Back out on the lake, James and Matthew pulled the sled bearing Maeven as its blades ground along.
As blowing ice grit swirled around their feet Matt muttered, “Maybe this was not the best idea. The fog seems to be growing thicker.”
“How much further do you think it is?” one of the unnamed younger men, asked.
James shrugged, but no one seemed to notice the non-committal gesture, but the silence of the rest seemed to suggest the same answer to the question: It really did not matter. They were committed to carrying out this service if there even were the slighted shred of hope that Maeven could be saved, regardless of time or distance.
Christie followed behind, close to the sled to watch for any signs of worsening of Maeven’s condition. Nell and Begglar and Dominic took the lead, each advancing ahead until one or the other could barely be seen, then pausing to wait, until the others joined them. Begglar called it getting a bearing. They rotated positions in succession, aiming diagonally across the lake toward the falls using the last known land bearing they had before leaving the shore.
The young lady, my advocate, walked to the right side of Maeven’s litter, and one of the other young men walked to her left, flanking Maeven as she was born forward. Two others, another woman and a man, brought up the rear of the procession, keeping a close watch on their back.
From the line of the sled’s ski, just off the curved point, Begglar aligned Nell and Dominic in the fog, speaking lower but loud enough so that they could find each other in turn. Moonlight shone overhead, just enough so that Begglar could guide their progress with some degree of dead reckoning, and some measure of shadow casting.
Both Nell and Begglar were confident in their method of trans-navigation, so the party acquiesced.
“Maeven’s in a bad way,” Begglar answered, “We have no time to lose and no options.”
***
Under the cover of the thickening and swirling fog, the susurrant movements of the slithering packs of young sprites murmured and proceeded inexorably towards the falls. Their black beaks clamped against the cold and slush of the ice and frost glaze thickening the ice sheet. Their silver eyes strobed and pulsed as if they were groveling little paparazzi eagerly pursuing actresses and rock stars. They sensed the movement of a lone figure trudging blindly just ahead of them. Their bloodlust was piqued, but they were being drawn to something else entirely.
***
Beneath the frozen falls, Mason and I stared at the strange glow coming from the back of the cave. The floor of the cavern was covered in thick moss where the ice abated, further in the moss gave way to the darkness and cold stone, pitted with calcite forming a treacherous, razor-sharp lip, that would cut a man if he fell upon it. We carefully made our way further in, while casting wary glances over our shoulders for any floor movement indication that more of the Moon Sprite had made it through the frozen teeth of the falls. Both Mason and I bore tight fitted knapsack packs, called rucksacks, bound to our shoulders, riding just between our shoulder blades. Within, each of us had a torch pole, made of a kind of hardwood that burned very slowly when lit. I suggested to Mason, that now might be a very good time to pull out these torch poles if we expected to go further in, and he readily agreed.
“We will have to go back out there soon, but while we’re here we might as well have a look around.”
Mason knelt while I untied the hasp on the protective flap on his shoulder pack. I reached in a drew out a torch pole of roughly two and a half feet in length. Upon the end, a singed wrap of foolscap, that he’d used for tinder was bound to it, and it had further been coated in a sort of paraffin wax to keep it from getting wet. I peeled back the paraffin and handed him the torch pole. Mason unbound my pack as I had and soon presented me with my own torch, a darkened teak wood, polished by the oils of my hand carrying it through many a dark place over the years of my life. Soon we had both torches lit, a flickering flambeau of orange and yellow light which slightly hissed and spat in the damp air. The pitted rock at our feet gave way to drifts of sand and silt, a much softer and smoother feel as we trudged forward. Shadows around us jumped and danced with the firelight, no doubt delighted to celebrate the approach of the light within the recesses once more.
Stone daggers of mud seemed to drip silently down from the ceiling, some of which formed pillars of calcified rock. The air was faintly coppery to the taste and felt lacking as we approached the soft wavering glow reflected along the cave wall.
As we moved steadily we noticed that pools of cave water softly lapped at a shoreline we were walking upon. The light’s glare increased as we approached, and we noticed a curve in the stone corridor shielding us from a more direct view of the source of the light. As we entered the short tunnel we were stunned.
There before us was a pool of water glowing with a soft turquoise light emanating from somewhere deep within. A figure stood opposite us on the other side of the pool, dressed in a fashion I could not help but associate with someone from a very ancient culture.
“You’ve come at last,” he said, rising. The man was thickly bearded, broad-shouldered, bronze-skinned, and had powerful-looking forearms and when he had obtained his full stature he stood at least seven feet tall. Mason and I looked at each other in shock, and then at the man standing on the opposite shore studying us with wise and discerning eyes.
***
Back on the ice, within the enfolding fog, Will crouched low, trying to get a sense of the enemy or enemies. The flashes were low to the ice, clustered indiscriminately and then spreading out. These could only be the sprouted sprites from the nests, as Maeven had called them. Ugly, beaked worms the size of moray eels, white as the cold walls of a mausoleum. As he approached the direction of their coming, he noticed a darkening form of something much larger in their midst, clarifying more and more the closer he came. Panic raced through him, causing his carotid artery on his neck to pulse with adrenaline. His odds of surviving this encounter were nil. He had no illusions. But thinking of his father’s death, he tapped into the deep-seated rage and sense of injustice he continually carried with him and determined that if he was to die this day, he would fight his way into the dark night rather than surrendering to it. He wished he’d had time to get the short sword from its back sheath, but he could not risk taking off the layers of protective clothing, and the chill of the icy air would bring stiffness into his muscles that would not help him. The sprites were one thing, out of water eels, that he could cut and stab easily. The unknown dark form ahead was something else, though. An unknown factor.
He’d progressed another ten feet when finally he recognized it, and almost stumbled backward.
***
It was Dominic’s turn in the rotation to take the lead in scout position. And so it was he who first saw the low lying flashes ahead of them, and knew that this was a very bad development. And, given the situation, the decision to go back out onto the ice in this dense fog, despite Maeven’s wishes and need, was a dangerous and foolish venture.
The young Moon Sprites had left their nests. He remembered that Mr. O’Brian had even asked him to watch over the first Moon Sprite horde that they had slain, in the off chance that the young would flee their parent, but it had looked like these had died when their host had been slain. They had hung limply from its hoary head as it slouched forward over the ice, its silver eyes gone black and dull, cataracted with a glaze of frost. He’d watched for any movement for a time, but there was not a single writhing twist or twitch. To his mind, they were dead too. Perhaps, he had thought, they were too young to separate from their matron. But seeing the flashes ahead, the evidence was clear. These creatures, birthed from the lie in the ether natural between, deceived even in death. Visiting delayed vengeance upon their slayers ten to fifteen-fold in the writhing forms of their hellish offspring.
He wished he had the eyesight of young Mira. That kid could see almost anything at a distance. He was glad, however, that she had remained safely on the shore. These new disturbing developments were portending more and more against them ever being able to join them there again.
When the shout signal came, Dominic jumped with a start. He was to wait until the others caught up to him. The shout came at each point when his mother or father could no longer see his form ahead, but strangely enough, he didn’t think he’d gone as far as he previously did when it was his turn. He’d counted paces and was still short of the previous distance. Either the fog was growing thicker or… He paused. Come to think of it, the shout did not quite sound like the voice of his mother or father. Someone else was out on the ice ahead. Mason and Mr. O’Brian were at the falls, he’d seen them go, before the fog descended into the cirque canyon, and poured down onto the ice. Only one of their group remained unaccounted for.
***
Will could not help himself. He’d cried out when the sight before him clarified. It was the Manticore, of course, he knew that, but the sight of it was disturbing and nightmarish. Its face was burnished by the scorching of flame and with frost, the blackened flesh bitten again by the latter. Its eyes were piercing staring beyond him and bluish in color, marbled with cold veins of ice. Its matted and scorched mane hung with icicles and a dusting of white frost, the ice tinkling like chimes in the wind. Its mouth hung slack and open bristled with sharp pointed teeth and an icy glaze of frozen drool and blood pearls hung like red rubies dusted in powdered sugar. He couldn’t tell whether the ends of its mouth had been pulled by rictus into its present mocking grin, or if it’s last relished private barb at O’Brian had given it its dying pleasure.
In the shock, he’d suddenly reversed his forward movement and lost his footing. Will landed hard on his seat and the tip of the short sword and scabbard, below his outer tunic, caught the ice and forced his body backward, slamming his head just as hard. Light flashed behind his eyes, and for a brief horrible second, he believed that the Moon Sprites had lunged upon him, cut his feet out from under him and their flashing eyes strobed him into blindness so that he would not see their beaks rip into him and tear him apart. His breathing escalated into short mewling gasps, as blind panic made him shake violently from side to side, slashing as the sprites he believed were mobbing him with his kukri blade. Its thickened curve scything through the air, plying and slashing, finding nothing to add blood to its dangerous edge. Darkness descended into his mind and sprung up from memories too painful to bear alone. He wept and wept, mewling and mouthing a single word over and over again.
“Daddy!”
“Daddy, please!”
But there was no one who could hear his cries. No one.
***
Eight Moon Sprites had died in the attempt to rush through the narrow crevice between the cascading teeth of the falls. Six remained, squiggling and squirming along the outside of the wall of frozen water, probing narrow openings yet finding them buried partway in with packed slush and ice points bristling dangerously impeding progress. Before one opening that seemed to offer ingress, a giant pearl oscillated and spun, its opalescent surface dancing with white energy, flashes of color swirling upon its smooth surface. The sprites, though desperate to get behind the curtain of water, gave the Pearl a wide berth and would not go near it. This was the one and only thing in this Mid-World that seemed to give them fear.
***
Begglar called out to Dominic as soon as he saw him start to move faster forward away into the fog. At the risk of losing him, he increased his pace as well, causing Nell to react by calling after him from her position closer to the sled where the others followed with Maeven. They each watched their moonlit shadow being careful to keep its slight tilt to their left. Begglar knew that even within fog when all starlight and moonlight is obscured ambient light is still present and transferred through the moisture refraction in the air. Because light still emanated from overhead, a shadow, no matter how slightly perceived, would still be cast. In the night sky of the Mid-World, the moon was still the most prevalent source of light. Back in the Surface World, any naval officer commanding a boat knew to look for the Pole Star, Polaris or the Southern Cross to navigate at night, if instruments failed. He also knew that if the moon were to rise before sunset, the illuminated side would face the west. And by turns, if the Moon rose after midnight, the illuminated side faced the east. It was no different here. The sun and the moon followed mirror courses as they did in the Surface World. The Moon had presented itself long before the midnight watch, so its light faced the west. The Trathorn ran predominantly from the northern highlands to the south, so that meant its greater light would be to the east of them, and the falls were on the northern side of the lake, so the shadows must be cast to their left side. The moon had already reached its apogee and was now in descent. The sun would soon rise, breaking dawn and perhaps provide significantly more visibility within the fog if its heat did not cause it to dissipate entirely. Circling the shoreline had not been an option. It would have taken much longer and from the looks of Maeven, she had very little time left.
***
Dominic burst into the area drawing his metal-studded cudgel from its sling on his side, responding to the whimpering cries. A figure lay upon the ice, stabbing wildly but blindly at an unknown assailant. The Manticore’s frosted back was before him an arrow bristling out of its frosted mane. The figure he knew to be Will, lay on the other side thrashing wildly. Seven or eight young Moon Sprites slithered nearby circling him, waiting for an opening to strike.
Dominic muttered to himself, “Rats in the barn,” and then circled the ice clutch of the Manticore careful to avoid the weakened punch hole that had been broken through when the Manticore’s barbed telson stabbed Maeven from below.
The end of the tail lay off to the side, amid a circle of Moon Sprites who probed and pecked at it for bits of flesh within the hard carapace.
Another eight or nine of them had made their way to the Manticore’s body but were finding it difficult to bite into its frozen flesh and these screeched in frustration. So occupied were they with their bits of morsels that they failed to see Dominic land in the middle of them and proceed to crack their skulls with the cudgel. Snap, thud, crack, click, his hammered blows rained down on them with force and power, pushing their fractured heads into pits in the ice. Silver blood lifting and spraying with each decisive and deadly blow.
Dominic was careful to twist and pull away from each landed blow, learning from the others that the silver blood of these beasties scalded and burned human and animal flesh.
The sprites that dared turn and lunge at Dominic, he quickly swept away into spinning arcs, back into the fog, and those unfortunate enough to get close were pummeled into broken silver pulp, bristling with splintered bone. Dominic worked his way across toward Will, deflecting charges, wounding, maiming and pulverizing the sprites that dared to impede his progress.
Will’s blindly stabbing kukri blade did manage to skewer a sprite, the flat wide blade cutting a long gash down its body towards its tail, silver running down the blade and flecking dribble on his hand. The burn was like hot metal slag, bursting up from a vulcanor’s fire. Will’s finger still flexed and gripped the handle harder, but his eye’s popped open, blurred by tears and anguish and misery. He saw a shadowy figure making its way toward him, blurred by the tears in his eyes and the sting of the cold wet chill on his cheeks. He twisted onto his side and lunged upward, inadvertently kicking at a Moon Sprite approaching his feet and legs. He crouched and came up on one knee, still slashing blindly with the kukri blade, yet now slashing from side to side, rather than down upon the ice.
“Will!” Dominic called out to him, but the boy was in a blind panic and did not seem to hear.
The change in direction of the swing of the blade gave the Moon Sprites the opportunity that they needed, and they lunged for him. A black beak clamped onto Will’s boot, biting into the tread, another slithered in and sank its beak into his leg tearing his leather pants piercing a part of his calf muscle, and Will grunted and cried out.
“Will!” Dominic yelled again, “Its Dom, let me help you!”
“Nobody helps me!” Will screamed back, “Nobody cares! You guys left me to die!”
Will stabbed down at the sprite biting his leg and sliced into its body. Another Moon Sprite circled him clacking its black beak, its eyes strobing and flashing, blinding Will to the other two moving in towards him from behind. Without help, Will was going to die here, and Dominic would not let that happen.
Dominic jumped forward, sliding on his knees, ducking under Will’s slashing blade, and smash the sprite causing the flashing distracting, its eyes flickering then fading to dull flat black. Dominic thrust his arm upward, catching Will’s descending arm in a block, and then jabbed the round and flat pommel end of his cudgel into the pit of his arm causing Will’s fingers to release the handle of the kukri. It clattered to the ice lying flat and spinning like a minute hand on a watch ticking off the time remaining them. Will tried to gain his feet, but the sprite latched onto the sole of his boot caused him to slip and slide on its eel-like body, breaking a part of its vertebrae. Dominic clenched his fist and swung upward, catching Will on the point of his chin so that his head snapped backward, and he lost all touch with the world. Blackness overtook him and he swooned and crumpled falling upon Dominic’s broad back. He hefted the boy like a feed sack and kicked away another Moon Sprite lunging at his feet. Dominic bore Will upon his shoulders and slung him up on top of the dead Manticore over its mane, and behind its horrible head.
“Hold this fool a minute!” Dominic said, knowing the dead Manticore could not and would not respond. He’d realized it was the only way to keep Will safe and out of the fray while he dealt out deathblows to the remaining Moon Sprites.
Dominic spun the cudgel in his hand almost like a drummer handling a drumstick flourish between driving rhythms. He used the Manticore’s large body as a back wall and began to smash and sweep Moon Sprites as they came at him from out of the fog.
Presently, he heard a voice call to him from behind.
“Dominic! Where are you, son?!”
“Dad! Be careful. There are young Jengu out here. I’ve killed several but there is a lot here. Do you have your scythe blade handy?”
“Rats in the barn?”
“Exactly!”
Begglar reached inside his tunic and pulled out a long thinly curved blade from a wrapping of husks. He reached to the top of his metal-capped quarterstaff and unscrewed the cap revealing a notched groove cared beneath. He quickly set the end of the long blade into the T-notch which was also supported by metal to keep it secure, and then screwed the metal cap end back into place. He let the staff end with the bladed hook fall down to the ice and gripped the staff so that he could swing the blade in a low arc. The thin but tempered blade whipped through the air with a SSSSsssing noise, hovering just inches above the frosted surface, as Begglar wielded it in a familiar arcing motion he’d used for many years during harvest and cutting the grass around the Inn at Crowe.
He moved in, catching a grouping of Moon sprites from the side and sweeping them away in a slicing arc into their deaths along the blade. Together the two of them made sport of it, almost as if there had been no real danger in it. They were merely transported for a moment back to the Inn at Crowe, playing the game they’d made up for dealing with a plague of rats that infested their hayloft and grain stores in their barn back home. Within moments they had made short work of the threats, such that no new Moon Sprites dared lunge at them from out of the fog.
When Nell and the others reached them, Nell wagged her head and could not help but laugh.
“You two. I never know just what I’m gonna do with you.”
“Mind you be careful of the silver blood, dear. It stings,” Begglar admonished.
Matt and James, helped Dominic get Will off of the back of the Manticore, and propped him up on the sled near Maeven until he came to.
Together they proceeded onward, avoiding the splashes and spillage of Moon Sprite blood and bodies strewn around the ice. Begglar took the lead, armed with his improvised scythe poised to deal swiftly and decisively with any and all straggling Moon Sprites daring to oppose their progress. It wasn’t long before they, at last, stood about twenty feet from the frozen mouth of the Trathorn stretching about forty feet across and towering about a granite face of the frosted rock.
Begglar swiftly made short work of the straggling Moon Sprites slithering back and forth between the frozen pillars of water, trying to get beyond its clenched teeth. He noted the holding position of the giant Pearl and the one remaining crevice that it guarded against these slithering irritants. As Begglar approached it, the Pearl shifted and spun away, racing beyond him, allow him access to the sole entrance passage within. The Pearl rolled swiftly creating its slight trench cut, clearly headed back beyond the arriving party bearing both Maeven and Will on the sled they pulled. Matthew and James and Dominic nodded know exactly why the Pearl’s path headed in the opposite direction, and when the others looked questioningly at them the all but answered in unison.
“It is going back for the blood.”
***
Begglar moved to investigate the narrow crevice passage, but before he could do so, from somewhere within the falls, a flash of pulsing light began to illuminate the interior passage within the falls. The ice sparkled as bluish light pulses increased in intensity and a fragrant smelling phosphorescence spilled out from under the falls like a radiant mist, roiling across the ice with an additional fog-like carpet of smoke. Begglar and the others, trailing a few yards beyond him, saw the mysterious light and quickly moved away seeking cover.
From between the columns of ice, the smoky glow suddenly flashed and extended outward into the misty night causing the gray fog to peel back and dissipate before it. Arms of glowing smoke followed reaching out, pushing the fog bank further backward, unveiling the colors of the coming dawn painting the clouds above.
The smoky arms splintered and fanned out reaching towards the dead Moon Sprites like a large steamy claw, suffusing each white body and drawing them back toward the falls like floating flotsam and jetsam. Audible cracks echoed across the frozen lake in the early dawn stillness as the Moon Sprites were drawn their bodies from their clutched prison. These began to slide faster and faster towards the crystalline mouth of the waterfall, picking up speed as they went. Within the rushing pull, a silvering ball, glinted along with dawn’s first light, racing backward toward the northern end of the falls, following the gathered bodies of the dead Moon Sprites as plumes of ice feathered their progress.
Begglar scrambled backward, trying to reach Nell and the others, retreating further from the mouth of the falls as the bodies slide by him, dusting him with a layer of shaved ice crystals. The bodies closest in proximity to the falls slammed into the pillars with a mighty crash, one after another, until the impact and combined weight of the bodies finally fractured and punched holes into the waterfall curtains. These and a white swirl of limp and writhing young sprites tumbled head-long into the glowing lights, now made brighter by the tears and cuts into the frozen walls of water. The lights pulsed, misted and steamed but did not seem to menace the land beyond any further.
***
Mason and I emerged from one of the broken cuts between the standing pillars and sheets of ice. The view was serene, and the beginnings of the breaking dawn shown brilliantly in the eastern sky. Our company stood dumbfounded, just fifty yards out, gathered in shock to see us emerge so nonchalantly from beneath the frozen falls. I could see they bore a sort of sled pallet with two figures upon it. One of which I was sure was Maeven, and the other, as we approached them, appeared to be Will.
I knew Maeven did not have much time left, and I was glad to see that the group had taken the initiative to bring her. What I was about to tell them, no one would believe, and I found it hard to believe myself. Mason grinned at the mystified looks on the other’s faces as we approached. He was eating this up, and I could not help but stifle a chuckle myself. I would tell them what happened, but first, we had to attend to Maeven.
Begglar and Nell met us in advance of the others, and I called out, “It’s about time you guys showed up. I thought Mason and I were going to have to fight the whole pack of Moon Sprites ourselves. How’s Maeven?”
“O’Brian, you rascal!” Begglar scolded, but it was clear he was glad to see me.
“Bring Maeven and the others. There isn’t much time. We need to get her into the pools before the mirroring starts.”
Nell gripped my arm, pulled me aside and cautioned me, “Mr. O’Brian, you might not want the others to see what appears in those pools during the dawn hours. You need to let us take her in privately.”
“Whatever it is, we can face together,” I answered, “I have just seen the beautiful pools myself. What is it that causes this hesitation of yours?”
“Yes, you’ve seen them in the evening, but in the twilight hours, they change. The images that swim around in the pools reveal what is going on in your world. It’s how we Mid-Worlders have always known about your lands and the reasons why none of us ever seek to go there.”
“Why not?”
“Because your world, the Surface World, is full of monsters.”
Excavatia 