exile.  To be the leader you ought to be, you must die to yourself and your own will and seek the quickening once again.  It is also time that you face and deal with the creature that holds you in thrall.  The beast you gave an entrance into this world by your own self-doubt.”

Before I knew what was happening, Nem quickly moved forward and shoved me over the edge of the fountain wall and into the ever-deepening basins that sloped down to the central well.  The edges of each concentric step were rounded and sloped so that I slid backward upon a bed of dried, dead leaves slightly jarred by each drop until I found myself sprawled across the moss-laden grating and the blackness of the pit below.  I turned back upward, seeking to understand why Nem had done this, trying to make sense of this seeming betrayal, only to find that the grating was hinged on one end and was being mechanically dislodged from its catch on the opposite end of the hinge works.  The grating canted and then tilted downward, and frantically I grasped the grating bars, only to find them caked in a brown slimy moss that felt like mud between my fingers.  Unable to gain purchase on the grating, I slid down into the darkness below.

*Scene 03* – 07:05 (The Cressets)

When the Matron Queen Delilah and the other Harpies had flown, Dellitch and her two sisters lagged behind and circled back, fluttering into the blacksmith yard, just as the rain began to fall.  Dellitch and her sisters shuffle hopped underneath the canopy that covered the central and radial furnaces. The interior was crowded with molding and dipping troughs, hammer and tong racks, freestanding anvils, and bending bars, hanging bellows, coal and fireboxes and meshed spits.  There were barrels of salts and sulfurs, drying sands and shaved slag, and large wooden, iron banded reinforced boxes of raw ire ore.  Smaller firepits also had ceramic tiled round canopies with large smelting pipes, and brick base.  Yellow flames hissed from the pits, and coals glared angrily with red and black rimmed eyes.

Dellitch peered at Smyt and then Ori, the two blacksmiths with whom she had met before.  “So, does the fire pipe blossom?” she croaked.  “Can we carry the bloom from wing or claw?”

“We thought a claw carry might be best for you,” Smyt replied.  “We did not want to restrict your wing movement in flight.  From the castings we took of your feet, we built a mold to test the fit and function.  You have a hallux claw that would give us the motion needed to cast the hinged cresset.  Let’s show them, Ori.”

Ori laid an oblong brass shanked tube, that looked like a metal torch out on the table.  The tube had a flared bulb cage on the end and a metal ring stop that could be attached to the iron shank foot collars that had been given to the other harpies at the former fitting.  “How works it?” Dellitch asked, as her two sister harpies crowded around the table gawking at the mysterious tube.

Smyt moved forward and took hold of the narrow end of the tube and lifted it.  Then with a hammer like shake, something internal to the tube, slid to the inner collar and spat a single flame out of the flared end with a hiss of sparks.  The three harpies lurched back and then bobbed their heads with approval.

Smyt explained, “Give the end a forward shake, like swinging a club, and there is an internal mechanism that with light the oiled wick on the end.  To douse the flame,” he slung the pipe back up, “pull it back as if to begin another strike.  This will ensure that the wick will only bear the flame when you need it to come forth.  There is a flint rock that creates the spark when the internal striker is slung toward this end collar.  Pulling back on it, the wick is snuffed, by a spring cap.  Since the wick is only revealed when the cresset is cast in a strike, it keeps it from getting wet or saturated when you fly into moist air.  The flared cup has flute holes to allow the flame to get enough air to burn.  The wick inside is saturated will a slow burning oil, but once the wick is used up, there will be no more flame, so use it sparingly.  The chandler will have to prepare and load in a new wick, if you use it up too soon.”

Dellitch’s head bobbed approvingly.

“Your shank collar had to be shaped to hold the spring hinge of the cresset,” Smyt said.  “Ori, bring the casting.  Let’s mount the cresset bar on the shank collar, first to show them.”

Ori went into the back of the shop and lifted a dusty apron off of a plaster cast, mounted with the cresset carry collar.  He carried it forward and set it on the table before the Harpies.  The plaster casting had been taken of Dellitch’s foot and extended up at an angle towards the back bend in the feathered thigh.  The cast was a greyish white, but it was clear that the shiny steel collar that covered the lower shank of the cast was a customized fit that could ride well.  Ori grabbed the cresset bar and fitted the end into a conical sleeved, spring hinge on back of the shank collar, and twisted it to lock it in place.  He demonstrated the mechanism which would allow Dellitch to thrust her claws forward and sling the cresset pipe down, igniting the flame.  Then, with a short kick, the cresset would douse the flame and spring backwards behind the shank collar, to allow her freedom to use her claws to grapple and hold her footing, with the cresset swept out of her way.

“What the knives?  Are they in cutting use for vines?  Nymph’s have squirrely vines, twisting, to choke and entangle,” one of the sisters, named Neenitch asked in a whiny voice.

Smyt chuffed.  “You may have noticed that the other collars had a cutting spur that would serve as well as a blade, but we thought this would weigh too much to add fins to the cresset rigs, so we added a sharp spur and hook on your wing mounts.  The forward end is a hook to catch and gouge, but the back curve is honed and sharpened to slice through any vine you may encounter.”

Both sisters hopped up and down, clapping their wings chanting, “Bring! Bring! Show! Show!”  Ori smiled thinking how odd it was seeing creatures with the faces of old women, acting so much like impatient and excited children.  From a closed box, Smyt lifted a lid and pulled out three sets of the triangular fans, each bore a sharped hook, with a smooth inner curl, but a sharpened and serrated edged outer edge, capable of creating a nasty, jagged slash with only a sharp backward thrust of the wing.

Soon, Dellitch and her sisters, Remitch and  Neenitch, were fully outfitted in the specialized battle gear.  They tested the weight of their new cresset collars, and the blade-hook barbs on fastened on the radiale, ulnare and metacarpus crown of their wings.  The triangular apparatus was surprisingly light and fully flexed with their wing thrusts.

Dellitch grinned.  Yes, yes! she thought.  These will do nicely.  Now they only had to wait for the passing of the storm.  There was still much to do before The Pan arrived in Kilrane.  Soon the waters of the awakened spring would overflow the dried pools and gulleys, and eventually pour down into the lower rivers, invigorating the woods of Kilrane and the lower valley streams to the villages, and return the greening to them.  Woods in their greening did not burn nearly as well as those in the dead, dried yellowing.  Kilrane must burn.  And burn soon!

*Scene 04* – 18:30 (The Jonah Solution)

The well was not as I thought it would be.  As I slid off the rusted and slimy grating I tumbled and smacked down on a bed of wet moss about seven or eight feet below.  The moss was moist, thick and sponge-like–sodden and very warm, almost hot, but not to the degree of scalding.

I heard Nem hail me from above and shouted back at him.

“Why have you done this to me?!”

He called back, “I have committed you to a course of action, Mr. O’Brian.”

We were back to that again, I thought in annoyance.  He knows my name.

I responded in mock laughter, my irritation with him wearing no mask in the hollow, resentful chuckle.

“So, what do I do now that you’ve trapped me down here?!  And why is this moss bed so hot?!  I thought this was a well?”

“It was a hot springs bath, Mr. O’Brian.  It once was used by the women of the city and had large thick curtains that hung from these surrounding columns for privacy.”

Incredulous, I called back, “You’ve locked me in the drain of a bathtub?!  Is there sewage down here?! Why on earth would you do something like this?  What if this hot spring had been filled with scalding water?!  You would have boiled me alive!”

“This is an intake, not a rinse basin.  The water has long since drained out of it.  Despite what you may think, I was not trying to kill you, Mr. O’Brian.  I’m trying to save Azragoth and our people from the thing that has been following you, stalking you invisibly and is now undermining the foundations of this city.”

I shook my head in amazement, his words registering with growing uneasiness.

“Do you mean to tell me, you’ve locked me down here with some sort of creature. One that I did not know was following us?”

“Mr. O’Brian, that creature has found its way into the caverns that are buried deep below the foundations of this city.  And that creature has begun to dig through the foundation walls, and will ultimately breach the reservoir of wet filth that is stored in the cavities within the front-facing walls.  When that happens, Azragoth will have lost its secret advantage against a full-frontal assault of the Xarmnian armies.  They will soon learn that Azragoth is not a dead and forgotten city as they once thought.  We believe that even now they may already suspect it.  Further, if that creature breaches those filth-filled cavities, it will contaminate and deluge our only other means of escape from the city.  Surely, you do not think that we still use the old roads to go to and from Azragoth?”

No, I did not. Like everyone else I had believed Azragoth had become a ghost town. I had no cause to believe otherwise before we were let into the inner walls. Even then, I had not considered the method in which this secret inner-city might reach the outside world without revealing themselves.  Of course, it would have to be by means of some sort of underground tunnel system.  And those of us arriving as unknown strangers into Azragoth would not be entrusted to be shown and led through the secret ways.

Pondering this, I shouted back up to Nem, “What am I supposed to do now?”

“I have returned the honor sword to you.  You must seek the answers to those questions from within yourself.  You have everything you need to face and defeat this creature.  All you lack is the will and the joining of your being into wholeness to experience the quickening once more.  You said it yourself.  You Surface Worlders struggle with dividing the components of your being.  You were given the Breath of Life.  You were designed to be expressed as a whole being and not think of yourself with double-mindedness.  Join your whole being by faith into The Vine and you will experience the quickening again.  You are body, soul, and spirit.  These are designed to function together as one.  Let your spirit guide you with knowledge of what is true.  You have been re-awakened for this purpose.  Commit your soul–your mind will and emotions—to being the leader you are called to be.  Engage it with your passions.  Set your heart upon it by faith, in the guidance that comes by the knowledge delivered to you in your spirit.  And finally, join action to these and set your body in motion to perform the tasks you are given.  In this, you will find the quickening.  When you are wholly aligned in spirit, mind, and body.  When you have done this, you will find the nature of that honor sword you bear to be imbued with a light that will shine in the darkness, and aid you in doing what needs to be done.”

I could feel the hint of something stirring within me as Nem spoke these words of guidance.  A bolstering affirmation, and the rise of memories surfacing from a past I had tried to bury under a layer of loss and grief so long ago.  These admonishments were the key to my surviving the next few hours, and I knew it.  Nem had committed me, whether I wanted to be or not, to facing this unknown, and invisible demon, so that I could not only save myself and my company and the people of the city of Azragoth but rise to become the warrior I needed to be once more.

I called out to Nem, unsure if he was still there or within hearing distance.

“Nem?”

“Yes, Mr. O’Brian.  I am still here.”

“I know I needed this.”

There was silence, but I continued.

“I know you did what you had to do for Azragoth, and for the loyalty you have for its people.”

I paused.

“I know you owe us interloping Surface Worlders nothing, and that we have brought a threat to your city that we–no I–am responsible for.  But a little warning would have been nice.”

A pause ensued and then Nem responded, “I did not have the luxury of brooking a refusal.  Both I hope you understand the true meaning that appears in the book of wisdom (Proverbs 27:6), that says, ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend’.  Despite what I have just done, I do consider myself to be a friend to you, Brian.”

“Both Ezra and I publicly received your commitment to be responsible for your people and anything done that might threaten our city and its secrets.  Take it as you may, but we considered that as much of an advanced warning as we could give to you.  Your followers and our citizens witnessed your response and we are merely holding you to that commitment.  Your former reputation and eye-witness accounts of past exploits also tell me that you once were equal to this task of ridding us of this hidden creature, so I have every confidence that you can do this for us as well.  It is why we are willing to aid you and your company.  We have served you by giving your company food, shelter, supplies, and training.  Now you will be serving us, especially since you brought this threat upon us all.”

“Fair enough,” I assented, “So where am I supposed to find this creature and how will I recognize it?”

“When you find the oneness within your being, the honor sword will guide you to it.  Follow the water tunnels of The Cauldron.  The hot vents will be on your left and the cold streams will be to your right.  These underground streams were once joined to make the scalding water bearable for bathing.  The bearing wall that once dammed up and held the water was broken through.”

“Wait a minute.  What did you call this place?”

“The Cauldron.  It is just a name the founders gave it when they were laying the foundations of the city and quarrying the rocky cliffside to bear it.  The hot spring was mineral-rich but too hot to be anything that could service the water supply to the city, so underground channels were dug to route the cold waters of the Trathorn River’s offshoot stream to blend with this natural stream and form a unique bathing fountain.  They used sluice controls to feed the cold water in and manage the temperature of the pool.  The fountain basin and pavilion were built above it, and the city then had a public bath.  The affluent of the city had access to it, but for a fee, visitors could pay to use it.”

“Surely this is not how you get in and out of the city?”

“Of course not.  This bath was the closest way in to where we think the creature might be now.”

My pulse quickened, realizing that a confrontation with the creature could be imminent.

“What does it look like?”

“None of us have seen it.  It is presently invisible.”

That bit of information did nothing to slow my pulse but rather raised my suspicious ire.

“Then how do you know there is even anything down here?!”

“We sense it.  And since I am the rebuilding architect of this city, I and my builders have noticed a pattern in the destruction happening below.  Structural cracks are appearing in the inner city wall.  The ground beneath is being undermined.  The weaknesses follow the paths of the tunnel system we have mapped for this city.  Clearly, something big is moving through them underneath us.  The damage being down is not due to a natural settling that comes over time.  It happens at irregular intervals and within hours of each other.  These started with the arrival of your company.”

He let me ponder that a moment.

“The creature would not have been able to follow you through the sally-port entrance.  The stairwell is too narrow and the door closed and was locked after the last of your company entered.  This creature would have had to have found another way in.  The inner walls are coated with pitch, so it could not have climbed over the walls without having revealed itself.  Invisible or not, the black substance would reveal its form. Light-benders can be coated and exposed.”

“What causes you to believe this creature is big?”

“Now that IS a foolish question, Mr. O’Brian.  I am surprised at you.”

“I am in an underground pit with an invisible creature about to find and devour me if I cannot get the quickening back.  Pardon me if I’m not thinking clearly here.”

“Point taken.  The creature would have to be of substantial size and have powerful arms and claws to be able to dig through as much rock and dirt as would be needed below to impact what is going on with our structures above.  Moving that volume of earth, at such a rate, could only mean that this thing is of substantial size.”

“But how can you be certain that it is invisible if it has been underground?  When would you have had occasion to see it?  We have only been in Azragoth a few days now.”

“Did you think you were not seen coming in the back way?  Did you think we were so surprised when Maeven announced that not only Begglar and his family had arrived but that a party of Surface Worlders had joined them?”

“The inner bridges that you crossed getting here were damaged by something far heavier than horses passing over them. Your company was being pursued by Xarmnian Cerberi, trained to track, sniff out, hunt down and kill anyone their masters directed them to.  That creature following you has kept them at bay.”

“We have old legends here in the Mid-World.  Stories of burrowing creatures once used in service to The Pan.  I wasn’t sure before, but when Callum, our town treasurer approached me the other day with some urgent business, I realized what this monster must be.  The thing may not be entirely invisible now, that it is underground.  If you see a scattering of coins or pieces of gleaming metal appearing to move through the darkness, beware.  These beasts attract precious metals, and can become encrusted with them in an ore rich environment.  That is what purpose they once served.  To draw out precious metals from the deep tunnels they cut through.  Legends tell that The Pan was once a forger of metals.  A blacksmith, who worked the old mines in the Iron Hills.  He hid from the light, but burned his eyes to blindness, staring into the forges, beating and hammering steel into blades to be used for war.  The sulfur and soot blackened the part of him that remained of his human skin.  His eyes were white with cataracts, but became yellowed by all of the sulfur in the mines and forges.  When he and his creatures finally quitted the mines, they moved into the northern forests where they lurk to this day.  But the burrowing beasts may or may not have followed.  Some say they were killed off because they could no longer be controlled, but that is improbable.  Greedy masters will always make allowances for the dangerous monsters that enrich them.”

“The Cerberi are killers but not stupid.  The beast may be invisible but it still has a scent those dogs recognize and associate with danger.  That thing may be the only reason you were not overtaken in the backwoods before now.”

“But wouldn’t Maeven have…”

“Maeven is a Surface Worlder.  She is family by adoption but she was not born here with the sense of this land that we know intuitively.  She is immune to some of the things that would fell us, but not to the things coming from her birth world that would naturally deceive your kind.  It seems that we both recognize and get a sense of the otherness that is different from our worlds.  That is why we allow Surface Worlders here.  They can perceive what we cannot, and we perceive what they cannot.  There is no knowing why this should be, but it is.”

Still uncertain, I could not help but ask, “How did you even come up with this idea to push me down here?!”

I heard him clear his throat.

“The Ancient Text of The Marker Stone, provides many answers.  This is why our scribes of long ago went a meticulously copied its words.  Though it records the events of your world of the surface, it has so much more value than just accounts of history.  The words contain transcendent meaning for all created life throughout time.  They offer solutions to pressing problems of the here and now.”

“What specific wisdom did they give you to put me here?” I asked, trying to keep sarcasm out of my voice.

Nem answered pointedly, “Do you think you were the first of the called to resist following the mission of The One?  Think on that.”

He paused, letting me consider.

“The One who became flesh followed His mission for the future joy set before Him. [Hebrews 12:2]  He told his followers what would happen to Him, using the example of the reluctant prophet in the gospel of Matthew [12:40].  A prophet that had to face a monster of the sea.  Three days and three nights of conflict to bring resounding victory that gives all realms the hope of joining to Excavatia.  In the book of the prophet Jonah he finally takes responsibility for the trouble he has brought to those in his company.  He tells the sailors the only solution that would cause the deadly storm to abate.”

I let out a sigh, acknowledging Lord Nem’s words, quoting aloud the verse he alluded to.

“Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.”  [Jonah 1:12 NLT] 

“So now you understand,” Nem said quietly, and then added, “Mister O’Brian, it seems to me that you are stalling for time which you do not have.  It is far better that you attend to what you need to and then find this creature before you let it find you.”

“Nem, if I succeed in this, how will I get out of these tunnels?  How will I know how to get back into the city?”

Nem was quiet.  So quiet that for a moment I thought he had already left me.

“You have heard us speak of The Eagle, have you not?”

“I have.  I was told he and others went to the mountains to get a sense of the troop movements of the Xarmnian and Capitalian armies being mobilized because of their Builder Stones.  I was also told that your counsel expects him back any day now.”

“I am now free to tell you that they have returned, but they are being kept outside of the city.”

“Kept out? Why?”

“They are guarding the underground entrance.  Ensuring that the beast below does not escape capture.”

“Can they kill it?”

“This creature is bound to you.  You must expose it, and only then may it be subdued and killed.”

“What about Maeven, and her path forward?”

“Maeven and any others that follow you will not survive if they follow you as you are.  We only have confidence in entrusting her safety within your quest, if we know that you are being led and quickened within.  Every good leader must first become a faithful follower and earn the honor of that position.  But there is no time to discuss this further.  You have what is needed, so I will now take my leave of you, O’Brian.  I wish you all success.  Mark well what I have told you.  Find the wellspring of your spirit, abide in the One, and you will find both resolve and empowerment to do that which must be done.”

And with those words, he left me to prepare myself for what was coming.

“Rome is made of marble but it’s built on a sewer.” – Roman jurist and Senator, Cicero

*Scene 05* – 20:00 (Pitch and Toss)

Being slung through the forest like a stuffed ape was not Grum-Blud’s idea of a fun jaunt through the woods.  Especially since those tossing him like a bundle of hay, were, in part, hay themselves.  Or at least some puzzling form of wild growing vegetation with the cryptic ability of being able to morph into the semblance of attractive human females.  Despite the indignation of being the target sack-of-air in a bizarre woodland rugby game, he could not help but sneer as the two onocentaurs were similarly entangled and pitched from casting vine to receiving vine as he was.  The four hoofers grunted and flailed, kicking and bawling as they tumbled through the air, almost smacking down through the ground brush to the forest floor, before they were seized and jerked aloft again.  Bray,… well, he lived up to his name, squealing and honking like a broken bagpipe, his protest at the rough handling going unheeded.  Brem kept his eyes squeezed shut, mumbling and muttering varied exclamations like “Oiy!”, “Have a care!”, “Blimey!”, “Crikey!”, “These tarts’ve gone bonkers!”, and “You almost gutted me, you gormless flower bag!”  Through it all, Shelberd slept and snored loudly, content as a baby rocking through the windy treetops.

The most terrifying plummet was the descent from the highland ridge.  Grum-Blud almost yakked up the contents of his rotund belly, his wide mouth gaping like a frog, dry heaving, eyes bulging like boiled eggs, but unable to make any sound more than a breathy squeal as the land dropped away below him.  The cliffs were shear with only spartan brushes and vegetation clinging to crevices in the gritty rock face.  The onocentaurs protested loudly as they tumbled, pell-mell honking and mewling over the cliff’s edge eight hundred feet below towards the tops of the lower canopy of trees.  In the melee, Grum-Blud twisted upward, realizing he was still tethered to one of the sirens, whose arms and legs were stretching and expanding outward with twisting roots spread to slow the descent or catch the tops of the trees below when the impact came.  Grum made the mistake of looking down again and saw the tree tops rushing toward him, causing him to cross his long arms around himself, draw his stumpy legs in and squeeze himself into a tight ball, his eyes clenched shut, his bladder emptying in anticipation of the impact.

Reaching the end of the fall, suddenly he felt the rush of leaves and branches hiss around him, and felt his body slow to a stop and then lurch backwards, the vines of the wood siren holding him fast into an elastic bounce.  At last, he coughed up his latent lunch, retching in an explosive splatter into the leafy crests of the lower woods.

The sirens holding the onocentaurs thrashed into the canopy, their wooden roots grappling the upper limbs of the trees like tentacles, but holding fast, seeming to buoyantly bounce upon a sea of leaves.  Still, through it all, Shelberd snored and sputtered, making hog-like grunts, oblivious to the world and the harrowing journey he and the others had experienced descending from the highlands to the lower wood of Kilrane in the transport of sirens.  Whatever the yellow powder Shelberd had inhaled must have been some strong stuff, Grum-Blud surmised resentfully, realizing that his annoying companion had not suffered the least bit in the travel as he and those half-wit donkeys had.

When he found, himself being lowered to the forest floor, Grum-Blud had grudgingly reconsidered his tact in dealing with these wood women, and thought it might be better, for his own sake at least, to ingratiate himself with them.  Whatever he could do or say to gain better tolerances between himself and the wood sirens, he would set his mind to, since he could no longer rely on the seeming tolerances granted him and his fellow trolls by The Pan to keep himself safe, and decidedly “grounded” as much as possible.  There had been very few things that he had considered to bring him particular dread in his relatively short life: One had been slithering things such as serpents stemming from an incident in his life where he had mistakenly sought shelter in a small cave, only to find it to be a snake pit.  The other, he made a mental note, was now a fear of heights, having suffered the imposition of being flung in aerial somersaults from high cliffs by tree crawling plant women who seemed to make sport of his newly acquired acrophobia.  There were advantages to being short, Grum-Blud thought: it allowed him to duck under low brush, crawl into smaller spaces and was closer to the ground giving him the low advantage to slash at ankles, sever tendons, and pounce upon a crippled or hobbled victim and finish him off with a rock to the skull.  For all of Grum-Blud’s appearance of subservience, one should never forget that he was, after all, a blackhearted troll.

When all of the group were gathered under the covering of the tall forest, they noticed a running brook passing along a footpath with fairly recent hoof prints marking the dirt path.  The trail and brook was obscured by the overhead branches and leaves that severed to conceal this backpath.  Brem and Bray were both unsteady, wobbling in their gaits now that their hooves were back on solid ground.  Brem bumped into Bray and Bray almost stumbled into the brook.  “Steady there, bub!” Bray retorted.  “I just landed and am not quit up to going for a swim.”

“I am a bit knackered, me own self.  These daft, cheeky, birds have me all unraveled.  I’m apt to lean a bit till I get my feet back.”  Bray huffed, “Well don’t lean on me, boy.  My knees are knobbed enough as it is.”

Sylvan, the siren who had carried Shelberd the entire trip from the upper shelf, put the snoring troll down on the woodland trail, puzzling over him as he snorted and snoozed.  Briar descended out of the forest, along with two of her other sirens morphing into their attractive nymph forms.

“Men, women and horses have been here recently,” Briar said, sniffing the air.  “What do you know of this, Troll?!”  Briar charged, turning her accusing green stare towards him.

Grum-Blud stammered, “I-I, we’ve not, I mean…”

“Out with it!” Briar huffed growing impatient.

“There’s not been any using this forest since…”

“Since?!”

“Since the plagues of many years.  There was a city.  A city that used to be in these woods.  There was much death there.  Much has been forgotten about it.  Much has been…”

“Babbling fool!” Briar glared, “Has Sonnezum claimed this wood?  Does he have his people here?”

Grum-Blud shook his head, “There are rumors only, but so far as I know, there is no, who you call ‘So-sneez-um’ here.  Kilrane is not presently a Xarmnian holding.”

“What of this city, you spoke of?” Briar snapped, “Where is it?”

Suddenly, Grum-Blud realized how he might partly gain some favor with this Siren queen.  “Well, if that is all you want, then follow me.  See here,” Grum-Blud pointed to the dirt path, that bore hoof prints, waddling towards it with his long arms held out as if he were a circus showman, “this is a trail a few used to find the old city.  It is mostly ruins.  Overgrown by the vines and brushes.  There have men who have claimed the old ruins are haunted.  But see here, the hoof prints lead down this path.  We had been following some suspicious folk from back near the town of Crowe.  I’m betting these were made by those we’ve been trailing.  We can take you there.  Only, I will need to walk the rest of the way to study sign.”

“Nonsense,” Briar growled.  “What are you up to, Troll?  I can smell the scents well enough to find them without you reading your signs!”

“But-but, there are parts of this you may not know.  We were to meet with our Protectorate band, but they do not know where we went for, we have yet to report back to the Hadeon our Bruel.  He may be looking for us.”

“Then we shall find them along the way.  Tell me of this ruined city.  Do your kind still live there?”

“Perhaps,” Grum-Blud offered.  “Shall we find out together?  It may be of interest to your master as well as to ours.”

Briar folded her arms and finally nodded, “Very well then.  Lead the way.”

Grum-Blud trotted down the path, turning back only to see if Briar and the others were following him.

Briar looked over at Sylvan who was prodding at the sleeping Shelberd, smiling as he snorted and waved her gentle prods away as if swatting at flies in his sleep.  Her eyes turned up and she caught Briar’s glare.  “He’s still sleeping,” Sylvan explained.  Briar bowed her forehead slightly and pointed at Shelberd.  “Well then…”

Sylvan sighed and gathered Shelberd back up into her entwining vines, slinging him over her shoulder like a toddler.  Shelberd burped loudly, as Sylvan’s legs twisted into trunks with splayed roots for feet, elongating her body to stand about ten feet tall.  Brem and Bray watched this and quickly stepped onto the beaten path, with Bray voicing a hasty “We’d prefer to walk, thank you!” before Briar could suggest otherwise.

Grum-Blud gamboled along, leading the bizarre group, until they reached the shadow of a large stone wall stretching upwards, but still below the deep shadow of the tall trees of the backwoods.

“See!” Grum-Blud pointed proudly.  “I led you straight to it.  The old city of-of…Azzzin-cough or something like.”

“Yes.” Briar said quietly, “You have indeed.  Curious.  Let us see if your travelers are within these stone walls, shall we?”

As they proceeded further, they noticed where the brook widened and curved away from the footpath, flowing along the border and base of the massive stone wall with just a narrow bank between the rise and the gurgling water.

Grum-Blud looked along one large length of the wall stretching underneath the lip of an overhand cornice of stone.  If there was another gateway beyond the wall, it would most likely be towards the front of the old city, for this was once a fortified citadel.  The back wall would be fortified against the falling rocks, but also against an attack from limited forces in the narrow backwoods, along the path that had discovered.  While the front gates and walls would have been constructed to repel an assaulting army, they would also need a wide enough entrance gate to welcome friends and commerce during times of peace.  A town could not entirely close itself off from the outside world and trace and expect to thrive.  There were necessary foods and produce that would have to be supplied by areas where open pasture lands for livestock and farmers’ fields were aplenty.  The mostly likely sources for those things would be the local towns and rural areas within the fertile plains of Ono and those trade routes coming down from the highlands and the escarpment granary back when it was in full operation.  These wood creatures, and the donkey-men would not know this, however, so Grum-Blud felt he had some level of advantage in reconnoitering and navigating through a place of men.

“If we follow this wall,” Grum-Blud pointed to the run that curved towards the east, “it should lead us eventually to one of the old gates where we can get inside.”

Briar nodded and said, “Lead the way, troll.  Show us into this man-place.”

Turning and half-grinning to himself, Grum-Blud knuckle-hopped onto the narrow strip of ground at the base of the wall with the others following.  After they had gone a little way further, Briar and Sylvan stopped short, as did the onocentaurs.  Each of these half-creature, half-human beings were sniffing the air and whispering harshly among themselves.  Grum-Blud looked back noticing that they had ceased to follow him.

He came hobbling back, “What ails you?  Come.  Come.”

Briar glared, spikes of thorns beginning to part her hair.  “You are leading us into danger, troll!  Do you think we cannot smell it?”

Grum-Blud snorted, “What danger?  What could threaten you who fly through the treetops and can descend great heights without injury?  What do you smell?”

Sylvan pointed ahead with a head-nod gesture saying, “There!  On the far bank ahead.  The signs remain.”

Grum-Blud’s head whipped around to where Sylvan had indicated.  He trotted forward along the curve of the wall finally seeing the narrow strip of earth abruptly terminate, and the stream swell into a large swirling pool before funneling further along the groove of the natural stream channel.  Then he spotted the opposite bank.  Crushed reeds, a sloped gulley and broken ground descending clearly into the swollen pool.  Beyond, the woods also showed signs that something large and violent had passed through the forest, abrading bark, slashing gouges into the trunks, snapping the spines of younger trees, and crushing the underbrush that once thrived under the shade of the taller limbs.  A dark shadowy hole deepened into the leafy foliage, clearly showing that whatever large creature had caused such destruction had emerged out of the backwoods.

“That Digger we spoked of is here!  Somewhere below.  Perhaps, it has even entered this old city.” Sylvan said.

Briar glared at the swirling pool, but spoke quietly, her voice breaking the heavy silence following Sylvan’s words, “It appears this creature is on a convergent path with those you are following, troll.  Any ideas why that might be?”

“My lady, we were only made aware of this digger when you spoke of it.  The ones we follow came from a small farm near the village I mentioned.  I have no knowledge of what may have drawn this creature from its underground hole.”  Briar nodded, sensing, at least in this instance, the troll was telling her the truth.  She folded her arms, looking down upon him with an imperious stare.  “What would you suggest we do, troll?  Since you are closest to the race of men?”

“I still say we find the gate of this city.  I will enter and come back to give a report.”

“What guarantees do we have that you will not betray us and lure us in to be destroyed by this beast?”

Grum-Blud jerked his thumb and pointed, “You have my friend there…sleeping beeyewty.” He said indicating Shelberd.  “Tuck him away on the bough of a tall tree, and if I don’t return, pitch him to his death.”

“How do we know that his death would mean anything to you?”

“He is annoying, I’ll grant you,” sniffed Grum-Blud, “But I’ve learned to tolerate him enough.  Seeing as how I’ve already lost two of my fellow kind that we set out with, Shelberd is the only companion I have left out in these wilds.  You can rely on my word, well enough.  I’d just as soon keep him, more than I’d want to be shut of him.”

“Very well, then,” Briar said.  “Since the Digger is now in Kilrane, it becomes more critical that we meet with our master, The Pan.  We cannot risk it destroying our woods before we’ve had the chance to occupy them.  You may go in, but do not stay too long.  We must proceed to meet and inform The Pan.  Tell us what you find, whether there be men or beasts inside.  Sylvan will wait with these donkey-men and your sleeper.  I will scale the wall and watch from atop the rampart to ensure you don’t get lost in there.  If you encounter the beast, you will most certainly die.  I cannot help you by intervening.  The risk you take will be yours alone.  But, if you succeed in returning, I will remember this service you provided us when we come before The Pan.  Perhaps, I can be of some influence in convincing him to provide you with more lethal companions who can assist you to rid this place of any of the residue of mankind in residence here.  The woods of Kilrane were given to us.  We are committed to eliminating any who may protest our holding by making a prior claim to it.”

And that is how Grum-Blud found himself, climbing through and over the broken doors of the old front gate, skirting under a mat of vines, peeking in and out of old empty structures, and clamoring over piles of fallen brick and stone works that had been battered and breached by the pommeling of heavy stones thrown from trebuchets and catapults in a prior assault many years before.  The old city truly did appear to be abandoned, and partially overgrown through the years by an encroachment of the wild forests.  He was almost ready to return back, when he spotted a lone figure moving through the detritus of the city ruins and approaching a long black wall with a long handled key.  When the figure opened the black stained door, Grum-Blud managed to get a quick peek inside before the figure closed and secured the portal.  The city held secrets, and Grum-Blud sneered wickedly as he scrambled back towards the old city gate.  He was about to reveal to the queen of the wood sirens, one particular secret that none of them had known or guessed before now.  This old dead city was still very much alive within, beyond an interior black wall coated with what smelled like pitch and tar.  A coating that now stuck to one of his knuckles and thumb where he had brushed against it out of curiosity.  This bit of information might also help him in his dealings with his own party and dread sovereign.  The problem was, deciding which party would be willing to pay him the most for it.

*Scene 06* – 00:00 (Entanglements)

Hadeon and his hunters spent a miserable evening getting snared and entangled in the woods of Kilrane.  A storm had drenched them, even though the forest canopy would normally have provided some degree of cover, the lashing winds shook water out of the hoary leaves saturating them with spray like the shaking of a wet dog.  Kilrane was wild–A veritable tangle of hanging vines, deadfalls, fungal fields, moss embankments, split and twisted tree limbs snaking their path upward and sideways yearning for sunlight through the sifting shadows.  The knuckles and fists of roots and ground vines threatened to lame their horses while brittle, skeletal barbs of bare branches abraded them to sinister distraction.  Years of leafy detritus masked pits and holes in the uneven forest floor.  Ground brush and wild clinging vines formed nets that impeded any hope of forward progress through the forbidding interior.  There had once been a wooded road that had been clear-cut through the forest when men had once traversed and braved the wilds of Kilrane, but men had not been seen in that place for many years.  If there was still a road through the woods, it would certainly have been subsumed by years of forest growth and disuse by now.  Even the ancient Garden of Eden was given a man to tend it, and cultivate its rapid growth and Kilrane was certainly no Eden.  Those woods might even be considered to be savage…if one did not know where specifically to look.

The rains made the hope of finding tracks or the Cerberi catching scent futile.  Hadeon ground his teeth, infuriated by the circumstances preventing he and his men and his savage canines from slashing through this impediment to get to his quarry.  Where had the wagon gone?  Where were the remainder of his team that had followed Aridam?  What of Bayek’s report of wood sirens in Rim Wood on the highland rim above?  What would his dread sovereign say if he returned to court empty handed?  Worse yet, what might the Son of Xarm do to him, if he failed?  That monarch had no patience for failures.  Many were slain finding that out.  The Son of Xarm was given to fits of rage.  But why?  Few failed him.  None dare defy him and live.  Why did he make no allowances for the limits of human frailty?  What drove his passions?  Hadeon wondered.  Could it be that the king was tormented by the memory of past rejections?  The inability to please his dread father, who grudgingly claimed him as his progeny only at the end of his life?  Living a life with no approbation could be the cause.  It made some kind of sense.  But why then turn that unreasonable standard upon his subjects?  Was he blind to the failings of his own sire that could give his sole surviving heir no encouragement, or acceptance other than that was grudging given as a final concession?  Surely the king’s mind was as twisted, choked, and nettled as these confounded woods were proving to be.  His own father was a tough bastard, but he raised his sons to be tough and hard as well and praised them when praise was due.  He had joined the king’s guard under Xarm.  He remembered the king as a stoic, and cunning man.  The very model of what a conquering man should be.  His own father gave deference to that king, and he had joined the king’s troops when they came around seeking men.  When the Capitalians invaded, Hadeon returned to find his widowed father had been brutally beaten and killed.  Hadeon took his hatred for Capitalians and used it to fuel his drive to become a brutal fighter and a leader in the Xarmnian king’s service.  But serving that king’s successor, did not prove to be the same as serving the former monarch.  Xarm rewarded his fighting men.  The Son of Xarm only gave concessions.
The Cerberi turned out to have problems getting through the woods as well.  They became ensnarled in stinging nettles, whimpering and growling, their wide three-slavering heads, slack jaws and broad muscular shoulders preventing them from plunging through the narrow spaces between the overgrowth and thick brush.  Finally, when Hadeon had exhausted all of his options of breaking through to some semblance of a wooden passage, he called for Bayek and Kathair to join him, pulling his others men out of the chase.

The tall forest hissed and spattered cold water down from the saturated crowns of the upper limbs, drizzling down the face of the men, and the wet panting dogs.  “Bayek,” he bellowed, “You’d best ride on with your message to the king.  No sense in delaying you here any further.  If those sirens are in the area, I’d hate to be caught in these woods, knowing that I delayed their communication and envoy.  If they let you survive, they will not hear any argument I could make for hindering you.  Grab some tack and food from the road camp where Tizkon’s holding the prisoner.   But make haste!  If the Son of Xarm asks you what progress we have made in tracking the scribe, tell him we are getting close to bringing them to heel if we don’t have to kill them.  I know he watched to see the man grovel as we carved up his family, but that pleasure must be delayed.”
“Kathair, you will take Bayek’s place in lead.  Bayek’s company was lost, but I may have to divide up the remaining men following my command, to serve as your subordinates.  With no word from Aridam or his company, I am shorthanded on taskmen.  Perhaps we can salvage some of this hunting trip, before too long, but we will wait to full sunup to do so.   The wagon that entered that forest will have had to leave signs of it getting through.  There is no way it could have just vanished.”

Bayek nodded, turned his horse and headed out of the brush; through the circuitous route they had used slashing their way into the woods.

Kathair sat up straighter in his saddle, “What should we do about the Cerberi?”

“Have Dagen call them back.  There’s no point in continuing through these snarls, getting them all scratched up.  The men and dogs need rest.  We’ll catch the wagon sign in the heat once the woods dry a bit more.”

Suddenly there was a shout, and one of the men came trudging up through the brush, his clothes and pants soddened with mud and clinging leaves.  “My Bruel!  We’ve found something!  It’s hard to see, but we may have located the old road that used to pass through these woods.  It was down a declivity.  Hard to see, but we stumbled upon it accidentally.”

“Good work, Samal!  Have one of the men go down it, see where it leads.  If we find where it joins the outer road, we might just be able to track that wagon, and those ‘smugs’ who thought they could get away from us.”

*Scene 07* – 13:00 (Ignition)

The air in the pit around me was hot and humid, smelling of a pungency I could not identify.  Though the warm moss hugged at my form, beckoning me into despairing oblivion, I knew I could give no more place to uncertainty.  I had to choose to fight this beast, to resist it, calling upon the authority of the One who called me to this quest.

I cleared the scabbard of the honor sword, and my feet found some degree of shaky footing upon smooth rocks below.  A weak light effused the water well, such that I could just see the broken edges of the retaining wall before me, and beyond pitch-black darkness that threatened to envelop my every sense of balance and direction should I dare to proceed further.

But like Nem said, I had no choice.  But I could not fake a feeling nor deny that part of me that needed assurances but pressing onward.  Panic threatened and I turned that dread into an outcry.

“Oh Jesus, I am scared!”

I fell to my knees shivering uncontrollably.  “Please God.  Please help me.  Give me the courage to walk through this darkness.  I am in the deepening shadow of death.  It looms over me.  Let me feel your hand holding mine again.  I am not the young man I used to be.  I feel my mortality nipping at my heels.  If I am to die here, let me make a good end in Your service.  Following Your Will.”  I felt both hot and cold at the same time.  My hands trembled, my heart throbbed its tympanic beats in the auditoriums of my ears.  Sweat streamed out of my hair, wetting my cheeks and sluicing down the nape of my neck.  The air around me smelled musty and dank with a mixture of lime, salt, fecund earth and fungi.  The steam from the residual rivulets of the hot spring rose and swirled in the gloom, making me felt like I was being slowly suffocated by a hot, moist towel.

In the deepening of my need, I realized that I had referred to The One by His name.  A name I felt pouring into my inner being.  Here in the Mid-World, those who believed in the promise of The Marker Stone, the monolithic imprint of the Divine Words, follow the older traditional reference to “The One” written in the final book of Moshe.

“Hear, Yisra’el: the LORD is our God; the LORD is one:” [Deuteronomy 6:4 HSV]

But in my need, I cried out to the name of The One in which I found most intimacy, as a child runs in either delight or fear seeking comfort and protection from their father.

As I’ve stated before, in this land and in this quest you all will see and experience things that may be beyond what you’ve come to experience as naturally occurring in the Surface World.  Sentient and malevolent creatures moving invisibly in the Surface World on a spiritual plane, take on a pernicious physicality here.

An echo may sound similar to the voice of origin, but there are differences in tone and quality as it stretches, reverberates and bounces back to the hearers.  It is the persistent expectation of sameness to the Surface World that will cause some to falter and feel unstable and insecure here.  I know.  I went through it myself many years ago.  That is why I persist in telling all of that the transcendent Truth that holds all together is the Ancient Text, the Word of the Creator.  That is why I hold so fiercely to it.  Without the study, knowledge, and remembrance of the Ancient Text, there can be no quickening.

The Koine Greek word [ζῳοποιέω], from the language in which the text was written, is pronounced, Zoe-ah-poi-A-O.  The word means to cause something to arouse to life by supernatural power.  Honor swords, unlike standard weaponry, are connected to covenant, and by that connection, it can be imbued with power so long as it serves under that covenant.  The very words of the Ancient Text are living and powerful, because of the Source from which they arose and were brought together.  They revealed the will of the One as they do the purposes of the One.  The Ancient Text, in the Psalmist’s passage states:

“I will never forget thy precepts: for with them, thou hast quickened me. … I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. … Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. … I [am] small and despised: [yet] do not I forget thy precepts. … Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness. … I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways [are] before thee. … Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts.” [Psalm 119:93, 100, 104, 141, 159, 168, 173 KJV]

In this mid-world, warfare is engaged with both the mind and the body and the spirit unified and battling together.  The human enemies may be fought with mind and body, but the creatures drawn from the netherworld will tear you mentally apart if you are not prepared for them.  The Surface World has a barrier that they cannot cross, and their limits are only within the power of suggestion and to the level at which a human may yield to their influence.

From the beginning of this quest, there has been a voice within me, sounding to my mind as if it was speaking in my own voice.  “Give up”, it tells me.  “You are not worthy to lead.  You are leading others to their death.  You cannot let yourself feel again.  Remember what happened last time.  You are not worthy of the sword you hold, or this place you wish to get to.  You are as much a butcher, like the ones you dare to resist.  The stories you seek to mend will no longer burn for you.  When the hosts bearing the storied flames realize who you are, there will be no forgiveness for the ways in which you abandoned and betrayed them.  There can be no forgiving what you have done.  This quest is hopeless.  Go back to your exile.  Let someone else lead.”

Those voices I knew were spoken by the enemies of my mission and my calling.  If the One who called me to this journey, chose me, then no other choice could have been made.  He chooses wisely.  Who am I to resist Him?  I had allowed those voices to speak to me, and weaken my commitment, and abandon my resolve.  It was not my strength of character that I needed now.  It was His.

“Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” [1 Thessalonians 5:24 NASB]

I had often enough heard and spoken those words and admonished others with them, but I failed to let them gain purchase within me.  As weak and as inadequate as I may be, The One did not require my own might.  Only my willingness to choose to do as He asks.  To listen to the Spirit continually speaking to my spirit and allow that communion and fellowship to take place by yielding my doubts and placing confidence and trust in Him to see this through.

When my decision and release came, I found my hand moving to the hilt of the honor sword that hung by my side.

I gripped its warming handle, and with my other hand found the bloodline and uncoiled it from the cross-guard it had been wound around.  In my past, I had fought with many swords and weaponry.  I had heard of honor swords, but never had the occasion to bear one, before this quest.

I knew that the honor sword could be roused to life for two reasons.  Some unknown enemy of inhuman origin was drawing near.  And the Word being called to memory, by one connected to a covenant sword, would cause that sword to respond in the needed moment for wielding in both visible and invisible conflict.

I gathered the bloodline sash and carefully wound it around my forearm, careful not to constrict the blood flow, but secure enough to not easily lose the weapon as I drew it forth.

For so long, I lived in the Surface World in a sort of sleepwalking state, and it took me quite some time before I gained an awareness that roused me into full wakefulness.  Nem was correct, in his assessment of me.  I was like one who had slept for way too long and was only now coming to full wakefulness.  The words of the Ancient Text came to my mind unbidden, as I unsheathed the blade.

“Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” [Romans 13:11-12 CSB]

As I joined these words to my thoughts, the doubts that had so plagued me began to fall away and flee.  I no longer heard them in my mind in the pitch and timbre with which I recognized my own voice, but instead spoken in some alien, guttural language, with a spitting hatred that I could feel scorching me even as it fled and dissipated from the truth displacing it.

Another verse presented itself:

“Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” [Matthew 11:29-30 NLT]

As I believed in and embraced the words of the truth, and permitted hope to enter, my mind began to clear, and the weight of the responsibility of finding leadership qualities within myself, seem to lift from my shoulders.

Before me, the edges of the broken cistern wall became more distinct to my eyes, as if I had been gradually gifted with some degree of night vision.  In the suffused light from the grated drain gate above me, the blade of the honor sword seemed to gleam more brightly.  Courage stirred within me.  And hope began to flower again in what I had believed to be the blighted soil of my soul.

The time for words was over.  I knew what my spirit was telling me.  I had at last chosen to put my trust in the foreknowledge of the One who called me.  It was now time to commit to wholeness and put my heart right and my hands to the plow.  He would do through me what I could not.  It was time to no longer view myself as the prey.  It was time to plunge into the darkness ahead of me and become the hunter.

“Lying creature beware!”, I said out loud to the darkness, giving voice to my commitment, as I carefully stepped across the scree and over broken stones entering the tunnels below the city, “I am coming for you.”

The naked blade of the honor sword became sheathed in a silverish light, and I knew—the quickening had returned to me once more.