Month: January 2019

Glowing embers swirled through crawling blankets of smoke as the flames of Kilrane crackled and popped and roared with flared bursts as underbrush and dried limbs caught fire.  The ground was a sea of red and yellow flame.  Dark-feathered demons swooped and dove in gliding waves dipping down and then arising like fiery phoenixes, cackling and laughing cruelly as they charmed the fire’s progress onward.  So blinded by their hatred and so intent on destruction, they failed to notice or see the high borne witnesses to their savage delight, clinging and climbing above into the canopy.  Dryads, the former and recent occupants of the forest of Kilrane, were aghast and incensed at the destruction, yet fled for their lives, unable to stop the roaring tide below.  The harpies, bearing the firebrands, crisscrossed below them, their frenzied fire dance crawling higher and higher up the trees, so that all the dryads could do was flee as fast as possible towards the edge of the forest, crying, “Treachery!”  Some fell screaming as the fires spreading across the canopy above joined with the fires below, engulfing them in flames causing their branches and limbs to erupt in bright flares, as they tumbled downward disappearing into the smoky and haloed glowing sea.  The shouts and screams in the back forest and the insane laughter of the fiery harpies wove together into a nightmarish symphony of terror that rolled forward in crescendo toward the dead slough where The Pan held court with his savage satyr-courtiers, and the shrieking harpies and the gathering number of displaced and scorched dryads.

Yet amid the terror and smoke one dryad lingered high above the forest roadway waiting for the right moment to present itself—A dryad by the name of Langula.  As the harpies flew in and out of the smoke below, her vine twisted limbs encircled the long strands bearing rotting heads of dead satyrs and unfortunate men and sundry other animals that she and her fellow ‘ladies of the leaves’ had feasted on and collected as ornamental warnings for errant satyrs and men who dared broach their domain.  Quietly and silently she swayed the ends of the grisly ornaments deftly through the rising smoke forming a slight spin to their sway.  Carefully she timed the rotations of the various death vines to move and sway inward and outward in ever-increasing circles.  The horrific faces, blackened by rot, twisted by shock and rictus, misshapen mouths hung slack around blood-stained teeth, gaped and swallowed smoke as they swayed inward and outward.  A certain degree of fascination and savagery also shone in the golden and green eyes of the porcelain cream face ensconced in a ruffle of leaves as she watched the flame-bearing harpies fly ignorant of her presence above.

A harpy strayed off from the others, laughing and chanting, “Burn!  Burn! Burn!” as she swooped under and over the smoke headed toward the area where the grisly ornaments weaved above.  Four other harpies follow laughing and echoing the chant, their firebrand flickering yet remaining aflame.

Langula saw the back of one rise through the haze, wings extended, as she struck one of the rotting heads.  Another, pivoted and suddenly the vines pulled taught and the branches bearing the anchor points thrashed, as something beneath the smoke became entangled.  Savagely Langula jerked the dangling vine upward, eliciting a “Gawww!” sound as two vines twisted around something that fought below.  Two of the harpies emerged from below, yet a third was unaccounted for and the voice of the first harpy ceased her smoky chanting abruptly, from somewhere ahead.

Vines lifted toward the canopy, and a black feathered body, curled in vines moving like green worms emerged from the smoke, the firebrand’s flames catching fire in the feathers of the entangled harpy, two dark heads pressing their rotted faces into her gawking crone face.

“Caught you, you burning bat-bitch!” Langula hissed, as she drew her hideous trophy upward.

What was not apparent from below was now becoming clear from above.  A sharp-pointed spike jutted out from the severed neck of each head whose point lay even alongside the vines that extended upward.  As the vines were rotated or struck, however, the barb jutted outward causing the grisly ornament to become a deadly hook, from which the dryads could catch or ensnare flying quarry interested in feasting on the rotting heads below.  The harpy so trapped was also spitted with the skewered barb, and, struggle though it might, Langula would ensure that this particular feathered-fiend would never fly again.

Using this method, Langula caught four other fire-setting harpies before she was through air fishing, and then set off to deliver the evidence of their arsonous villainy to her chief Madame Briar, who now stood before The Pan.

***

The Pan towered over the groveling Trolls cringing and bowing before him.  His arms flashed out grabbing both Shelberd and Grum-blud by their necks, lifting their dangling, struggling forms aloft.

“It is to you I hold the fault of these deaths.  And this companion of yours, who properly fears me and has ever only cowered in my presence, I will grant a mercy.”

At this, The Pan flung Shelberd down into the filmy water of the slough, from which Grum-blud had crawled.  A large splash of brown and blackish water wet the muddy bank, as The Pan moved quickly forward.  His great hooves stirring clouds of water bugs and gnats as he followed his flung captive into the deepening water.  When Shelberd burst upward from the water, coughing and sputtering he felt the great weight of a suspended hoof slam into his chest, plunging him back under.  Ripples from the water and the floating mat of film, evidenced a struggle underneath, as The Pan cruelly pressed downward.  He dangled Grum-blud over the pool holding him by his short leg, forcing him to watch the demise of his former companion.  Bubbles and a cough of roiling water broke the surface and then ceased.

“The mercy, I grant him,” The Pan rumbled, “is the swiftness of his death.  Yours will not be so swift, human frog.”

And with that, he strode out of the water, towards the onocentaurs, who were even now backing away in terror, towards a sneering group of satyrs laughing wickedly.  The Pan reached out and grabbed the one called Bunt by the torso, as the man-half of creature raised his arms defensively covering his head.  “Do you wish you could fly, little donkey?” The Pan rumbled, his face pulled up in a sinister grin, his cataracted eyes seeming to gleam with a cold monstrosity.

“P-Please, sire.  We didn’t do anything.  It was the trolls, they…” he begged.

With a mighty twist of his body, The Pan launched the onocentaur into the air, throwing his flailing body hard into the trees, where it sailed and struck branches and smacked hard into a trunk, and then tumbled lifelessly downward.

Several satyrs bounded after the flying body, chanting, “Feed!  Feed!  Make it bleed!” then laughing with delight, champing their sharpened teeth together, as they descended upon it under the cover of the brush.

The other onocentaur, called Dob, turned to flee and was pounced upon by the satyrs blocking his escape.

Shaggy arms and blackened grimy fingernails scratched and pounded his body mercilessly, as he cried, “No!  No!  No!”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” the satyrs mocked him, as they brutally struck him, a few biting his haunches and then slapping the bites, adding insult to injury.

The Pan squatted on his massive shaggy haunches, savaging enjoying the sounds of the pleading onocentaur.

“PAN!” a voice yelled above the cacophony, “Now see the evidence of your firebugs!”

The Pan sniffed the air smelling the scent of burned flesh and feathers, the harpies perched in the treetops around the deaden slough shriek in outrage as did the harpies swooping high overhead.

Briar flung the bound bodies of four scorched harpies outward landing in the mud of the bank upon which he stood.  He bent down sniffing the corpses, attempting to listening to the whispered words of his designated courtier, who described the sight before his blinded eyes.

The noises of the beatings of the mobbed onocentaur prevented him from hearing his chief satyr’s words, and he roared a rebuke.

“Silence, you savage fools!” he bellowed, “Leave the donkey-man be, for now.”

When the satyrs did not hear him, clearly, he lunged forward and backhanded a few closest to him, his other senses giving him a quasi-sight to do so.  His powerful fist, slammed into the side of a satyr, snapping its spine and flinging its body into the air off to his right, the brutal hand coming back across, clipping another, from the opposite direction, dislocating its shoulder, as it fell to the ground.

That got the satyrs’ attention and they backed away from the onocentaur’s battered, bloodied and bruised body.  The Pan then turned and moved towards the fallen harpies that he smelled clearly, his hands pawing at their smoldering bodies, feeling the firebrand branches clutched and bound to their winged claws.

“What is this?!” his sightless eyes turned towards the scents he knew to be the smells of the dryads.

“Your harpies have burned the forest of Kilrane!  The land you claimed and made us tenants of.  Quite possibly they are responsible for the deaths of your Manticores.  Did you authorize this destruction?!” Briar asked.

“No,” he growled, increasing his throaty rumble in intensity so that the sound of it trembled the leave around him, “Harpy Dellitch!  What do you know of this?!  Who authorized the burning of my forest?!”

At this, he dropped Grum-blud into the mud, and stood up to his full height, his angry face turned to the sky, his teeth clenched, and his eyes narrowed to glaring slits of white-hot fire.

Grum-blud grunted painfully when he struck the ground, but he quickly righted himself, seeing a sudden chance to save his own skin.

“My lord,” he gasped, “That is what I wanted to tell you.  The harpies burned the forest behind us.  We were beset with fire on every side.  Your Manticores were intent on taking Azragoth under your orders and did not escape the fires.  I and the onocentaurs, held back to oversee the destruction.  We climbed trees to witness what we knew you wanted reported only to find the forest lit behind us.  We called out to the Manticores, but it was too late to turn them.  It was the harpies that are responsible for the failures you are punishing us for.  So zealous they are in their hatred for the dryads.  They did not keep their destructive zeal in check, even under your orders.  They defied you, seeking to serve their own interests and vengeance.  It is they that deserve your wrath.  Not us!  We are your loyal subjects.  We honor your command.  It is our pleasure to serve your mighty hand.  To deliver wrath to your enemies.  Yet they would see us bleed for their treachery.”

The Pan listened and pondered this, as the harpies shrieked in protest, like birds storming out of the trees under gunfire.

“Lies!  Lies!  Lies!” they shrieked.  “Kilrane was already beset with fires to the north!  The fires arose from the hidden city.  We reported to you of its rebirth.  We saw their walls catch fire!”

“Do you deny, spreading the fire?!” the Pan roared to the bird-women, “If so, why do I feel this firebrand, bound to the wings of these dead?!”

Dellitch flew in from above, “My lord, divine king, god of the lands and forest, the dryads are deceiving you.  They killed our sisters and attached the brands to them.  You are being deceived by these betrayers!  We are not to blame.”

The Pan roared in anger and frustration, his fists clenching and unclenching, his hands grabbing at rooted brush, twisting it and casting it into the air.

“Do not think, foul-bird that because I am blind, I cannot see deception!  Do not mock me!  Do not smile upon my scarred eyes.  I can hear the deception in your voice.  I can smell the feverish sweat of lies bead upon your aged skin!  I can taste beads of milk flowing from your feathered breasts.  You have taken advantage of the limited liberties I gave you with regard to this command!  Never insult me and think just because you can fly that you are ever out of my reach.  You know what other forms of creatures I have under my command.  You know what nightmares I can send against even you, though you may fly to the mountains, you will not escape the bite and claw of those I send after you!  DO NOT MOCK ME!”

The last words caused both the ground to tremble and the swampy trees to sway, and its noise echoed terribly throughout the forests and surrounding canyons.

All of the gathered, pressed their hands to their ears and howled in pain at the sharpness of the power of the voice.  For a brief time, no one could hear, as their ears painfully thrummed and throbbed.  Grum-blud huddled in the mud below, his fat fists pressed hard into his bulbous ears, the ringing in his head unbearable, causing him to gasp in short breaths and mewl in agony, his legs drawn into a fetal curl as he writhed.  The satyrs cowed, in similar agony, grimy hands pressed into the sides of their heads, grunting in pain.  The dryads shrunk down into piles of twisted wood, appearing like dried cypress trees, curled around themselves, no greenery showing.  The harpies, however, suffered the worst of the powerful roar, their wings folded as they plummet from the sky, falling bodies, formerly in flight striking the hard ground, splashing into the murky slough waters, embedding into the mud, caroming off bare branches with a hard wing-shattering crack, their hollow avian bones snapping with the impacts.

***

Jeremiah had at first thought that O’Brian was speaking from the high bough to The Pan, but then realized he wasn’t.

He was carefully ascending the back of a hill in the forest when a thunderous noise poured over the top of the hill with an audible and physical fist with a power wave, that seemed to shake everything in sight, knocking him flat against the ground with a thud, the limp body of the weakened man on his back slamming down hard upon him.  Everything around him seemed to ring with the tine-struck note of a tuning fork, that echoed and bounced every which way he looked.  The clap of the sound felt like he’d been struck on the sides of his head with a physical slap, and his ears pulsed and throbbed, muting all other sounds of the forest around him.  When he was able to lift his head from the matted leaves, and groggily raise his body upon trembling hands, he glanced upward to see how the powerful sonic boom had affected the one he sought to rescue from the treetops above.  What he saw both shocked and amazed him.  The man was surrounded and protected by circles of glowing light.

***

I had heard of the beings that the Mid-Worlders called faeries, heard how they had been described, by those who had witnessed them from a distance but had never encountered one for myself, until that moment they descended upon me from the treetops.  It was both terrible, frightening and wonderful all at the same time.  They pulsed and throbbed with a power and energy that was beyond imagining and barely contained within this existence or any other for that matter.  Their light shone piercing and sharp yet did not cut through me as I feared it might.  I was dumbstruck before them and felt weak all over.  I trembled and hid my face, shielding my eyes from the brightness of their being.

The branch under me felt like a gossamer thread that could break at any moment, and something about their presence made me weep.  A sound emerged from them, some mystical tonal quality that I cannot describe adequately.  It was beautiful, sad and joyous, tragic and lovely, evoking emotions and feelings in me that I did not know I had.  In a language, my ears did not understand, but somehow my spirit knew instinctively, I felt words of comfort dance softly and fluidly with the sounds of the song in their voice.  What they communicated in a language expressed with a fullness of thought, and to the best of my ability to translate, was “Do not fear.  Feel courage.  Embrace faith.  Believe and trust in the One that has called you.  You are known and loved.  These are the keystones of the Kingdom which you seek.”

Only the final word, that I translated as “loved” seems so far inadequate to describe what they actually said.  The feeling of that word made me weep tears of joy and filled me will a sense of place that had nothing to do with space or time because it was somehow coupled with divine intention.

The air around me became thicker and softer somehow as if it caressed me with a warm breath that stabilized me.  Something external move all around us but peeled away from the presence of these living beings that seemed more alive than any other creature I had ever observed in this world or the Surface World.

“You are purposed for these moments.  You are drawn forth from the well to be living water to those given.  Return to them, for you will be made into what is purposed.  You will find delight in your purpose.”

Their words swam through the air around me, touching me with sweet fragrance, bathing me in golden light.

“Upon your mind and in your memory, you will find the timeless words.  They will meet you in your moments of doubt.  Seek the wise counsel of called friends to confirm and clarify what you are hearing in your spirit.  Learn to see yourself through the eyes of forgiveness.  Surrender the old burdens you carry.  You cannot repay the debt of the burdens you choose to bear.  Empty your holding so that you may receive the greater gifts for your journey and for the benefit of those to which you are called to lead.  Trust in the voice that speaks gently to your spirit.  Choose to obey the direction of the One for only He knows the paths ahead of you.  Mankind’s measure of success is deceptive, for only the One judges outcomes with all ends in sight.  Obedience to the One is life.  Obedience is better than sacrifice.  Do not follow human reasoning which leads you into the darkness, but lead your mind with obedience, hope, and faith in the One who loves you and knows you most and has called you to live out the meaning of your name.  Align your heart and mission to the voice of the Chief Cornerstone and build upon that Truth.  The Truth will set you free to will and do that to which you are called.”

Then a melody from where I did not know rose up around us, flowing through me as if every part of my being were washed with cool water, refreshing my soul and spirit.  I wanted that feeling to last forever, but soon after it left me, and it had no feeling of the passage of time, but felt placed again into a moment that I felt purposed for, though I did not fully understand the why of it.  From down below me, I could finally hear some other voice, calling up to me trying to get my attention.  A voice I was vaguely familiar with, from a distant past.  I looked down below and saw a figure moving cautiously towards the base of the tree where I sat, some form borne upon his back as he moved from shadow to shadow, careful not to attract attention.

“Brian!” he called in a loud whisper, cautiously trying not to create too much noise but needing to gain my focus and attention.

I rubbed my eyes, and then looked down again, his face small because of the distance between us.

“O’Brian, or whatever you are called now!” he called, carefully kneeling to lay the form down upon the ground and gather his bow in his hand, which he hunched over and worked on a few minutes before turning again upward.

“Move back,” he said, raising the bow, the arrow point pointed above towards me.

Realizing what he was about to do I lurched backward as he let fly the arrow from his drawn bow.

Thwap!  The arrow drove deep into the branch upon which I sat, and I noticed a small thread attached to its fletching, fed out by a light spool handing down below.

A memory crawled towards me in realization from a past I thought I had left long ago, as I realized to whom it was I spoke.  Our last encounter had left me battered and bloodied, but I understood the fury and frustration of the man and the grief to which I had brought him.  This was Caleb’s brother, the friend I had lost to The Pan as a result of my error in judgment and failure to humbly seek more than my own counsel.  The man had sworn if he ever saw me again he might kill me.  And I wondered if perhaps he had finally come to do just that.

***

The two former members of the traveling Surface Worlder party, who were not what they claimed to be, drove the wagon and the horses through the woods of Kilrane, fear mounting upon their minds and their heels.

The rode was more winding than they had remembered it, and the wagon and horse team almost ran off of the path many times as they raced faster and faster through the woods.

Something was following them, besides the ever-raging wall of fire gaining momentum as it hit the drier areas of the woods.  The horses were getting harder to manage, being kept as they were on a runner line.

“We can’t keep this pace up, Zeelah,” the male shouted above the pounding footfalls of the horses.

“We’ll lose the wagon and the team if we don’t slow a bit.”

The woman addressed as Zeelah, cursed under her breath, still fighting the reins and the nervousness of the team, trying her best to maintain her seat on the wagon, bracing her feet against the coach toe board.

“Dergin was supposed to meet us in the woods long before now,” she groused, “Where are they?!”

“Tobias said they’d be here.”

“Tobias!” she snorted, “I don’t trust him, Hughland.  I know he has helped out in the past, but I cannot figure what truly motivates him.  He and that Sanballat fellow.  There is something disturbing about the man.  Wasn’t he some sort of cleric in the past?”

“Priest,” the man called Hughland answered.

“What’s the difference?”

Hughland began to answer and then stopped short.  Something was on the road ahead.  Something that did not look good.

“What is that?” Zeelah asked, slowing the team, pulling the reins back, wrapping her arms in the traces.  Her arms were tired and shaking from the extended strain.  The horses skidded to a stop, slightly rearing up on their back legs against the momentum of the tongue post of the loaded wagon.

“Hold, ho, horses, hold!” Hughland commanded, standing in the stirrups of his lead horse, but getting bumped by the horses following closely behind.

When each of the teams slowed, their riders looked at each other, and back to the strange mass stretching across the roadway ahead.

A breeze was drifting up the road, and a foul smell arose from whatever it was that lie ahead.

“Is that a fallen tree or something?” Zeelah asked, her eyes beginning to water, reflexively covering her mouth and nose with her trembling hand.  “And what is that rotten stench?”

“I…I…,” Hughland stammered.

“I, I, what?!” Zeelah coughed into her covered mouth and shielded her watering eyes, “Say something.  Why does that stink so bad?”

“We’d better go back!” Hughland said, also covering his mouth and nose, turning his horse into the other horses stand behind.

“What are you saying?  We can’t go back now!  Whatever that thing is ahead, it smells dead.”

“That thing is what Mister O’Brian talked about before back at the cabin.  He said you would smell it before you saw it, but he did not account for a wood filling with smoke from fires.”

“You didn’t take him seriously, did you?” Zeelah asked, coughing again into her hand, trying not to breathe in any more of the noxious fumes.

“His account is not the only time I have heard of it,” Hughland choked on his own cough, wiping his watering eyes, “It is the Hollywood.  The beast that crawled out of that accursed woodland swamp.  It is poisonous and smells of sulfur.”

“Where do we go?  There is only one road out of these woods.  The others have not been kept clear for many years now.  How do you propose we get this wagon out if we cannot go down the road.”

“We’ll figure that out when the time comes.  Now come on before that thing begins to follow us.”

Zeelah pulled the reins back further and then guided the horse team into a tight turn, following Hughland and his string of horses.

Behind them, however, were a line of horsemen spanning the width of the road and blocking their way backward.

“Hello, Hughland,” the lead rider called out, “Zeelah.  You are both very late.”

“Dergin!”

“Where do you think you were going?  The way out of Kilrane in that way,” he pointed past them.

“You don’t want to go that way,” Zeelah shook her head saying it, “There is something on the road ahead blocking the way and it smells rancid.”

Dergin was a thickly built man, gruff and hard, his eyes were buried under thick eyebrows, his face lost amid a thicket of a black bushy beard.  The man gestured for one of his horsemen to ride ahead to check it out, while he waited, curious to see the contents of the wagon and the stashed contraband the two had brought.

They waited quietly until the man on horseback returned.

“The way ahead is clear,” he announced, “I saw no cause for concern.”

Dergin nudged his horse forward, looking from Zeelah to Hughland regarding them with measuring suspicion.

“I don’t know what you two think your up to, but Tobias is waiting outside of Kilrane for this wagon and those extra horses, so let’s get this thing turned around shall we?”

“There was something there…” Zeelah began, but Dergin only stared hard at her and she fell silent, looking down.

“Since Maeven will no longer be running point with the Lehi horsemen, the resistance falls to us to supply its needs,” Dergin said gruffly, “The men in the towns below grow weaker by the day.  The will to resist the Xarmnians is dying out.  Tobias has agreed to help us, but he needs something from us as well.  And we are finding it much harder to find allies in the fight anymore.  So we welcome his help, even if it means some short-term costs.  The Surface Worlders are not our concern.  They will most likely stir up the Xarmnians and bring them down upon us before we gain enough strength and strategic positioning to upend their rule.  The Azragothians are misguided.  They should have never tried rebuilding that accursed place.  They were warned from the beginning.  Let us hope, now in their demise that they will provide enough of a distraction to allow the real resistance to Xarmnian oppression to gain strength.  Do you both understand what I am saying to you?”

Both Zeelah and Hughland nodded, but that was not what Dergin was seeking.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“We understand,” they responded in unison.

“Good,” he said, “Then turn that wagon back around and follow me.”

And with that, the group proceeded down the road, further into the woods and eventually out onto the open road where another wagon and team of horses and several riders met them.

***

I moved and inched my way toward the arrow that had been shot into the thick meat of the branch.  It was an amazingly precise shot by any measure, and I realized that if Jeremiah had planned to kill me, he could have just as easily done it without announcing himself to me from below.  Especially since The Pan and his creature subjects were in close proximity.  To call up to me was a risk to himself as well as to me, and it did not make sense for him to bring attention our way.  When I was close enough, I reached down and pried the arrow out of the wood being careful not to lose the narrow spool that was two inches down from the end of the arrow point.  The arrow was of more modern design, something fashioned from the ingenuity of the Surface World and not subject to the innovation of the Mid-World.  The thread was fine yet strong, and the shaft tapered such that the razor point could be removed, and the grooved spool slid off the end.  Righting myself, I quickly did so, knowing that the harpy who had deposited me here, could be back at any moment to collect me from the high perch.  From the angry shouts and noises below, I knew that it was highly probable.

One end of the thread had been woven and tied securely to the arrow with just enough slack to allow the spool end to clear the shaft and slide off.  I dropped the spool, allowing it to quickly unravel down towards the waiting arms of the man I suspected was Jeremiah.

He waited quietly marking the falling path of the unraveling spool, deftly catching its end and then affixed something to it and then looked up nodding.  I wondered how such a small string would lift over forty feet of rope, but I soon saw that was not what he had in mind.  What he attached was a cotton woven pole climber’s belt.  If he’d not been intending to kill me himself, he might just accomplish it with this gear.

Having no other option, pulling hand over hand, I quickly hauled the belt up for a better look.  The belt was braided and woven with a thick support strap, and cross-over straps that gathered in the front and allowed the climber to hug the pole with his knees using a slang balance and gather and slip strap to ascend or descend a vertical pole.

I took a deep breath and looked down.  Jeremiah motioned again for me to drop the spool.

I had no idea what else he had to send up, but I was pretty sure it was not anything that would give me more confidence in what I was about to attempt.

When he caught the spool bob again he turned his back and knelt covering what he was doing so I could not see.  When he had finished affixing whatever it was to the end of the thread, he turned again and looked up at me, this time cupping his hands around his mouth, once more risking exposure by calling up to me.

“Slowly,” he rasped making hand motions indicating that I should pull the line, then cupping his hands again said, “Very slowly.  This may break the line.”

That gave me no comfort, but I nodded and slowly began gathering the line in my hands, being very careful not to jerk it, or let my sense of urgency risk me drawing it too fast.  The item was heavier than the other and from what I could tell it appeared to be a set of leather saddle stirrups.  I saw a set of buckles and short cinches, and the stirrup had a heavier metal barb at the bottom, and from this, I realized he was sending me the climbing spikes, that would strap to my feet and calves and allow me to descend with the strap, rather than just relying on a fulcrum press.  Seeing these slightly spinning and twisting the stretched thread made me fearful of losing them.  I might have an even chance with these, but I would most certainly fall attempting the descent without them.  The tree bole was too big for me to get my arms around it, which was most likely why the harpy was confident that I would be here when she returned.  I took deep breaths, trying my best not to let the thread torque and weaken, but I could not prevent it from doing so.  Halfway up the metal and stirrups began to twist again, and I stilled my pulling, fighting the urgency and fear that made me desperate to jerk the gear upward.  Patience and deliberate action were not my strong suits, and I closed my eyes, struggling to find calm and peace, knowing that was needed.  I breathed deeply and slowly inch by inch began again.  A wave of heat shimmered my vision, and I felt the forest beyond growing hotter as the fires moved and licked steadily towards us.  Overhead I heard a whooshing noise, signifying that the canopy above me too was catching fire.

Sometimes in leadership, one is called to go forth alone and meet the wolf.  Others witnessing this might not understand what the lead is doing.  They will most certainly question it and ascribe motives for it, and even accuse them of cowardice.  One cannot reveal every private plan because not everything is subject to committee review.  When one is called to a mission, and he hears and seeks guidance from the One who calls him, sometimes that communication is held in the strictest confidence.  The charge I felt, moving down the road with the company of companions who were becoming more of a family to me is the sense that I must seek to follow what even may seem foolish to others if the One bids me do it.  The Ancient Texts reads:

“11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” [John 10:11-13 NIV]

My actions may appear to even those back on the road like that of the hireling, but it was towards the wolf, The Pan, I was moving to interdict his approach.  To stand and confront him, before he could get to my family.

The Xarmnian wolves had already taken part of my company and separated us.  The Pan, the ancient ruler of the Half-men, would find that his forward progression into the forest of Kilrane would be stopped here and now.  The satyrs would be close to him.  The dryads would not be far, and whatever else passes for his retinue would soon be gathered together in one place to vastly outnumber me if I moved against him.  But the truth is I did not stand alone.  As I moved through the gloom within the hearing of The Pan and his collected audience, I felt the quickening come upon me and flare brightly in my soul and spirit.  This was the right path.  My spirit within me confirmed it.  Foolish though it may seem, I was being led here.  It was time to take back what had been stolen and I might never have such an opportunity to do so again.

The Pan was ancient and dangerous.  His command and kingdom were governed by very valid fears of his might.  His roar rumbled the ground.  And Greek legend of him records that his angry shouts inspired terror, from whence we derive the word Panic.

As I moved through the smoke, my face covered and shielded by my cloak, my eyes stinging and watering as ash particles filled the air, it was with some surprise that I found myself saddened grabbed from behind and lifted aloft into the trees.

Great gray talons, with black hooked daggers, wove around my upper arms clasping me and pulling me towards the leafy sky.  A milky substance dribbled down upon my head and body, and I debated whether I should try to twist free or wait until I at least have the change to reach a limb of some kind to make my effort.  Craning my head to the side, I looked upward and saw the lower chin and bottom feathered breasts of what appeared to be an old woman.

A harpy.  Terrible creatures who carried a degree of angst for all mankind and their semblances.  Harpies were known to carry their victims to great heights and then drop them over rocks below so that they could come back down and more easily tear and chew the soft pieces of flesh that were tenderized by falling upon stone.

If this harpy took me much farther up or beyond the canopy, I was a dead man.

But I soon learned that was not her intention.

When she placed me in the treetops, over forty feet from the forest floor, and then left me there, I knew she had something else in mind.  Some particular form of nastiness she was reserving me for.

***

Jeremiah moved quickly and quietly through the woods along the rutted shoulder of the road.  Smoke poured through the forest undergrowth, being sifting by the trees coating everything with flakes of grey and white ash.  The fires were moving swiftly towards the slough and there were enough dried wood and decaying gasses from the rot to give the fire fuel for a flare-up. Peat moss, a pre-cursor to coal formulation, once ignited, however, might smolder for years.

There was no way to track O’Brian through such conditions.  Visibility was poor and the memories of what had happened between them and what had led to Caleb’s death still plagued his mind, unbidden.

Caleb, he sighed.  The pain of the terrible and pointless way he had died, due to following a plan hatched without the guidance of the One, by O’Brian, the erstwhile Brian David, so many years ago.  His failure to seek guidance had cost Caleb his life.  Forgiving him was a hard thing that had taken him many years to come to terms with.  Especially since “O’Brian” had basically dropped off the face of the map and had not been heard from nor seen in many, many years.

The loss and the pain had been particularly hard since Caleb was his only brother.

O’Brian, then Brian David, had come to him after seeking forgiveness and contrite, but Jeremiah was too grieved to offer him either.  The exchange between them had come to blows.  Upon reflection, however, Jeremiah recalled that Brian had not fought back.  Rather he had received his strikes as a kind of penance.  Bloodied and battered, he’d stood up from the ground, taken one last look at Jeremiah and then walked away, never to show himself again.  Until today.  If Jeremiah could find him in time.  The fool had gone to face The Pan on his own.  A stupid, stupid surrender of tactical maneuvering.  A suicide mission that would only get himself killed and would serve nothing.  But perhaps that is what the man wanted all along.  To die at the hands of the very one who had killed Caleb and then fed his body to Manticores.

***

The harpy, called Dellitch, had been scalded and scarred in the top canopy fight with the dryads, but she was feeling savagely victorious.  Over forty of the dryads had either fallen under wet claws or been consumed by the spreading fires.  Recompense for the sisters she had lost over the years when they were starved out or ostracized by the other races of Half-men creatures.  The dryads had been given this new forest, while the harpies had been left to subsist under the blighted remains of the prior home they’d once shared together.

She’d been only too happy to enlist her sisters in service to The Pan when she learned he had the need to clear a forest of dryads.  What he did not know, however, was the extent to which they would go to clear that wood, or how deeply their collective rage had rooted itself within them over the years.  The dryads had renewal and rebirth, the satyrs had their debaucheries and reveling pleasures, the others had many other things to distract them from the inexorable curse that would one day claim them, but the harpies had only vengeance to cling to.

And Dellitch, knowing she would be returning to face The Pan’s rage once he had discovered what they had done, along the way to her accounting had a fortuitous finding.  A male Surface Worlder, whom she had swooped in from the fog and smoke and had captured and deposited upon a high bough for safekeeping while she announced her fortune to her sisters.  They had flown ahead to proclaim their find to The Pan, just ahead of another flock of sisters who also bore a prize of their own.

It had been too late for Dellitch to call her sisters back and delay the announcement, but these others might mitigate any leniency she had hoped to have from The Pan bearing such a prize, by offering one of their own.

How many other Surface Worlder’s might there be traveling under the smoke and haze of Kilrane?  Having one prize among another of equal value might reduce the appeal, but finding the others and delivering a group of them to The Pan might raise her offering’s value.  Meat for one surely was less impressive than a banquet of meat for all.

***

Maeven gathered and beckoned the company to come together and stand under the strange ceremonial canopy growing beneath the trees.

“This is the Faerie Fade.  We will all be safe under here.  Gather around.”

Begglar grinned and took his wife’s hand, “Remember this place, Nellus?”

Nell smiled and brushed her fingers lightly over the woven vines and ornate carvings and touched the rough and smooth bark of the tree posts that held the living ceiling above them with its large circular carve-out with wooden spokes that radiated outward.

“I do,” she smiled and turned softening, moistened eyes to Maeven, “Begglar and I were married here.  This is the place.  We have been looking for it for many years but could never find it.”

“You were married here?” Dominic asked.

“Aye, son,” Begglar patted his arm, “And your mom was a sight to behold.  I nearly cried like a baby when I saw her coming through the woods there.  A few maids bearing her gown.  Petals of white scattered upon the path up through the woods to this small him.  Our cleric ready and waiting to join us in the covenant.”

“Nearly?  You did,” Nell rejoined, “I never thought I’d see such a big bear of a man cry, but he was blubbering like a fish.”

Begglar chuckled, “Funny how tenderness had a way of touching you like nothing else does.”

“He cried when you were born to, Dom,” Nell grinned, “The old softie.”

“Excuse me guys, but I don’t see how any of this helps us,” Christopher spoke up, “This canopy doesn’t have any walls, except the back one, and that does seem strong enough to withstand a gentle breeze.  What we need is some sort of fortification.  Something that we can lock and bolt down.  Anyone with an ax can take this down in a minute.  Excuse me for saying it, but you are wasting our time having us get here.  I doubt that Jeremiah cares much about the danger we are in or O’Brian or anyone but himself, for that matter.”

Begglar spoke up, “Now hold it just a wee bit, there.  There is protection in a place like this.  Powerful protection.  Look around you, lad.  This place is a place of covenant.  You are standing in a sacred place.  The Pan and all his might and menageries can do nothing to harm us here.  Maeven was right to bring us here.  This is the safest place in the wood.”

Lindsey took it all in fingering the ornately woven latticed bridgework, admiring it earthy construction and the deft folding and weaving of branches making symbolic patterns in the back wall and overhead ceiling of moss, branch and grafted timber growing in and out of the patterns.

“Well I like it here,” she interrupted, “There is something peaceful and sad about it, but it feels lovely.  Such intricate designs.  I see the casements of four windows there in the back.  I can almost imagine colored, stained-glass panes.  Like this is a holy place.”

“It is,” Nell stepped up emphatically, pointing to the four posts holding the outer structure, “Don’t think that protection always comes in the form you expect it to.  This holy place is guarded by forces you cannot imagine.”

Matthew leaned back to Mason, “I don’t see anything.  Do you see anything?”

Tiernan joined in, “You said this place was a covenant place.  Begglar and Nell say they were married here?  What did you mean by that, Maeven?”

Maeven, teared up slightly, “I…,” she swallowed hard, “The places here in this land are unlike anything I’ve been to in my waking life on the Surface.  Right now, back in my waking life, I have lost…”  She covered her mouth with her hand choking back emotion she wasn’t ready to share with the group.

Laura and Christie both came to her side, their comforting arms gathering her in protectively.

Nell turned to the others, “In our world, as I was told once was in your world, marriage is a protective covenant.  Here is has visible power.  The One ordained it as an original ordinance for all humankind.  It is an everlasting symbol of His redemption and relationship with His redeemed.”

“I don’t see how it connects,” Christopher said, “Marriage doesn’t mean much in our world.”

“That is because it has been stripped away from its intention.  It is not treated as a covenant anymore,” James, who had been quiet up to this point, offered.

“Sometimes divorce is a good thing,” Laura muttered.

Nell moved to the front post of the enclosure, “Can I show you something of what it means here?”

[Author’s Note:  Illustrated graphic follows this section, depicting the images and symbolism to help the reader visualize what they are being shown.]

“Yes!” Lindsey spoke up, “Please do.”

“Maeven, are you okay with this?” Nell asked, “What do you say of marriage?  I know you are suffering from the loss of your spouse, but if you had it to do over again, knowing such pain, would you have wanted to make the decision to marry?”

Maeven though tearful-eyed, nodded emphatically, “No.  I cherished every precious moment, good and bad.  Tell them.  They need to hear it.”

Begglar turned to the young men, “Gentlemen, are you okay with hearing what needs to be said?  This place is full of visual symbols that represent concepts that make up the picture of the Holy One’s intention.  In this world, marriage is a position of honor, the basic unit from which society is built and it is sacred.  The Xarmnians view it only as an institution, but unnecessary.  That is why their societal structures fail.  Theirs’ is a kingdom of fear.  The wife is merely a convenience and property.  A servant that may be beaten at their master’s will, but must serve the master’s flesh primarily.  They have no standing other than their utilitarian value.  They are considered less equal than men.  If any of you view women in such a way, you should know that you have more in common with the brutal dictators that oppress these lands than the One who calls you to this quest.  Do you understand this?”

Nell turned to her husband, “So you remember all this?”

“I do,” Begglar grinned and winked at Nellus, drawing her into his arms and kissed her on the forehead, “And I do.”

“For instance, the two front posts of this canopy: they are pillars supporting a structure.  The front and side walls of this covering are missing because this covenant is meant to be made public so that those outside may witness the miracle of covenant union.  Everything beyond the pillars is full in public view as a testimony of this divine arrangement.  The sides of the structure are also open on both the brides’ side and the groom’s side so that the family and friends of each, standing on either side of the structure may witness the covenant through their relationship with the bride or groom.  These are each’s intimate public.  This is why the sides and front remain open.”

Begglar moved to the front tree trunk on the left and then place his hand upon it.  “This pillar represents society.  It can be those of the community in which this couple will live.”

He walked the expanse to the right side and placed his hand upon the other tree trunk post support the awning roof of the enclosure.  “This pillar represents societal laws and the protection of the covenant relationship as an institution valued to remain intact.  These laws protect the mutual rights of the spouse, under the institution, and ascribe certain duties of provision and responsibility within the relationship.  The laws also protect the children that arise as part of that relationship and duties held to the parents.”

From there, Begglar moved to the back wall, which was bordered and supported by four living trees, two serving as interior columns, and two serving as exterior columns supporting both the roof and the back wall.

“These outer columns framing the back wall represent the family structure that the two people are joining into.  You can see that they are joined together by the only shared wall of this structure.  They are bonded together and related.  One post to the left is the column of the family of the bride, the other to the right is the column of the family of the groom.  All four outer posts are rooted in the ground and grow out of it.  Root systems are deep and extend below the visible ground representing traditions that were in place long before the witnesses were ever born or the union proposed.”

Both Christie pointed, “What do…?” and James began, “How about…?” accidentally interrupting one another.

“I’m sorry,” James said, “You first.”

“That’s alright you go ahead.”

“No, please.  I insist.  Ladies first,” James demurred.

“Why does it have to be ladies first?  Go ahead.  Ask your question,” Christie returned.

“And that is how it begins…,” Nell grinned.

Christie whipped her head around, “What?”

“Christie, please ask your question,” Nell smiled broadly.

She glanced at James searching to see if she missed something, and then turned again to Begglar.

“I just wanted to know what these two interior columns represented supporting the inner wall.”

“On the left side of the door in the center, the post represents the bride.  Her person, her experiences, her past and her future.  The part you see visible is only the moment in time that she comes to this moment.  You will notice, that both her roots and her top are beyond view.  Her past is covered by the soil of this carved-out floor.  Her top, her future, extends above the ceiling.  We witnesses of the ceremony held under this covering do not know all that led her to this moment, nor will we know all that will arise from this moment, for we are not given to see everything.  The same is true for the other column, the tree that represents the groom, adding his own support to the back wall within the frame of family.  The bride and groom post share support of the single back wall connected to the outer posts, which represent the extended family.  The joining of heritages and ancestry for forge a new line and branch of the family tree.”

Here Begglar paused and turned to his wife, “My darling, please continue.”

Nell nodded and applauded her husband’s recitation of the history and symbolism, “Very well done, my Dearest Love.”

She approached him, as if she was walking on air, and tiptoed, to which he bowed so she might kiss him lightly on the cheek.  In so doing, she took his face in her hands, gazed into his eyes and said, “Pirate McGregor or Begglar, my Love, there is no escaping it.  You will always be a wanted man,” and with that, she lightly kissed him on the nose, and then seemed to dance away, as if twenty years of hard life had been erased, and she was a young girl again.

“See the back wall?  On either side of the doorway, on both the bride’s side and the groom’s side there are two window casement frames.  See them?” she pointed to each set, like a woman display a showcase of fabulous prizes on a game show.

“These window sets represent the parents of the bride and the groom.  The father casement is on the exterior closest to the public outer courts.  This placement is deliberate because fathers represent the barrier of protection for this family and this covenant union before the outside world.  When a man and women walk side by side, the man is responsible to take the place of protection which means if they are walking along-side a roadway, he stands between the road and the woman to protect her with his body should a horse or wagon run astray and strike her down.  It is his place to take the hit that will spare her life if need be.  He is her human guardian protecting her physically.  He is the one given the potential for the greater physical strength of form.  This is his rightful and respectful place within the relationship.”

“But what if the woman is stronger than he is?” Laura asked.

“As I said, it is his place.  Not hers.  The position is not about capacity or ability.  It is about the role that gives him the respect he needs within the relationship.  If the woman takes his role, she also takes his respectful place away.  If she loves him, she won’t do this to him.  He needs her honor, every bit as much as she needs him to love and cherish her.”

“I never thought about it like that,” Laura said seeming to think this over.

“There is a lot, that is not taught anymore in your world, dear.  Don’t fault yourself for not knowing it.”

Christopher spoke up, “I still don’t get how all this symbolism helps us.”

Tiernan had listened to all of this and interjected, “Hush up, dude.  I want to hear this.  If they say this place makes us safe, they know better than we do.  They live here and there are things about this land that we are still learning.”

“But why is this called ‘The Faerie Fade’?” he shrugged, “I don’t understand what the name means any more than how understanding marriage will make us safe.  It sure didn’t help my folks.  They fought all the time.  I was glad when they busted up.  They threw things, and almost set the house on fire when they left the stove on.  My brother and I hid in the attic and they almost didn’t find us in time.”

“Dude, that’s harsh, man,” Mason said, “I’m sorry, Bro.”

“Don’t be.  I was so glad when the court gave me and Benjamin to Granna and Grampa.  My parents were nuts.  It all worked out.  Marriage is misery, man.”

Begglar put a hand on Chris’s shoulder, “And that, lad, is why this is important for you to hear.  Your parents got it wrong.  They did not model marriage the way it was intended.  Don’t judge the ordinance too harshly, without learning its good.  Be glad that your Grands were there to show you the love that you needed.  I assume they had some affection between them?”

Christopher considered this a moment.  “Yeah, I guess so.  But they were old people.  Young people don’t follow the old ways anymore.”

Begglar laughed in spite of the implication that he too was an “old” person.

“And it is because they do not follow the old way, that they fail in their new ways.  Would you give a mind to that?”

Chris considered and then nodded, “Okay.  So, what does all this on the ceiling represent?”

“Well, now, I am very glad you asked that because these are very important.  See the big circle there in the center, surrounded by four semi-circles or half-circles?”

“Yeah.”

“The groom and the bride stand directly under the biggest circle in the center there, and that is where they say their covenant vows in front of each other.  Not to each other.  This is where the Surface World gets it wrong.  The circle there represents completeness and it represents God Almighty and the witness of Heaven.  This is to Whom the covenant vows are made.  Not to each other.  A covenant made to a fallible human being is doomed to fail and is conditional upon the feelings and attitudes towards each other.  Most Surface World marriages are based upon this which is why they fail.  They set conditions.  There are certain conditions given by Heaven that allow for the dissolution of marriage and those are infidelity, abuse, and harm.  One of the spouses who causes such is breaking faith with the One who oversees all covenants.  By focusing on their resentments towards the other spouse, they justify harm, but they are dishonoring the One who established the covenant protection and will eventually stand before Him and give account for what they did.  God witnesses covenants.  He is present and presides over them in the same way He did of old.  The Ancient Texts says:

“6 Place the incense altar just outside the inner curtain that shields the Ark of the Covenant, in front of the Ark’s cover–the place of atonement–that covers the tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant. I will meet with you there.” [Exodus 30:6 NLT]

…The man or woman who uses their body to break faith will stand under the judgment of Heaven, even as this betrothed couple stands under this symbolic circle under this canopy, making their vows.”

“So, if my dad cheated on my mom…”

“Yes, son.  He will account for it.  Remember his duty to physically protect the union from the outside world?  He brings dishonor to his role.  If he raises his fists and dishonors his wife in so doing, he brings violence and dishonor to his role.  The man is more severely judged for this, because to him is given that role of physical protection.”

“What if he doesn’t pay child support?  What then?”

“Same thing.  Is a child physically harmed if they are not fed and clothed?”

“Yes.  I guess so.”

“Then his physical protection falls short and he is not honoring the role he is called to.  Under marriage, the family is an extension of the bond between the husband and wife.  He must bring honor to his role.”

Tiernan spoke up, “What if his wife cheats on him?  What then?”

Nell spoke up, “The she is subverting his role as physical protector.  If she brings dishonor to a role that is not her own, she then owns the consequences of violating that role.  Understand?”

Christie joined in, “So is one role more important than the other?”

“No,” Nell answered, “Importance does not play into it.  Both roles are essential.  Both are pivotal.”

“So, what is the woman’s role,” Christie asked, “Have babies, cook, clean and be submissive?”

Begglar sighed, “That is Xarmnian mentality that does not value the individual or lift or cherish the relationship.  No person is merely utilitarian in the relationship.”

Nell came and stood by her husband, “No one likes to be taken for granted or just used.  There is no joy or love in that, dear.  Have you not read the Ancient Text words?”

“4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” [1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT]

“This is a covenant of love.  It is protected by it but be sure and understand what love is as defined by the One who oversees its coverage under a covenant vow made to Him.”

“So, when this couple makes their vows, what happens next?” James asked.

Begglar smiled and put his arm around Nell’s waist, “They stand together, while the cleric draws a ring around them in the ground with a cross-stick hung on the doorway there.  This is called the ring of the covenant and it is drawn directly below the circle above, but not wider than Heaven’s circle above.  This is done to show that the covenant is sealed under Heaven’s covering.”

“Wow,” Lindsey remarked, “That is a beautiful thought.  So what do the four half-circles represent?”

Begglar spoke up, “They represent the boundaries of our existence.  The two closest to the back wall represent Time and Height.  Time is on the female side, Height is on the male side.  The two semi-circles toward the front of the Faerie Fade ceiling are Length and Breadth or Depth.  Length is longevity, and females, if properly cared for and cherished tend to live longer than males.  Depth is the plumb line of Wisdom and it is given on the male’s side to discern for the safety of his cherished bride.  These are the boundaries but are not the limits of love.  For the Ancient text says:

“38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:38-39 NIV]”

“So what is left?” Matt asked, “The door?  Where does it lead?  I see only a wall but it doesn’t appear to have a room beyond it.  There is just more forest back there.”

“We will get to the door in a moment,” Nell said.  “Do you see the benches here?”

Several nodded, but Mason said, “I just figured those were there for when the people get tired of long discussions.”

Both Matt and Christopher laughed, and the others chuckled as did Nell herself.

“That is a good reason,” she acknowledged, “But there is only room enough for two couples.  These are places of honor on earth for two sets of very important witnesses to the union of the betrothed couple.  Unfortunately, these seats cannot always be filled, as in our case.  My parents died in Azragoth before they could witness Begglar and I getting married.  Some couples have absent parents, missing parents or unknown parents.  The point is the intention that the seats are there, whether they get filled or not.  God prepares a banquet, a wedding feast, more than adequate to feed every guest invited to His table, but not everyone invited chooses to come, though ample accommodation is still made had they chosen otherwise.  Blessings await, but few of these are ever experienced if those invited do not decide to come by choice.  These places of honor and witness still remain.  The most tragic loss, however, is of empty seats, where the invited guests to the ceremony refused to come.”

Begglar stood behind Nell placing comforting hands upon her shoulders, knowing it was hard for her speaking of this, and remembering the sadness of seeing empty benches on both sides.

“The half circles in the ceiling above are not only the dimensions of existence but windows from every aspect of it.  Windows so that witnesses from all of heaven and all those who have gone before can view the love covenant of this union.  Nellus’ parents, my parents were present at our ceremony viewing us symbolically through these windows, even if they were not physically present to occupy the honor chairs.”

There was a long pause while they all reflected upon this too frequent reality with a sobering solemnity.

Maeven spoke up, “Tell them about the door.”

“Ah, the door,” Begglar said, “That is where the walking begins, where the covenant moves from promise to action.  There is a symbol here on the door, and the tool used to draw the circle is hung here.  The tool is in the form of a cross.  It is central to the door.  There are two lines on either side of it carved out.  These represent the two separate lifelines of both the bride and the groom.  In the center here, where the cross lines meet are a set of diamond-shaped engravings one within the other.  The diamonds are formed by two triangles joined together at the baseline, set with points facing away top to bottom left to right so that together they form the diamond shape.  Three points have triangles, which represent the triune aspects of a person: body, soul, and spirit.  The husband and the wife, each their own person, yet joined in togetherness along a shared baseline where two aspects of their personhood are in direct fellowship.  Body and soul.  The spirit points away showing a vigilant watch and guard of each other.  There are two of these diamond shapes, one within the other, at the section that crosses it.  This is the intention of the relationship of oneness.  That they are joined together in harmony, physicality, and soul, each watching out for the other.  And that this union is contained and empowered by an ever greater union of joining with the Oneness of God as His Bride through the Power of the Cross.  The ovoid symbol below here represents Fellowship.  It was a symbol of the Early Church.  Called an ichthus (ΙΧΘΥΣ), it is a fish symbol, representing the call to be fishers of men.  At the close of the covenant ceremony, the couple leaves together through this doorway, as will we.  This is how we will together, once Jeremiah and O’Brian return, will get safely out of Kilrane.”

“So, we go out of the backdoor?” Laura asked.

“No, dear,” Nell answered patient and lovingly, “This is the front door.  A very special doorway.  It doesn’t appear like much on the outside.  A simple narrow wooden doorway, one must enter one at a time.  The husband takes his wife by the hand and leads her through it.  This is the time when it is not, as you said James, ‘Ladies first’.  It is the man’s place to lead lovingly and gently.  To face whatever danger exists on the other side first to protect her with his body as a shield.  Like a man-at-arms goes before his queen, he is to lead her to a safe and cherished place.”

“What are these symbols on either side of the doorway?” Lindsey asked, touching their carvings softly.  “They look like a flower in a circle.”

“Ah,” Begglar said, “And at last we come to it.  This is the reason why this place is called The Faerie Fade.”

Maeven, who had been quiet again up to this point, spoke up, “They’re here.  In the forest.  I saw them.  They’ve come back to Kilrane.”

“What have?” Lindsey asked, wrinkling her nose in a puzzled grin, “The flowers?”

Maeven turned towards her, very serious and very quietly said, “Those are not flowers.  What looks like the top and bottom petals of a flower to you, are not fronds or leaves.  They are a body, a humanlike form, with four wings in a circle of light.  The locals call them Faeries here.  But they are very powerful and very, very dangerous.  They are the guardians of this portal.  Anyone who enters it who is not covered under a covenant of faith will not survive it.”

“What do you mean, ‘will not survive it’?” Chris asked.

“Just what she said,” Nell added, “There are those in our traveling companions who were taken prisoner, that would not make it out of Kilrane if the Xarmnians had not already taken them.  They would not survive this portal, because it is a hallowed place that no darkness or darkened soul can enter.  Only covenant provides safe passage through.”

Tiernan cleared his throat, “So, why would the Half-men permit the Xarmnian Protectorate or whoever, to take those through without killing them all?”

Begglar addressed his question, “Because the Xarmnians are in league with the Half-men and have brokered a truce with The Pan to allow them passage through the wilds.  The Pan has given his kinds strict warning that they are not to molest the Xarmnians or meddle in their affairs and The Pan severely enforces his warnings even among his own subjects.”

The group each looked from one to the other, worriedly, taking deep breaths trying to process what was being told to them.

“What does ‘Fade’ mean?” Chris asked, ever the inquisitive one.

Begglar answered, “When we go through the doorway together, you’ll see for yourself.”

Lindsey said, “But how do you know we will all be safe through there?  How do you know?  Do we all have to get married?  Or be married?”

Nell smiled and stroked her face gently, gazing directly into her eyes.  “Because, child,” she reassured her, “I can see that you all shine, and you are all already under a yielded covenant with the One.  Marriage is a mirror of the relationship of faith in the One.  You are a bride under your faith already, even if not a betrothed one here with a spouse.  Remember there are two diamonds on the doorway.  Two forms of covenant that protects.  Ideally, both are within the faith covenant, when spouses vow together.  That is the One’s intention for the greatest good and protection of the sanctity of marriage.  Each is accountable to Him for their treatment of the other.  Each acknowledges their covenant to the One as the primary relationship, and to their spouse as secondary, contained within the primary covenant.  Understand?”

“I think I do,” Lindsey whispered, more to herself than to Nell.

“Can we open the door and sort of check it out first?” Matthew asked.

Begglar stood in front of the door as if by symbolic answer.  “There is no halfway, once the door is opened.  No hesitation on the threshold.  Once this door is opened, there is no turning back.  The called one must lead through it.  That is why it is important to have O’Brian here.  Otherwise, we will become separated and they may not find us, once we’re through.  The portal here is mysterious and unlike any other.  All others who stand under the ceiling will be drawn into it once it is opened, so even the parents and the officiating cleric must step out from under the covering before the groom opens the doorway.  Where it takes those who enter, is determined by the One, but it is always the next step on the journey.  Every choice made apart from the intention of the One leads to personal and collateral pain for others.  This is why it is important to know the intentions of the One.  Why His words revealed in the Ancient text mean so much here.  It reveals the way to the abundance of life and His greatest good for each of you.  It gives meaning to your every breath and your unique design and purpose.  It invests you with the knowledge of your own value to Him.  It tells you why you were born.  And how to ignite the torchlight of your soul.”

“So, marriage is actually a good thing,” Chris said.

“Yes, lad,” Begglar said, “A very good thing, once you understand its intention.  This is why this place means so much to Nell and I.  It reminds us of how good love is.  Just like the Ancient Text reminds us all.”

“Then why is it that so many people get it wrong and screw up so many lives in the process?” Laura asked thinking of her family.

Begglar said, “There is a verse that speaks to that.  The Ancient Text says:

“14 But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ.” [2 Corinthians 3:14 NLT]

…The outside world simply cannot understand this kind of covenant.  Only a heart that is opened by the One, has a chance.”

Laura nodded, taking this all in thoughtfully, but then she turned and addressed one of the young men in the group.

“Dominic, are you betrothed to someone?”

The group burst out laughing and Dominic blushed bright red.

***

Syloam marked well where the harpy called Mawgla finally landed with her Will in tow.  And it was with some stealth and skill that she finally made her way down the back of the tree where Will was held at its base.

The harpies Mawgla, Awlen, Grawla, and Dawlen huddled together around their captive discussing how best to present their prize when they were suddenly startled to overhear the other harpies flying above announcing to The Pan that they had taken a Surface Worlder prisoner, for they had not yet announced their victim and had been savoring the chance to do so.  They felt upstaged by this announcement and resentful.

“How is it that they get to announce and take credit for our capture, Grawla?!” Awlen asked, indignant.

“Perhaps they saw us coming with him, sister,” Dawlen grumped, her wrinkled face looking even more pinched than it had before.

“I knew Dellitch and her sisters would eventually betray us,” Mawgla growled, “It is a foul day indeed, when we can no longer trust our own kind.”

Grawla fluffed her breast ruffle, drying it from the oil froth that still left a residue or foam on her black and gray feathers.

“Perhaps they have recovered another captive,” she combed the fluff with the hooked claw extending from her wing.

“Then what is to become of ours?  Shall we eat him ourselves?” Mawgla asked.

“I could just tender him up a bit,” Dawlen drooled, licking her pinched lips with a pinkish-gray tongue.

“Better partial glory that no glory, I’d say,” Awlen regarded Will with gimlet eyes, “Though a bite or two might not be noticed.”

Grawla regarded the young man who now lay exhausted and sore from dangled carry through the forest, his eyes dulled and surrendered to whatever fate might await.  She considered and then turned.

“Better to deliver this scrap meat to The Pan.  But go in and scout the prize these others have brought if they have any.  Let them be diminished before The Pan when they offer.  If they have claimed our trophy, let us hide him away for ourselves and see how they fare making promises they cannot deliver upon.  Let The Pan change who leads our kind, by eliminating our competition for flock rulership.”

And with that, Mawgla, Awlen, and Dawlen took wing again to watch the spectacle happing ahead with The Pan and his retinue, leaving Grawla to watch after their prisoner.

When they had gone, tiny green tendrils began to creep along the lower ground and up quietly within the leaves of a bush, near where Grawla scraped the ground with her large claws, looking for grubs and other crawling insects along the ground.  The tendrils thickened, and green eyes and a cream-colored clear complexion looked upon the unwary harpy with hatred.

It only took a second for Syloam to lunge forward and seize the harpy, her thick vines, and branches clutching fiercely to her throat as the harpy lurched from the impact.

“Death for death!” Syloam hissed, through clenched teeth and suddenly felt herself being ripped from the bush and drawn upward.  The harpy, despite the stranglehold, was strong and powerful, and she was flying upward at an incredible speed.

The two bursts through the tree canopy, Syloam twisting and writhing tightening her vines ever stronger around Grawla’s throat.  There had been no time to find an anchor shoot to prevent the harpy from carrying her upward, for she was so intent on killing the harpy.  Higher and higher they flew, pirouetting into the blazing sun, a terrible pain burning upon Syloam’s legs as she realized the harpy was draining milk down upon her dangling legs.

If she was going to die, she resolved, she would not die alone.

From a distance, the aerial struggle between the land and the sky played out in slips and lateral spins and twists, but eventually, the harpy stopped climbing, and the trembling vines and branches stopped flailing in the high wind.  And together they fell downward, locked upon each other in a death grip until they plummeted through the forest and disappeared, never to rise again.

***

Jeremiah heard the shrieks and screeches as the shadowy figures ahead fought and then flew upward.  He saw the prone figure lying at the base of the tree but could not tell if it was the one he’d once known as Brian David or not.

The man looked too young, and he did not recognize him.  He bent down and tried to wake him.  Upon closer inspection, he noticed the young man’s upper torso was covered in fine golden dust.

“Dryads!  Ah, this is not good,” he shook the man again, slapping him lightly across the cheek, and the man finally opened his eyes and held his gaze for a moment.

“I see you can hear me,” and then his eyes shifted from the man’s glistening and sweat-smeared cheeks.

Golden dust transferred from the man’s yellowed face to Jeremiah’s hand and he wiped the substance from his fingers with a handful of scattered leaves.

“How do I always get myself into other people’s troubles?” he said to no one in particular.

“Why can’t I just be left well-enough alone?” he sighed, seeming to have an internal dialogue with himself and someone other than himself.

“Alright,” he sighed, “You win.  You always do.”

Jeremiah knew he could not risk freeing the young man from his bonds.  Not yet anyway, so he reached into his pack and pulled out some short lengths of rope to further restrain the man.

“What is your name?”  The young man only stared dully at him and did not answer, but it was clear to Jeremiah that the boy had heard his question.

“Alright then.  Be obstinate.”

“I should leave you here,” Jeremiah continued, beginning to quickly wrap and tie the man’s hands and feet, but he did mark that this man was a Surface Worlder, and in dire need of rescue, “but I won’t.  He won’t let me.  I can’t avoid becoming like them if I don’t treat my own any better, so you’re coming with me.  Like it or not.”

With that, he reached down and grabbed him lifting in a fireman’s carry and proceeded onward, searching where O’Brian might have gone.  The young man did not protest or struggle.  Clearly, for whatever moment the young man had been with him, he was out again, but perhaps, Jeremiah thought, that was for the best.

Moving gingerly forward, with his new burden, he carefully scanned the forest floor, trying to see through the growing smoke, but it was growing thicker by the moment.  He chanced a gaze upward and blinked.  He rubbed his watering eyes with his hand, to be sure, but thought he saw a figure of a man, high up on a tree limb about forty feet off the ground.  The tree bole was too thick for the man to have climbed up himself, and he was puzzled.  A slight corona of light outlined the figure’s body against the dark leaves.  The man’s build was larger than the boy he’d carried.  No one had mentioned this boy to him on the road, so he wondered if O’Brian might have had a better reason to go out into the woods alone.  Perhaps, he’d misjudged him.  Ahead was a murky watered stream that eventually spread out and stilled.  The slough.  The black mud was thick and foul-smelling.  Hazes of bugs and flying gnats swarmed the dead pooling slimy water.  Frogs and snakes tried to survive in it and each other.  Boglins were sometimes seen about.  Half-men creatures comprised of both man and frog.  Weird creatures that lived on decay, rodents and various and sundry swamp animals.

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the man above just might be Brian, or O’Brian as he was called now.  A lot had changed.  When the man in the treetops suddenly spoke loudly to some group gathered in the clearing below, he was certain of who it was.

‘No’, he thought to himself, ‘The man is still foolish and impulsive’.

When he heard the rumbling voice of The Pan respond, Jeremiah shook his head, “Not foolish.  Downright insane.”

***

I had very little hope of making it out of the tree except by a nasty fall.  I had no way to know what I was supposed to do next and was growing desperate and having trouble with doubts and fears that I had misinterpreted the Spirit’s urging to go and confront The Pan.  This was a terrible development putting me in a more desperate situation.

“What am I doing?  Why am I here?  How am I even helping the situation?  Oh Lord, why did You call me to lead?  I am failing at every turn.  Help me find Your Way.”

Then like soft rain upon my heated brow the following words of the Ancient Texts came into my mind.

“7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You [are] there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You [are there]. 9 [If] I take the wings of the morning, [And] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.” [Psalm 139:7-10 NKJV]

There was a purpose, even in this predicament, though it eluded me at the moment.  It had felt right that I scout out the way ahead and determine the situation with The Pan and what manner of creatures attended it, but I had hoped to do so under the low-lying brush and not trapped in the tops of a tree.

I scanned the tree limbs above me.  This limb that I had been flung upon, was the lowest and thickest limb that could safely bear the weight of a man.  The limbs above slowly diminished in thickness and size, but they did extend outward enough that I could possibly reach across to a branch from one of the other surrounding trees, and work my way back down from there.  I could not get down as it was, for the bole of the tree was too big for me to safely wrap my legs and arms around its girth.  The harpy had chosen this high redoubt judiciously, safely imprisoning me while she attended other nefarious errands.

It would be risky, but I believed I could ascend somewhat and see if I could get a bearing on where we were within Kilrane.  Perhaps, I could sight The Pan and his devilish brood and find a way to bypass them.  To do so, I would need to gain a better understanding of the lay of the land, above the treetops.

So carefully I climbed upward, being certain of the strength of each radiating branch, as I placed my arms and feet carefully.  I am not afraid of heights, but I understood that I would need to be very careful to avoid getting vertigo.  I climbed another fifteen feet before the canopy began to thin enough for me to see through and over the surrounding forest.  To the north, the fires smoked and blazed, crawling steadily and wickedly across the tops of the tree canopy.  Strange figures, seemed to ascend out of the heat shimmer all around, some black and feathered, with some sort of firelight brands gilding their wings with smoke and flame.  These I recognized as more of the fiendish kind that put me in my present predicament.  Among these swooping and cackling fiends were odd angular shapes that morphed and elongated strangely, flaring out whip-like flagella at the flying creatures, having little success.  The glowing canopy engulfed these angular creatures in flame and smoke, such that fewer and fewer rose upward above the treetops.  It was clear to me then that the harpies were using the excuse of the forest inferno to rid themselves of their arch-enemies which had taken up illegal residence in the lands of men.  The conflict had not yet reached my proximity, but it soon would, and I knew that I could not risk being spotted by either of these dangerous groups of combatants.

I then turned towards the west and spotted movement on an exposed curve of the winding roads passing through the forest of Kilrane.  I could not be sure, but it appeared to be the back of our wagon, entrusted to us, by the Azragothians for our journey.  I could not see more than two riders, and I wondered at what had befallen the rest of our party, but then focusing outward a little further to the south, I saw a clearing and an open field, and a site that almost made my heart stop.  A flag standard was raised in the midst of the field, and the field seemed to move and undulate with an encampment of armored Xarmnian soldiers.  Had we but followed the forest road a little further we would have run right smack into their camp but would have been spotted and captured long before that, for the Xarmnians were not imbeciles and would have established a forest-watch.  I looked closer trying to measure their troop-strength, and the size of their party, but was surprised to see, flying in and out from among them, the hideous old harpies, circulating from some edge of the encampment and flying sorties back into the forest.  Clearly, the Xarmnians had formed some sort of alliance with these harpies, and the shock of it, almost made me forget where I was and lose my grip, clutching my arms around the tree.

I searched the remaining direction within the forest but was unable to locate where The Pan might have moved to.  If The Pan and the Xarmnians were in league together, then Azragoth was in more grave danger than I had thought.  Something had been informing these enemies of their renewed presence within the old abandoned and fire gutted city, and I strongly suspected that the harpies had something to do with that.

Was it only a faction of harpies working in concert with the Xarmnians?  Had The Pan offered the armies of Xarmni aid?  There was no way to tell, but I knew this information could not be entrusted to just anyone.  There may be a traitor within Azragoth getting ready to help these erstwhile adversaries to work in tandem to put down the heart of the secret resistance.  Suddenly, I knew why I had been led towards this path, though it had not been my intention, I served at the design of the One who still called me forth.  This was why I had been directed into the wolf’s lair.  Not to find the disposition of The Pan or to see if he still bore the lost Cordis stone, effected by mine and Caleb’s past foolishness.  It was to be brought here to see and to remember, that even though I might not be aware of it, I was still being moved, despite my own foolishness by His unseen hand to accomplish His purpose rather than my own.

The wagon had disappeared from view, but I could also see some sort of wheeled cage being guarded within the Xarmnian camp.  It was too far away for me to tell clearly, but I was certain, I saw the faintest glimpse of long blonde hair lean in under the sunlight that I recognized.  A woman, I knew to be tall and slender.  Fierce-eyed and intelligent, but tender and caring as well.  The Mid-World citizens were very rarely ever blonde-headed, so I surmised that this one must be one of my company.  Cheryl, I believe was her name, though she had not given me her moniker, I had heard Miray mention her as one who had resisted when the Xarmnians had accosted and captured them.  I was relieved to see that she was still alive and perhaps had formulated some plan in her mind as to how to effect their release.

Dornsdale was the next large town beyond “Sorrow’s Gate” located to the west at the foot of the high plains pass, where we had sent down the wreck of Begglar’s original buckboard wagon.  It was firmly under Xarmnian control and had been since before I left twenty-one years ago.  The occupied town was the seat of a fist, which the Xarmnians used to keep the other townships in abeyance.  If the Xarmnians were to take their prisoners anywhere, that was the most logical destination to take them to first, unless…

No, I could not even think it.

Suddenly from behind me, I heard noises coming across the canopy.  The movement sounded as if it was coming from some distance.  The fires were surging over the treetops and rapidly coming my way, yet there was something moving at a high rate of speed just below the leafy canopy making a hissing sound that frightened me.  Had I been spotted?  Was the harpy returning?  I desperately needed to get down from this tree and quickly, but the intervening branches were clearly not thick enough to hold me to span the gaps between my present perch and the trees surrounding it.

I had to move down again.  Back to the lower branch where the harpy had left me.  The fires would be over me soon and would take a while to get to me on the lower bough.  Climbing nimbly and as quick as I could, my heart racing, my ears thundering with the tympani rumble of my pulse, I twisted in my decent, ducking once again below the canopy, and saw something flashing in the distance.

My mind leaped to the obvious conclusion.  The fires of Azragoth were blazing towards me.  They had ignited in the dry leaves of the canopy and were rapidly spreading across the treetops, flash burning as they came roaring forward.  I was going to die here.  Roasted alive like a featherless bird in a nest.

Surely this was not the plan of The One, but I could not claim to anticipate Him.  His ways are above my ways.  He had made that clear.  If He wanted to take me out, I was His to dispense with at any given moment.  I served at His pleasure.

A verse rose into my mind as if spoken by a calm, reassuring voice.

“2 Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the LORD rises and appears over you.” [Isaiah 60:2 NLT]

I turned my head upward, careful to balance myself upon a forking limb as I leaned back, and suddenly I saw, above the dappled leaves, what looked like brilliant stars descending towards me with other shining lights waiting above the canopy.

“You lied to us!”

A partially scorched, dryad came raging out of the wood, bounding over the mired bog of murky water.  Her body unraveled into large twisted limbs, blackened and smoldering in places, yet dark green and wood-grained in others.

“You gave us this forest when the Xarmnians quitted it.  Now you send harpies in to drive us out!”

The cataracted eyes of the Pan blinked and narrowed, as a low growl rumbled from within and without.

“I permitted your occupation of it.  I did not give it away.  The land is mine, the woods are mine.  A king does not parcel out his kingdom.  You would do well to mark this and consider to whom it is you speak and accuse.”

Other dryads emerged from the backwoods, following their scorched leader, also bearing the marks of fire, and smoke.

“Why did you send the harpies among us?!” another asked, “Have we not served you?”

At this, the satyrs stood up from under the low forest brush.

“Hello, sweet Briar!” one of the taller grey and grizzly looking satyrs announced, a dark-lipped grin spreading from the coal-black apples of his cheekbones, eyes shining with lecherous delight, “Did you miss us?”

The other satyrs that had hidden within the brush also popped up and laughed throatily, sounding like a chorus of baying and barking dogs.

“What are THEY doing here?!” the lead dryad, jumped at the suddenness and surprise as satyrs fanned out among them, circling them around and around, feinting in and out to stroke their legs.

The lead dryad, the one that the grey satyr had addressed as ‘Briar’ bristled at the touch, her body suddenly developing large thorns all around.

The grey satyr pulled his hand back, a small cut on his palm from the contact.

“Funny,” he croaked with laughter, “you have the same effect on me.”

The satyrs all laughed, erupting again in that strange cacophony of bawdy mirth reticent of drunken partiers laughing uproariously together at a shared dirty joke.

The Pan lowered himself into a crouch, moving steadily forward, his nostrils flaring and his large ears twitching among curls of black and grey hair.

“Don’t think I haven’t marked you, human toad,” he rumbled, “Our conversation is not over.  You have not been dismissed.”

Grum-blud had been attempting to slink away.  Both he and Shelberd were hoping the distraction with the dryads and the satyrs would prove to be more than The Pan could manage, but it wasn’t working.

“Yes, sire.”

“Dryad, I will treat with you in turn,” The Pan growled, and then turned his focus back on the trolls.

“Now, I was asking you about the Manticores.  Where are they?”

Hoping to ingratiate themselves with The Pan, Bunt and Dob attempted to answer at once.

“They’ve fallen in the fires.”

The Pan stood rigidly and still.  Dangerously still.

“I asked the Troll,” the voice rumbled an octave lower and was slowly enunciated expanding every syllable.

There was an implied warning in the words, and both onocentaurs gaped and clamped their mouths shut, but trembled.

Grum-blud’s mouth felt as if it was filled with cotton, and in this very moment, he regretted the day he was ever born.

Shelberd whimpered, huddling on the ground covering his head with his hands, not daring to look up.  Grum-blud smelled the distinctive pungency of urine but wasn’t sure if it was Shelberd’s or his own.

***

Syloam raced through the mid-canopy, crashing through branches, breaking and snapping smaller limbs as her gnarled and twisted root clusters clasped the tree poles, rocketing her body through the forest, closing fast upon the harpies flying and dangling her nest before her, like a hypnotic pendulum.  She could now see the human Surface Worlder, she had bound inside, slinging from one side of the rotting-cage to the other, grappling to hang on the anything he could, even as pieces of the cage began to peel and break away.  She wondered if she’d been wise to delay her pursuit by taking time to pick up the pieces of deadwood from the forest floor because she might have gotten ahead of them if she had not descended, but she had no choice.  The milk of the harpies was deadly, as evidenced by the deteriorating condition of her bower.  Something had given it far, greater potency.

Ahead, she heard the harpies laughing and taunting him, oblivious to the fact that they were being followed.

“Stay put, little mousey!” one squawked at him.

“Cawten, you’re dripping again!” the lead harpy reprimanded, glancing down at the deteriorating condition of the vine cage, “Quit frothing, you idiot!  These flesh bags are soft and break easily.  The Pan will get no pleasure if it dies before it gets to him.”

“Pay attention to where you’re going, Grawla!” another hissed at the lead, “You almost flew us into that tree back there. This basket is not going to hold our little mouse much longer if you keep jerking us around.  I should have flown lead.”

Just then the branch and vine cluster one of the harpies had been holding clasped in their talons, broke away from the rest of the basket, causing the corner to sag and drop down, jerking the others forward and down, spiraling into a tree, smashing through the basket with a loud crunch and snapping of other brittle branches.

Will was thrown from one end and smashed into the side of the trunk pole that ripped into the cage.  The vines that had been holding him snapped and he felt the impact, blunted a bit by the final grasp of the bindings, but at last, he was free…

And then he was falling…

***

Jeremiah wondered how he had gotten himself into these messes.  First General Mattox confronting him.  Then the satyrs maiming his horse.  The firestorm on the horizon.  Now, this.  The thought of Brian returning to the Mid-World and leading a quest of Surface Worlders as he had long ago before everything went totally wrong.  His brother’s betrayal, his company divided and fragmenting under his leadership, the lies and deception, and now here it was again.  Come around full circle.  The ghosts of the past confronting him at every turn.  Confronting him or haunting him.  He did not know which.  He had to somehow find a way to make peace with the past, but it dredged up so many painful memories.  He wished he’d never been called, been given such a responsibility.  It was too much for anyone to bear alone.

But that was the point, wasn’t it?

He felt that same quiet stirring deep within his spirit, that had seemed to go silent so long ago.

At least he had thought it had gone silent.  Perhaps the problem had been within him all along.  He’d chosen to quit listening.

***

Will was falling…and then he wasn’t.

He felt sudden compression in his chest and ribs and found he had been wrapped in a curling twisting vine that moved like a serpent around his body, constricting him, yet dangling him from the trees and spines of rocks jutting out of the forest floor below.  He looked up, following the extension of the branches to see Syloam dangling from a massive branch, her arms and legs a fusion and amalgam of vines, branches and moss and lichen.  She was breathing heavily from the exertion and the last second catch of his body.

“Look at what we’ve got here, Awlen.  Isn’t that sweet?” Grawla the harpy said, recovering from the strike, having found a perch on a branch from which to regroup.

The broken cage had ripped apart, brittle vines snapping and scattering across the forest floor, the withering brown husk of it misshapen and twisted on the rocks between the tree roots and trunks below.

Cawten, the erstwhile frother, had sustained an injury and tumbled down after the cage landing on top of it, her wing folded under her, broken.  Awlen, the harpy to the back right side of the cage bearers, had flipped downward, plunging with the torn enclosure, but finally freed her claws, caught air and regained her flight wings, before striking the ground.  Disoriented she gathered air under her, and climbed upward, beneath the hyperextended dryad that had caught their prize.

“Just precious,” Awlen sneered, “Where Dawlen?”

“Up here,” a scratching croak came from above, “Grawla, you cank!  You could’ve killed us!”

“Mawgla dropped her end.  Where is Mawgla, anyway?”

A distant voice answered back.

“Down here.  In the cage.  It trapped me when it fell.  Cawten milked the vines and the cage broke apart.”

“What is wrong with you, Cawten?!” Awlen crabbed.

No answer came.

After a long pause, Mawgla’s voice came back, “I think Cawten’s dead.”

A series of broken chirps came from the tightening lips of the harpies, to which Grawla added, “Remember our vow, sisters:  Each of our dead is owed a death from theirs.  Death for Death!”  The harpies overhead fluttered and shook themselves as they collectively began a slow chant picking up the refrain, “Death for death!”

A milky-wetness pouring down from their fluff ruffle, pearling over their feathered breasts, dripping down their metal shanks and curling down their legs to their claws.

“What do you have to say, Wood Pick?” Grawla turned cold eyes to the dryad, “Care to dance?”

Mawgla nudged the still body of Cawten with a claw as she pulled out from under the half-crushed bulb of the broken cage.  No movement.  Vacant black eyes stared up into the canopy, the wrinkled mouth gaping at some horror from beyond.

Syloam gathered Will up towards her feminine body, her arm shrinking back into a shoulder more in line with human form than a tree.

“This man belongs to me.  I found him first.  You have no right to take him from me.”

“If he belongs to you,” Awlen snarled, “then you should be willing to die for him.”

With these words, both Grawla, Dawlen, and Awlen launched themselves down on her, milky claws flared.

The harpy identified as Mawgla, caught Will by the flailing arm, as she flew up intending to join the attack.

Before Syloam hit the ground below, she had devolved into what appeared to be a rotted tree, no female form remaining of her.

Now Mawgla flew onward into the forest, dangling him painfully from beneath iron gripped and powerful grey claws, hooked with black talons and the others flew after her.

***

“Where is this Faerie Fade?” James asked.

“What even is a Faerie Fade?” Laura asked.

Maeven looked in the direction that Jeremiah had gone and then turned back to the group.

“It’s not far from here,” she told them, “As to what it is, I am not sure I even know, but it is what it does that makes it important for us to get there.  At this point, however, I cannot tell you any more than that.  We just need to get there as soon as possible.  The forest is full of the Half-men kind.  I have seen somethings in the forest that I have not seen in a long time, so we have reason to hope.  Please follow me and stay close together and keep watch.”

“You haven’t told us anything,” Christie interjected, “How do we know that O’Brian will be able to find us, or that this Jeremiah can even be trusted?”

“Jeremiah can be trusted to do the right thing,” Maeven answered without hesitation, “As I told O’Brian and you, Begglar, earlier, Jeremiah is the one to whom I was referring when I said there was one who maintains a hidden cache in this forest where we can get supplies and the tools of war we need and perhaps some means of transport.”

Lindsey spoke up, “But you said that he would not be happy to see O’Brian again.”

“I said he may not be,” Maeven corrected, “I didn’t say would not be.  It is true there is a history between them that I cannot get into now.  But the cause they both serve is the same, and at least in that, they are unified.  Both are stubborn men.”

“Aye, I’ll vouch for that,” Begglar guffawed.

“Their disagreement was in method only, that is about all I know.  But as I’ve said, we need to get moving.  I believe most of the satyrs are traveling with The Pan.  They like to stay close to him, feel emboldened by him.  And there are dryads in the forest, so they will most likely be anxious and stirred up.  Those things hanging above us were meant to warn the satyrs, not us.  Satyrs are addicted to dryads and the dryads will come to The Pan, and you can be that is just where the satyrs will want to be when that happens.  Not even the scent of dogs will distract satyrs from pursuing a dryad, so, we have a good chance to avoid any significant number of satyrs for the time being.  Now let’s get going.  Follow closely.  Keep up and stay as quiet as you can.”

***

The Pan cast a dark shadow over the cowering trolls, as he glared at them through sightless eyes.  His hooves sinking deeper and deeper into the soft mud of the bank as he had moved threateningly over to Grum-blud and Shelberd.  Massive hands the size of shovel blades hung fisting and unfisting at its sides ready to throttle and pound the two creatures and tear their bodies apart.  “If what the asses say is true,” The Pan growl, rumbled, “What will you give me in trade for their loss?  They were unique in my kingdom, and there are not many left to serve me.  How do you, small toad, hope or plan to ever make up for that?”

From deeper in the forest, voices came crying out, again interrupting The Pan.

“Master, master!” a group of harpies flew over the heads of the dryads, and satyrs gathered below.

Irritation again, The Pan growled, “What is it?!”

The dryads hissed and crouched, then turned angry shouts of rage towards The Pan, “Betrayer!  You are in league with these flying hags!  You cannot deny it now.”

“ENOUGH!” The Pan roared, and the ground and trees seemed to quake with the sound as all assembled and near felt the vibrations from the noise.

In the weighted silence, finally one of the swooping harpies, spoke up, loud enough for all to hear, “Surface Worlders are in the forest!  We’ve caught one.”

***

“There it is!” Maeven said, moving faster through the forest.

They’d left the roadway, and had moved quickly and quietly through the woods, trying to follow Maeven’s shifting form through the dappled light.

Before them, at the midway point up a small rise, between large, very old towering trees, forming four wall-posts, holding an ornately woven ceiling formed of living vines and trees, was a kind of cupola with a woven back wall but no fore or sidewalls, leaving these sides open to the forest.  It was a place one might associate with a wedding ceremonial canopy, like a Jewish chuppah or an arboreal worship place.  In the back wall was a single doorway, fashioned by bowed branches.  On either side were the paired casements of two windows, four total, that had partial coverings and the forest beyond appeared through the tops of these.  No further building or enclosure extended beyond the back wall.

“Get under the canopy, all of you.  Quickly.  We will be safe there.”

“What is this?” Matthew asked, “There are barely any walls.”

“The Faerie Fade.  An ancient place of weddings.  A very powerful place of protection.”

***

Artifice.

Syloam blinked, cracking apart the pieces of deadwood she’d wrapped her duplicated body in.  Being very careful not to touch the scarred sides where the harpy milk had touched, she reformed herself from twisting sinuous roots out of the hollow core husk of the fallen log.  Had she lain there any longer, the dead rot would have extended through the old bark and killed her.  The fools had almost dropped the Will creature.

It had been difficult, but she had caught the Will with dead arms, and it had fooled the harpies.  Had they but looked harder, they would have noticed that the body had very little green on it—mostly a film of lichen.  The deadfall had served her needs.  She hoped her fallen sister would not mind being used in this way.  “Truly,” she whispered with a hiss as she lifted once again from off of the forest floor, extending herself with vines reaching into the trees, “Death for death!”  Only the death would be for the one called Mawgla.  The one carrying her Will.

The canopy shook with conflict.  Dozens of harpies, like black-feathered missiles, launched out from under the treetops in a burst of scattered leaves and broken branches amid a barrage of shrieks and harsh laughter.  Large spider-like creatures, each with thorax and abdomen bearing a human-like form exploded from beneath the canopy, hissing and leaping angrily after them, tearing much larger holes in the turbulent sea of leaves.  The treetops trembled and shook from the embroiled battle above and below.  The feathered missiles opened their large wings, pumping them up and sweeping behind as they gained altitude, twisting in aerial arcs, moving higher beyond the grasping, leaping limbs of the dryads trying to tear them out of the sky.

The haze of smoke rising from the sea of trees threatened to surfeit the treetop turbulences under a billowing deluge of gray.  Fiery tongues licked hungrily at the yellowed sky.  Dryads, thus revealed in their full foliaged rage, swatted at the diving harpies, some hits landing a solid blow, causing them to careen into the canopy below, others missing, throwing the lunging dryad off-balance, causing them to roll across the treetops and catch fire.

The scene was surreal.  Like dark devils dancing and raging over the rotting, undulating canvass suspended over the smoky pit of hell as in Jonathan Edward’s vision.

Harpies curled in and out among the dryads bounding after them, heckling and deriding them.  Dryads with long thorny vines swung their whip-like flagella after them, landing their barbs into feathered flesh, tangling the harpy’s wild flowing grey hair, scratching their scowling withered and twisted faces.

The harpies returned the fight, raking milky claws across the backs of the dryads as they swooped in and out, causing these to rapidly wither and crumble, breaking their branches as they became brittle and snapped.

Every dryad scarred by the talons of the harpies convulsed in spasms, had rough bark enshroud their bodies, obliterating any semblance of their human form, and they became rigid deadfalls crashing back down to break apart into the forest below.

The fight raged on until finally, the dryads realized what the harpies had been doing.

With each dive, swoop, corkscrew aerial and taunt, the harpies had been drawing the dryads further and further into the forest fires raging below and then evading them from the air, rising up on heat thermals to gain altitude out of reach.  The harpies, though sustaining losses themselves to both thorn, strike and fire were systematically wiping the dryads out.

***

At the sound of Miray’s scream, the dark birds that had been above the group leaped from their perches and descended towards the dangling heads, raking their talons across the dreadful ornaments, causing them to sway and spin.  The birds cackled at the gaping travelers as they circled further and further down to them.

Laura held Miray close to her, leaning down, taking the young girl’s face in her hands to calm her.

“Miray, look at me,” she coaxed, “Look at me.”

The young girl’s eyes were full of tears, as she tried again to look upwards at the horrible sights, not wanting to see, yet unable to turn away entirely.

“Miray,” Laura repeated, her voice was calming, as Nell stood over them, shielding the sights above with her body, and protectively gathering the two girls under her arms.

Miray held the backs of Laura’s hands, pressing them harder into her cheeks and ears, blocking the sounds, of the cackling “birds” above, if not wholly able to shut off her other senses.

“I’m afraid for you,” Miray’s lips trembled as she fought the urges not to look above and found a sense of shelter in Laura’s pleading eyes.

The shock caused Laura to blink rapidly and tear up.  Bath or not, she pressed Miray into her arms and chest and choked back her own amazed-tears.

“Well, well, well,” the voices of the birds descended upon them, both bird-like in quality, yet that of rasping, old vulgar women one might associate with the brothel madams and past-prime, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking, bawdy saloon girls of the old west.  These swooped over the tops of their heads, brushing by them with downdrafts from the beating of their wings, and glided to rocks and lower limbs just to either side and ahead of them.

“Outworlders,” one observed, the old haggard face of a wrinkled, scowling woman, pushing out of a tangle of long gray hair behind a large beak-like nose that dominated her features.  Her eyes were deep-set and black–shining darkly, under a heavy forehead. Her broad brow was interwoven with both wiry gray hair and blackened feathers extending radially from the shadowy caves holding her eyes.  Another of these creatures, its face barely feminine, if at all, looked sunken behind ridges of wrinkles causing her face to droop and frown from every aspect, croaked, “Prizes for The Pan, methinks.  Master will be pleased.”  A cruel chuckle coupled with bird chirps emitted from the three bird creatures, as they leaned forward to study their lot.

From the northwest came a trilling noise, almost flute-like.  To the east, a rapid clapping sound, like two stones beat together.  Before anyone could react fully, a hunched figure sprang up behind the dark harpy who had alighted on the mossy boulder rock.

“Hello, sweetness!” the figure said, pulling the harpy’s head backward, jabbing its jagged stone knife under her jowly throat, “So glad you could come down to play.”  It leaned its wooly face over her shoulder, its yellow eyes dancing brightly from its ash-blackened face, its jagged, sharpened and broken teeth gleamed as it skinned its lips back in a disturbing grin.

“Back off, satyr!” the thick-browed, harpy jerked seeing her sister, held under threat, by the wickedly grinning creature, whose arms now pinned the harpy’s wings under a steely grip.  “These are our prisoners!”

Mason sighted down the shaft of the arrow notched in his bow, not sure which of the enemies to aim at first.  Christie swept her sword upward, ready to hack and slash at any one of the harpies than dared to swoop near them again.  James raised his halberd into both hands, angling the hooked blade outward, ready to cleave into either the threat from ground or sky.  Begglar lowered the reaper blade from his staff downward, letting it pivot from his midshaft grip to scythe through the legs of any satyr feinting and running by.  Dominic fingered the jagged stones he’d collected, unnoticed, from the riverside.  He bore a half-pouch sling tucked into his traveling tunic that he’d kept in reserve.  The jagged stones were broken pieces of flint that he knew would serve for lethal purposes.  He and his dad’s game of “Rats in the Barn” served many purposes and with many makeshift forms of natural weaponry.  Back to back with the unarmed members, in their center, they bristled against the threats all around them.

“Beg to differ, harpy,” the satyr gouged the harpy he held in the back between the shoulders of her wings making her squawk, “Prisoners of prisoners belong to the one who has the upper hand.  We knew you couldn’t resist this bait.”

The momentary distraction, caused the other to fail to see the dark shaggy figure snaking its way up the back of the tree towards the branch on which she rested.  Before she was aware of it, the sneaking satyr had slapped a metal snap locking manacle upon the two metal shanks that covered and protected her legs against the symbolic threat of the dryads.  The satyr leaped down from the tree trunk trailing a finely linked chain in his hand, and with the weight of his fall, tugged and jerked the harpy from her perch, pitching her to the ground, her wings flailing, her body slamming the ground with a thud, whereupon the satyr pinned the creature down with his hooves and squatted over her.

“You’ve been grounded, granny!” he fingered her breast ruffle with a dirty, sooty paw.  Black nails scratching the top of her grey breast.  Then he turned his ugly bearded face toward the other satyr who held the harpy under his knife.

“Are we allowed to eat this chicken?”

***

Maeven witnessed the exchange and the developments surrounding the company.  One free harpy remained, glaring down at the two satyrs that had turned the tables and odds against their upper hand.  She saw the crew loosen their vigilance and focus on the exchange between their would-be captors, turning away from the areas of vulnerability.  Their weapons tracked on the known threats but opened them to others.  Using these distractions, however, she knew she could work them to an advantage.

Quietly as she could, she had set natural timer traps to create forest noises.  Small saplings bent carefully back under creeper vines she knew would break under the strain.  Branches intertwined to come loose and swing and swoosh.  A stone balanced precariously on an outcrop covered in scarred moss beds.  A forked bush with branches pinned and folded against a shallow-rooted tree.  And to cap off the distraction, she’d collected scrapings of the fine yellow dust from the leaves left by the dryads where Will had been abducted and sealed it in a pair of small glass flasks corked shut.

Spines of stone jutted out from the forest trail as it descended away from the mountain ridge road that led up to the once shrouded city of Azragoth.  If the noises failed to distract the satyrs, the glass flasks, once shattered and spilled out upon stone, would not.

The satyrs were cunning in their own right, but even after all these years, they were still enslaved to their most primal animal instincts.

***

Syloam caught her plummeting body on a series of limbs, just before plunging into the burning brush below.  A fog of smoke obscured the forest floor yet flashes of orange and yellow flame flared through it like lightning flashes.

A sheen of sweat beaded her brow, as she tucked and curled like a trapeze artist, and oriented back upward into the high woods, rising with the smoke.  Ahead she saw harpies, flying low through the woods, embers and flaming sticks clenched in their flexor pin feathers, like lighted wingtips, as they flew and glided through the lower forest. Their flight was concerted and deliberate–touching off smaller fires as they brushed the leafy tops dragging the flaming embers through the dried brush and fallen leaves.

Above, and in the distance, she saw the place where her high bower nest had once been. Beyond, the abattoir basket bower, now torn free of its moorings, was being flown away by at least five or six of the black-feathered beasts.

“Mine,” she whispered, the words exhaled through red and full lips, then drew in a deep lungful of heated air and she shuddered at how little the air helped her breathe.  Her next words, though forced and backed by outrage and feral wildness, came out raw and coughed.  “MINE!  THE MAN IS MINE!  GIVE IT BACK!  GIVE IT BACK!”

Vines and branches shot out from her, clawing her vaulted path through the trees, moving fast in pursuit.  A patina of green frothy patches pulsing and fading all over her body, her fingers and hands growing in size, branching out like gnarled arthritic claws.  She grasped, grappled and raced through the mid-level portion of the forest, high enough above the fiery floor, yet below the upper canopy, her wooden claws wrapping the trunks of trees driving her faster and faster forward after the rapidly deteriorating branch and vine-woven cage, carried in flight ahead of her.  The harpies would have to find a clear flight path through, without dropping the cage and the man they held prisoner within.  But Syloam had no such limitation.  Though they were already far ahead, she knew she would catch them.  And when she did there’d be hell to pay–the hell of a woman-dryad scorned.

***

Maeven moved low and quiet, turning her feet to find the soft ground of pine needles, avoiding the dried leaves as much as she could.  And then the first of her timed noise-traps went off.  Vines snapped, and the pinned brush swooshed, shaking the leaves and clacking branches.  The tilted stone, heavily sliding down the smooth moss mud, fell from the boulder, down upon the assemblage of buried stone, cracking noisily.  The sapling tilted down, pulled up from the soft staked earth, swishing back into its upright tilt, brushing the surrounding bushes.  And Maeven palmed the glass flasks and threw them hard towards another outcropping of stone, shattering glass, spilling the powdery yellow substance across the rock and causing it to puff briefly in the air.

The satyrs followed the noises with their eyes, but when the glass broke, they whipped their heads around in the direction, their nostrils flaring, their breathing becoming more of a rapid pant.

Crack!  She threw and shattered the other bottle, against another rock, even as she launched from out of the backwoods, racing towards the group gathered and surrounded.

Taking advantage of the distraction the third harpy, took flight, climbing back upward toward the treetops, with rapid movements of her wings.  The satyrs responded excitedly and violently.  The one with the stone knife stabbed savagely into the harpy’s feathered breast, then lept away as it quivered and stilled, moving towards the enticing scent that had captured his interest.  The other, wrapped the chain around the harpy’s neck, garroting the bird-hag with a quick twist and then dragged its body after him as he launched himself towards the other strike site where the second shattered flask had landed.

Maeven slid in low, kicking the bottom tip of her bow from Mason’s hand, catching the arrow he released in surprise at seeing her suddenly emerge from the brush.  She caught the bow, spun it into her forearm grip, had the arrow notched, pulled and let it fly whizzing through the air to pierce the back of the distracted satyr who had run to the first broken flask.  The satyr buckled at the hit, misstepped and fell forward into the rocks, plunging face down into the yellow dust.

“Arrow!” Maeven shouted at Mason.

“Ain’t got all day, kid!” she shouted when Mason hesitated, amazed at how fast Maeven had turned the tables, “Arrow!”

Mason obliged, reached over his shoulder, catching feathered fletches of one, and pulled it out, tossing it to her.

She had it notched, in half a second, pointed the bow and tip upward, pulled it back deeply and let it fly.  The arrow seemed to sizzle through the air, aimed at the fleeing harpy, trying to gain the safety of the upper branches.

Thock!  The arrow point caught her mid-flight, driving deep into her feathered body, and she let out a “Gaaawwww!” noise, that quickly silenced as one of her wings folded over the driven shaft, and her horrible form tumbled downward, bouncing off of a tree pole, spinning from a branch, and then dropped down with a thud and snap as its body hit the road beyond them.  The second satyr, dragging the garroted harpy from the thin chain, smothered its bearded face in the yellow dust, it bent down licking the powder hungrily off of the rocks and bits of glass that had once contained the substance, its hands and face smeared with smudges of yellow, oblivious to its own danger.

“You are better now than you have ever been, Storm Hawk,” a deep voice spoke from somewhere close, startling the party and Maeven as well.

She whirled and spun the bow, its sharp, blade-capped nocks, ready to slash the next unknown assailant.

A crouched and shrouded figure stood up from atop the boulder, looking down at them.

He raised his hands defensively and said simply, “Slow down there, I’m friendly.  Don’t you remember me?”

“Jeremiah?” Maeven lowered her bow, the frame falling forward loosely from her palm and she flipped and caught it, and slung the arc over her shoulder.

“It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Too long, I’m afraid,” he took in the party, and the prone satyr sniveling in the dirt among the dusted stones.

He noticed a cut on its shoulder and a particularly familiar pattern of tufted hair ridges down its back.

Maeven moved towards the groveling creature, but Jeremiah stayed her.

“Leave this one to me.  I’ve been tracking him.  He maimed my horse and I had to put it down.  Cut its ligaments.”

“Horrible,” Maeven said, matter-of-factly.

The satyr still did not look up, so consumed and obsessed it was with the dryad powder.

“You need to get these folks out of Kilrane,” Jeremiah said, “These forests are not what they used to be.”

“I know, I know,” Maeven said, looking back to the group.

Christie, Miray, Laura, and Lindsey rushed to embrace her.

“So glad to have you back.”  Their voices crowded over each other.

“We were worried.  We thought that…”

Mason’s heart was still pounding in his chest at how swiftly their situation had turned around with Maeven’s return.

Her speed and accuracy with the bow under pressure amazed him.

“Can you teach me that?”

Maeven turned to him and smiled, “It takes a lot of time and practice, but sure, kiddo.  Desperation helps, but there are many situations, here in the Mid-World, which will amply give you that.  If you want to do what it takes, I’ll show you what you need to know.  But it’s still up to you.”

“I noticed you don’t hold the grip but let the tension of the drawstring pull press it into your palm.  How do you aim so well if you don’t grip it?”

“Good eye, Mason.  That is a common mistake understudy’s make.  The aim is in the line between the string, arrow, and guide, not in the tension.  Accuracy is deadlier than the power of the pull.  Focus on the line of the arrow, not the grip or even the arrowhead.  Gripping the bow will make your tightened arm muscles shake and you will tire too easily.  Keep your fingers open and loose.  Use the flat of your palm to push out as you draw it back and do not curl your finger around the arrow shaft.  Use a finger glove or thimble if you can get one.”

“Where did you learn all this?” Matthew asked.

Maeven nodded at Jeremiah, “Him.”

Jeremiah had rounded and descended the boulder and was cautiously approaching the satyr, so consumed by the fallen powder, it did not sense its own peril.

On the road, the company of travelers gathered together around Maeven and the one she’d called Jeremiah.

The man was tall, solidly built, broad-shouldered, yet lean and rangy looking.  His hair was cropped short and thin, and his face was reddened and tanned, his eyes deep-set and knowing, with age-worn gathers at the end.  His demeanor was reserved and measured.  He wore a dark green cloak and hood and carried a longbow, and rapier sword easily accessed from a hip scabbard, with a bell fist cage guard and a leather-wrapped hilt.

Jeremiah had used a bola weapon, a sort of cable with two weighted knuckles of metal or stone on each end, that was spun like a toss sling and hand-thrown, wrapping the target and inflicting debilitating injury when the weights on the cord smashed and bludgeoned the enwrapped victim.  The satyr had been dazed by the weapon, and Jeremiah bound him to a tree using the self-same chain the creature had used to garrote the dead harpy.  He’s stuffed and gagged the creature’s mouth with a hard pine cone and left it there for the “others” to find him.  By others, he meant the dryads, whom he knew to be now lurking in the forest of Kilrane.

“Let the others deal with their own,” he’d said, once he’d securely bound the satyr and the body of the harpy together to the tree, he added, “The dead shall bury their dead.”

The group gathered around Jeremiah, eager to meet this one whom Maeven seemed to know already, yet one in the group already also knew the man and had known him well many years ago.  Maeven made the introductions, for the man had but little to say, yet when she came to Begglar she stopped short.

Jeremiah studied him, and Begglar was silent a moment, but then spoke, “It has been a long time, my friend.”

Jeremiah’s eyes widened and then narrowed, “I know this voice.  You are strangely familiar to me, yet I do not recognize you unless you are much changed.”

“I am.  The years have not been kind.  You once knew me as a man of the sea, before I left that life.”

Jeremiah moved in closer to study him under the dappled light, “Can it be?  You are not McGregor, are you?”

“The very same.”

“I was told you were dead.”

“I was.  Am.  It is complicated.  I do not go by my old name.  That life I left behind me to become something else.”

“And what did you become?”

“A baker and Innkeeper.  My name is now Begglar.  This is my wife Nellus, and my son Dominic.  Xarmni’s reach has finally extended to the place we made our home, so now, after these long years, I find that my old identity calls me back from the dead once more.”

Jeremiah stared at him, his eyes searching, and then suddenly he broke out laughing.  Mirth transformed the man’s face and unlocked his guarded reserve at last.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he bellowed and embraced Begglar and then pushed back, grasping him by the shoulders, “McGregor the mighty scourge of the sea has become a baker and an Inn Keeper.  Truly, sir, you are reborn.  Ha, ha, ha!  I would not have recognized you.  You were a much more corpulent fellow back in the day.”

“Times have been hard, my friend.  The travelers from the east quit coming when the Xarmnian occupiers began acquiring the territories.  The company of the prior have long been disbanded.  Few if any return here.  From the looks of you, there are many changes in you as well.  Where is the full-face beard, you used to have?  The thick locks of hair? Are you balding?”

Jeremiah ran his hand over his head, and grinned sheepishly, “Aye, captain.  Like you, I was a wanted man as well.  I became a forester here in Kilrane.  I’ve kept connections, but I’ve kept to myself as well.  Xarmni’s reach is indeed long and brutal.  Many from the old company have left the fellowship.  Many have just forgotten who they once were.  The spirit, if left unattended, eventually quiets into complacency.  Few dream anymore.  It is a sad state of affairs.”

“Gentlemen, if you’re through with your little reunion, we’ve got a crisis here and quite literally we aren’t out of the woods yet.”

Both men gave assent.  She was right.

“So, what are your plans for this mission?” Jeremiah asked gravely.

“I am not the one called to lead.  Mister O’Brian is.”

Maeven turned and looked among the group who were watching Jeremiah, “By the way, where’s Mister O’Brian?”

“Who is this Mister O’Brian?”

Begglar, interjected, “On this mission, he is called O’Brian.  That’s another story, but you and I know him as Brian David.”

A series of inscrutable expressions seemed to pass over Jeremiah’s face that none could fully read, but after a long pause, Jeremiah said, “Well, now, this seems to be a day of many resurrections.”

“He’s seeing what’s in the pan,” Miray announced, grabbing Maeven’s hand.

“The what?”

Begglar cleared his throat, “He is scouting ahead.  He thinks The Pan is here in the forest.”

Jeremiah’s head shot up, and both he and Maeven’s eyes met reflecting a mutually, startled look, upon this news.

“That explains it,” Jeremiah muttered to himself glaring down at the fallen satyrs and then turned to Maeven once again.

Maeven was suddenly more scared than she had ever been.

“Get these folks out of Kilrane and do it quickly.  Stay off the forest roads.  I’ll go after…O’Brian, if I can.  I cannot imagine what may have been in his mind to abandon you and try to confront The Pan alone.”

Maeven studied his eyes for a moment.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I will find you. Bringing this many with you, there will be signs of your passage that cannot be hidden.”

“You’re going to leave us, too?” Laura asked, her voice quavering.

“But sir, we don’t know how to get out of this forest,” Matthew objected, “There are fires behind us. Things chasing us. What if we get turned around or lost? We need you to lead us out.”

“Son, Maeven, and Begglar both know enough to get you out of the woods. Stay with them. Do what they tell you.”

James interjected, “What if we get separated? They are creatures here that I would not have believed existed, had I not seen them with my own eyes. If we are attacked that could happen. We are not experienced fighters.”

“You have more skills than you believe. But there is more to this than you know. If you were brought here for a renewal of the Marker’s prophecy, then you need the one called to lead you to complete the journey. I am going to help bring him back to you if I can. If it is not too late. The Pan has a particular interest in the one you call O’Brian. There is something he does not know about what happened to my brother. I have to get to him before The Pan does.”

“But what if we get lost? How can we find our way out of a place we’ve never been to? What if…,” she glanced at Maeven and shrugged apologetically, “What if something happens to her? She almost died. How could we get out of here?”

“Seek a clearing,” Jeremiah said, “One never needs to get lost in a forest if you think carefully about the nature of it. The trees and vegetation around you will tell you all you need to know. Think about what they need to grow, and how they react to getting what they need.”

“What do you mean?” Tiernan chimed in.

“At the edge of the forest, the tree foliage is much lower and the ground vegetation is thicker and denser because sunlight can get to it.  The deeper one goes into the forests the higher the canopy of foliage becomes and the more sparse the ground foliage is because the sunlight cannot penetrate the canopy and only dim filtered light makes it down to the forest floor.  Moss and mushrooms and plants that thrive in decaying leaves, fungi, and low light are what thrives there. Look at the ground, the trees, the slope of the land. Water flows downward, so you know you will more than likely find rivers and streams in declivities. If one finds themselves lost in a forest with a high canopy observe the heights of it.  If the canopy lowers as you move in a particular direction it indicates that there will be a clearing or field or bare ground ahead.  The ground plants will become thicker and you will find more varieties of plants also indicating that sunlight is closer ahead. Once you reach an open field, stay within the edge of the forest, until you are certain the field is clear. Most cleared areas will have some sort of road along the edge of it. You’ll find animal trails leading into and out of it. Animals graze in the fields because the rains make the grasses sweeter and plentiful. If you find a field, you also can see the open sky and can find direction and bearings from the heavens.”

Begglar spoke up, “We have received information that Xarmni is amassing to the south.  Something is bringing them out of their strongholds into the fields. We had thought to bring them to The Fairie Fade if Maeven can still find it. It has offered protection in the past as you and I both know.”

Jeremiah turned to Maeven, “Call you still find it? It has been a while.”

“I think so. I remember enough from before. The Half-Men fear it still. We will wait for you there.”

“Fine. That is a better plan. If we are not back within an hour or so, don’t wait.  Take them in.  Get them as far away from the forest as possible.”

And with that, Jeremiah turned and headed away into the foggy smoke following the barely visible road down towards the stone bridge that spanned forest slough.