I slid down and pressed my back against the trunk of the tree. I could not see the harpy, so I figured to stay as close to the branch and trunk as possible. If I could strap myself to the trunk so much the better, and then I would have my arms free to draw the honor sword when she came back. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe. Smoke burned my eyes. With the rise and descent of the smoke, the harpy had found a perch somewhere and had broken off her attack. I was disoriented and confused and not certain that I could get the footwear on without losing my balance. Her passes had ceased, but I knew she was still out there. Waiting for me to succumb to the rising smoke and fall. I had to get my head clear. To think this one out. But like the wall of building smoke, all I had coming to mind was this cloud of self-recrimination engulfing me.
And then I remembered the purpose of my calling. To redeem the stories and connect them to those who owned them. To lead them forth to the Kingdom Gate of Excavatia.
Some stories have a beginning, middle and resolution. Some have happy endings. Some have tragic endings. And some just break off in the middle and fade. They have a broken sort of death in a half-life existence. They are not themselves dead, but trapped in a twilight of monotony, unable to move far away from the moments that arrested their forward progression. The Mid-World is strewn with the litter of these fading stories. Some I have contributed to in my life within The Surface World. Some contributed by others who have eclipsed my experience and have surfaced here in the in-between lands. It has been my belief that I was sent back here through the collective dream to gather together these remnants who were trapped here. Help connect them with the individuals within our company who could carry these forward, and in the process redeem my own story and operate from a position of strength to help these find Excavatia, the land in which hopes and dream connect and materialize into experience.
Yet so far every effort I put forward and yielded to, led to tragedy. Azragoth burns. Its location and resurrection exposed to the hostiles forces who wanted it never to rise again. We are driven forward by the fires behind us. We almost lost Maeven, by confronting a Manticore and almost lost our lives trapped under a collapsing waterfall and cliffside. Every decision and every lack of decision was leading us closer and closer to death. My leadership so far was a disaster. My failure put me in this tree. My obsession with rectifying the past wrong caused me to leave those I was called to lead and seek out The Pan in some strange hope of retrieving what Caleb and I had given him the opportunity to steal.
The Cordis Stone—The second of three mysterious stones needed to open the gate to Excavatia. Each stone represented the essential values needed to unlock the pathway to the awakening. As I’ve said before the Nature of the Mid-World is a place of joining between things incorporeal and corporeal. Things that exist without bodily form, take on a form when they enter this place. This is why this land has supernatural monsters here. But by the same token, some incorporeal concepts also take on a form and solidify into something of precious value in this Mid-World.
The Ancient Text speaks of The Word becoming flesh to dwell among men. That the fullness of the expression of Love is made corporeal in the expression of Christ. In another verse, the Ancient Text says:
“13 Three things will last forever–faith, hope, and love–and the greatest of these is love.” [1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT]
These eternal concepts have been showing up in the Mid-World as unusual and particularly precious stones. We believe that these are the gate stones that will unlock the Kingdom Gate at the other end of the Mid-World beyond the land of Capitalia. Individuals from each generation were granted entrance into the Mid-World through a shared dream to participate in three quests to open the gate. The first stone, representing the eternal concept of hope, called the Praesperos stone, has been delivered to the gate in the first quest of my generation. The stone of the second quest, the Cordis stone, representing Love, also known as the heart stone, was lost, and the second quest failed.
I was once again repeating the failures of the past, dooming this mission and those I was called to lead. Yet the message I had received offered me another chance.
Caleb and I believed that we could turn The Pan upon himself and force him to confess to his meddling in the affairs of men in the Surface World. We thought that the Cordis Stone would reveal to all what was hidden within his dark heart. That that revealed truth would undo him and expose him. We believe that the stone itself had the power to subdue him, so we took the stone from Jeremiah, went on a foolish mission without seeking counsel and confronted The Pan in his kingdom within the Sarsooth forests where the dryads and harpies originally lived before they moved to the outer rim beyond The Stone Pass. We were wrong. Dead wrong. Caleb lost his life for it. I barely escaped.
But now I would die here.
The Faeries, the living Fire Lights, had told me to return to my company. That I would be “drawn forth from the well to be a channel of living water to those given”. I was told to “return to them” for I would be “made into what is purposed” and that I would find “delight in [my] purpose”. There was no mention of retrieving the Cordis Stone, the reason for which I had left my company. My guilt in being partially responsible for its loss drove me towards the confrontation. I felt compelled to rectify the past, to somehow retrieve the Cordis stone, and put this mission back on track. I have never been able to forgive myself for the results of our failed mission. I believed that my calling by The One to lead this third quest was a second chance to make amends for my part in the failure of the second quest. But again I was failing. It might be best if I did just fall from the tree and break my neck, or let this attacking harpy take my life and cease resistance. I felt despair surround me and threaten to cover me with a cloud of darkness. I was blind within the rising smoke. I could barely breathe. I had climbing gear that was useless without time to strap the pieces on and descend.
And below me, somewhere in the swirling cloud of ash and heat was Jeremiah. The one man who I owed so much to for the failure of his mission. The one man who had every right and reason to kill me for what I’d done to him, as a brother-in-arms, who’d been responsible for undermining his leadership with his younger brother.
I owed Jeremiah the truth about the Cordis Stone. Though his brother had taken it from him, I was every bit responsible for what had happened as a result of Caleb’s theft.
Jeremiah had been understandably grieved and angry. Because of my part in the betrayal, I led him to believe that the plan had been wholly my idea, rather than cast blame upon the dead. In truth, Caleb had taken the stone and had awakened me in the night and told me that we two were given a secret mission to take down The Pan. That he had been sighted in the woods of the mystic pools and was obsessed with watching what was transpiring through them in the Surface World of men. We had planned to confront him alone within the wood and perhaps push him into one of the portals where he would be ripped in half in transit, back to the Surface World.
The Pan had gone nearly blind from staring into the ethereal light of the mystic ghost pools. Yet somehow he still saw through them with eyes that were becoming useless in this Mid-World. His focus on them so obsessed him, that he would be oblivious to our approach. We had witnessed that it was his custom to refuse attendants when he went into the mystic wood. That we could be certain that he would be alone, based upon his own command. It seemed to both of us that it was too much of an opportunity to pass up. That we could rid the Mid-World of The Pan or expose him for the charlatan that he was and in so doing we could bring his influence in the Mid-World down, and force him to confess under the Name of The One. We believed two things. That the power of The Name of the One would compel even the darkest creatures to bow its knees and confess to the truth. We believed that we could use the Name alone to compel The Pan to yield to us and confess to the power that ruled him. The Ancient Text says in the chronicle of the prophet Isaiah:
“18 For the LORD is God, and he created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the LORD,” he says, “and there is no other. 19 I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I could not be found. I, the LORD, speak only what is true and declare only what is right. 20 “Gather together and come, you fugitives from surrounding nations. What fools they are who carry around their wooden idols and pray to gods that cannot save! 21 Consult together, argue your case. Get together and decide what to say. Who made these things known so long ago? What idol ever told you they would happen? Was it not I, the LORD? For there is no other God but me, a righteous God and Savior. There is none but me. 22 Let all the world look to me for salvation! For I am God; there is no other. 23 I have sworn by my own name; I have spoken the truth, and I will never go back on my word: Every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess allegiance to me.”” [Isaiah 45:18-23 NLT]
We knew that it was the image of The Pan of this world that was being used as the image of the devil in our world. The Surface World. Ancient world religions and traditions depicted a hybrid king with both human and animal flesh. Ancient China, Egypt, and Greece were the most prominent, although modern paganism brought the hybrid ram/goat king back into tradition. The Pan was in some Surface World traditions, both the god of nature and of the universe. He was higher than Zeus, the famed god of Mount Olympus and heaven, though at some point his worship fell out of tradition. But still, it lurked in other forms. The Pan was the Oberon, the forest king of the fairies in medieval tradition, a god of forests and all land surfaces. This was in contrast to what The One said of Himself–That He alone was Lord and there was no other.
The lie arose from this pernicious creature, whispering it into the minds of mankind. The Pan brought blood into the mystic pools and opened them up to whisper deceiving words. By day, the Pan ruled the half-men kingdom of the Mid-World. By night, he sowed treacherous deceptions into the foolish minds of pagan humans who opened themselves to mysticism in the Surface World. We thought with both the compulsion of the Name and with the power in the Cordis stone, we could compel The Pan to confess his treachery both through the mystic pools, but also before his own hybrid kingdom who were dwindling in numbers as mankind appeared to encroach more and more into the lands of the Mid-World.
We made the mistake of the seven sons of Sceva. The Ancient Text records this account:
“11 God gave Paul the power to perform unusual miracles. 12 When handkerchiefs or aprons that had merely touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and evil spirits were expelled. 13 A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, “I command you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. 15 But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” 16 Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered.” [Acts 19:11-16 NLT]
Caleb had hoped to use The Name to command The Pan to yield, and instead treated it much like a word from an incantation. We falsely assumed that because we were called on the mission, we could not fail.
The first quest had been successful, and the gate stone had been delivered to the doorway to the hidden passage to Excavatia.
We were foolish to believe that because of one prior success that we could not fail in the second one. We placed our confidence so much in the rightness of the quest, that we failed to walk in the obedience of it.
The Ancient Text says:
“12 There is a way [which seems] right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” [Proverbs 14:12 NASB]
A way that seems right at the time, if acted upon without seeking the will of the One, leads to failure and death as it did for my friend Caleb. Deception operates in the “seems”, as a wise man once said.
This pattern recurs over and over again throughout human history and leads to horrific consequences.
“15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” [Proverbs 12:15 NASB]
Had I insisted that we turn back and seek counsel from Jeremiah and the others, I was fully convinced that Caleb would still be alive. Instead, we took our own counsel and I was a fool for doing so.
I pondered all of this, leaning against the tree trunk, struggling to swing the larger slip belt around the trunk and catch it with my dangling foot and draw it up to me, but was so far unsuccessful.
And then something gripped my leg.
***
Smoke rose from the sides of the hard-packed road as the rider, Captain Logray, slowed his horse from a gallop to a trot. Ash and dust drifted around them, and Logray knew his horse needed a breather. Its flaring nostrils were coated with gray ash, and Logray was concerned that the horse had breathed in too much of the substance. He slowed the horse further, easing the mare down to a walk, trying to calm the horse who was skittish and fearful of the smoldering fires around them. Two other times in the journey down the old road from Azragoth, Logray had slowed his horse and brushed away the ash from its body and face, calming the horse, but the fires had not abated, and the road ahead was strewn with smoldering limbs and fallen trees.
As Logray dismounted, he paused with his foot still in the stirrup, his hand on the pommel of the saddle, his ears hearing the noise of furtive movements behind him and about twenty yards off from the road. The animals of the forest would have long since fled from the fire, but the noises of runners were something else entirely. He was being followed. Pursued. And he could not risk leading who or whatever was following him to the place where he was going.
***
The four golems ran swiftly through the charred forest. Flakes of soot and ash coated their bodies with a white crust as they ran, loping like silver furred werewolves under a haze of gray smoke. Their faux flesh no longer looked like the image of the one from whom they had been molded, for the charred residue of the skin of the dead forest cloaked them into obscurity.
They had avoided the road in which the soldier from Azragoth rode, attempting to hang back and follow from a distance. One of the presences animating the bodies was the ephemeral wind spirit that had once walked among the company of Surface Worlders, posing as one of them, before her facade had been stripped away by the gratitude test and that cursed covenant sword. Her name was Torlah, and the promise of her revenge on the two that exposed her was within reach. She tasted its anticipated and violent flavor upon her clay tongue–a gift of the Dust Dragon.
The ether-natural beast from the between whose hook had snared the current Surface World leader called to lead the third quest when he passed through the portal to return to the Mid-World after a lengthy hiatus. The man had returned to the small hut and hovel where he’d last lived after the failings of the second quest. A hermitage, with a small garden, a river tributary and a lake within walking distance of the home. Time had ravaged the place when the man returned to it. The small two-room bungalow had fallen into disrepair. The garden was choked with wild growth and weeds. The flagstone path was overgrown. The shelter was infested with rats and mice and other vermin. A caked layer of silt covered every surface and the place smelled of mold and mildew and the pungent odors of urine and mouse feces.
He’d fallen asleep in the cottage and his consciousness took him back into the Surface World. His presence had disappeared, and the shack had been abandoned. Years later, when he awoke he found that he was in a room filled with decay. The cottage, his hermitage, was a graveyard shrouded accumulated layers of in burial dust.
***
“Relax!” a voice below hissed.
The hand that grabbed my leg belonged to Jeremiah.
I jerked away and almost fell when he grabbed me.
“What are you doing?!”
“There’s a harpy stalking me. How did you get up here?!”
“Using a set of the gear I sent up to you, rather than fiddling with it.”
“There wasn’t time. The harpy that caught me and put me up here, came back before I could get the pieces strapped on.”
“Where is she now?”
I gestured ahead into the rising smoke, “I don’t know. Somewhere out there. She broke off the attack when the smoke rose up. The fire is spreading all over the forest, I’ve got to get back to my friends. They’ll be trapped soon if we don’t press onward.”
“They’re safe for now. Maeven returned and I sent them to The Faerie Fade.”
“There is one here?!”
“Of course there is. I saw you from below and saw the Faeries come to you. What did they say?”
“That I should go back to my travelers and would be shone what to do.”
“Why did you leave them in the first place?”
“The Pan is in the forest. He is just ahead in the area where the old bridge once crossed a forest stream. We could not go by way of the road without being discovered, so I had my company wait for me behind while I scouted ahead.”
“Why didn’t you sent someone to go scout for you?”
“And risk being spotted by The Pan? It was too dangerous.”
“So dangerous, you would risk leaving your people leaderless alone and unaware of what to do next?!”
“I told Begglar to watch after them and get them to Sorrow’s Gate if I did not return soon. His wife Nell, knows the way because she was raised in this area. They have contacts with the underground that could help.”
“What is it that you would risk your life and the lives of those of your company to go towards The Pan to find?”
“Because The Pan has the Cordis Stone,” I confessed. “Caleb and I took it when we went to confront The Pan before. If The Pan has the Cordis Stone, he will eventually find and kill every story we set out to save.”
I heard Jeremiah mutter something under his breath and then sigh heavily.
“No,” he huffed, “He doesn’t.”
“I saw The Pan take it from Caleb,” I refuted, “He has it and he will blind everyone to their purpose as long as he has it in his possession. I have to get it back. I caused your quest to fail. Every quest is doomed until we get it back. With The Pan appearing in the forest of Kilrane at this time, I figured that this was the time for me to get it back. I could not bring the others with me, but since I bore the Honor Sword this time and was called by the One, this had to be the opportunity I was waiting for.”
“You have been deceived, Brian. The Pan does not have the Cordis Stone.”
“I was there. I saw him take it. How can you say that?”
“Because I still have it.”
He let those stunning words linger for a moment while I recovered.
“You have?” I stammered, “How did you get it back from him?”
“He never had it in the first place. What you and Caleb took was a decoy. I knew what Caleb was planning. I knew that he was tempted to take the stone from me, so I had a clever decoy made. Caleb is perhaps dead, because he took the decoy, believing it had the power to overcome and expose The Pan.”
Those words hit me like a hammer.
“You mean…?”
“Yes!” he growled, “Caleb did something foolish. He and I argued over it and I forbade him to try it, but the stubborn fool did not listen. I never thought he would have convinced you to go along with it, but he did. I know you lied to me, saying it was all your idea, and that hurt and insulted me even worse when I had found out what you both had done.”
“But you never completed the quest…”
“No. I did not. I lost heart for it. I let anger rule me and I walked away from it. I too was a fool. I left the Honor Sword on some broken rock ridge in the mountains. And I walked away from it. My heart turned to stone.”
“Where is the Cordis Stone now?”
“It is in safekeeping, I hope.”
“What do you mean, you hope?”
“Back there. I assume since you ride with The Storm Hawk, you already know where.”
I lowered my voice, stunned once again. “In Azragoth?”
“Not in Azragoth,” Jeremiah said, “Under it.”
Sparks, burning branches and floating embers began to fall all around us as the canopy above began to lower its emblazoned the ceiling of fire.
“We need to get down from this tree,” I said.
And Jeremiah concurred, “I couldn’t agree more.”
It occurred to me that The Dust Dragon that I had encountered in the cave system under Azragoth might not have been digging to destroy the city above after all. It was quite possible that the creature had been seeking to uncover and steal The Cordis Stone. To dig the very heart out from under the city and the quests we, both Jeremiah and I had been sent into the Mid-World to lead.
Jeremiah helped me strap the tree gaff harnesses onto my dangling feet, and loop the long wrap belt around the bole of the tree and under the limb upon which I had rested. With an unsteady pivot outward and his assistance driving one of the gaff points into the trunk. I flailed wildly, disoriented and blinded by the smoke, fairly certain I would grind my face against the tree as I fell. I was finally able to get positioned into the climbing harness and slip belt, in such a way that I had counter-balanced my weight against the trunk.
Jeremiah had descended below about eight feet when we both heard a whooshing noise of flapping wings and a horrific shriek. The harpy had evidently been close-by, waiting for her chance to strike both of us.
***
Captain Logray stood very still, placing a calming hand on his horse’s neck, feeling the felt-like surface of its sweating coat as its powerful muscles trembled and flexed beneath his hand. He spoke low and calm to the mare who eyed him and fidgeted, wanting to adopt the comfort of the calming hand, but sensing that danger was still near.
Logray stroked the horse’s nose whispering low, “Easy girl. Settle. Settle. Calm girl.”
The horse’s ears twitched, and she rumbled a throaty noise.
Beyond the horse’s neck, Logray watched the ash coated figures move and duck behind the blackened trees, darting in and out of the smoke rising from the crackling trees and scorched ground.
With one hand he had slipped the hand comb out from his saddle roll and stroked the horse’s brow and neck and with another hand he fingered the stock handle of a cross-bow, hanging in a padded sheath sleeve secured with bone loops. A brace of arrow bolts was mounted below the main spring bow, just clear of the aiming stock. Carefully, using the horse’s body as cover, he released the bone button hooks, fingered out an arrow bolt and set its nock into the bowstring. Palming the horse brush, he crossed it and dropped it into the bow sleeve as he eased the weapon out with his other free hand. The crossbow would be good for just one shot and he needed to be careful to make it count.
The ash-covered creatures still acted as if they were not aware that their quarry had marked them as well.
Whatever these creatures were, Logray was certain, they were up to no good.
Excavatia 