Her memories came forward, like ancient ships emerging from a sea-borne fog.
Miray could see again, in the way she had been able to before finding herself upon a beach in this strange and lonely place.
She had gone to sleep, surrounded by her mother and father, and the nice nurses and Dr. Benton. She had tried her best to make sense out of what they were saying, but she only caught bits and parts of the conversation.
The small tubes taped to her hand and the pinching stick, the curly-hair girl with the pretty eyes poked her with, made her arm feel so cold. The liquid moving through the pipe, from the water balloon hanging on the beeping robot pole, made her so sleepy.
“She is such an extraordinary little girl. A statistical phenomenon. If it weren’t for this tumor…”
“Please, doctor.”
“Yes, of course. She is such a brave little girl and she is strong. We’ll keep her constantly monitored. There has to be some reason that sedation is affecting…”
Her father pursed his lips and the doctor went silent again. It was very hard for him. Miray could sense his struggle, trying to remain dispassionate and retreat into the science, but it was hard shutting down the capacity to feel both fear and anger.
When others viewed Dr. Benton as cold and judged him to be unfeeling, they just did not understand the man. Being a pediatric brain surgeon, a good one, required the ability to separate the complexity of the condition from the fact that this aggressive threat was coming against a young and defenseless child. He hated sounding removed from the parent’s pain, but he had to remain calm and methodically confront the terror of untenable outcomes.
He wished he had a way to entirely turn off any distractions and hyper-focus on what might be accelerating the growth of the mass in her diencephalon pressing against her epithalamus, causing the hyperactivity in her pineal gland. That could explain how her eidetic memory shifted and expanded to the rarer form of photographic memory, but there was something much more going on. Something esoteric. The visions were beyond current scientific explanation and defied statistical probabilities. He had many heated debates with his colleagues over the existence of this phenomenon.
Even among those who believed it was possible, there was division over whether or not this condition was linked to high intelligence or the cognitively impaired as there was well-reviewed, published and corroborated research that blurred those correlations.
Benton was of the opinion that the human mind had the ability to adapt given the circumstances and that the survival instinct and will set off a series of chemical and hormonal reactions, which could create these types of phenomena in certain subjects receptively and morally conditioned to receive and believe in the possibility of hope.
The induced coma only bought them some time. But it was no solution. There had to be a link between her melatonin production and her body’s immune system impeding the growth rate. As long as she slept and her pineal gland naturally produced the increased level of melatonin, the tumor ceased growing. Why that should be was unclear. There had to be a link somewhere further down the line, specifically in the resulting increased production of serotonin, the calming neurotransmitter. In short, she had to sleep to activate her own healing. And not just sleep but fall into the deeper REM state for as long as possible without interruption.
The lights in her room were kept low. All visitors to her room were encouraged to put away their cell phones or put them on airplane mode to reduce the electromagnetic frequencies that could inhibit the full endocrinal function of her pineal gland. Scientific strides had been made, but there was so much still unknown about its higher functions.
That tiny mysterious organ was what even the philosopher Descartes called the “principle seat of the human soul”. Pine cone-shaped, reddish-gray and averaging about a third of an inch long, this tiny organ was suspected by some to hold the key to unlocking some of the mind and body’s most mysterious connections to the supernatural world.
Modern mystics believed it was the key to self-healing and realizing psychic powers such as clairvoyance and transcendental meditation. Ancient Hindu mystics characterized the pineal gland as the inner third-eye, a mystical chakra traditionally positioned behind the occipital brow in the center of a person’s forehead. The gland was in part comprised of optical tissue linked to the retina lending certain credence to the religious characterization of it.
A lot of what the doctor said and tried to explain to her parents did not make much sense to her, but she could reproduce the conversation verbatim if asked.
Here in the Mid-World, however, she knew that she had to expose this monster for who she really was.
Becca was dead. She knew that now. Becca was lost at sea. Drowned.
They should have never played with those lifeboats.
Their parents had warned them not to get into trouble, while they played on the deck, but Becca loved climbing and getting into places she was not supposed to.
When the lifeboat fell from the ship, both she and Becca had been rocking it side to side, laughing and scaring each other as the small boat swayed in its deck harness.
When it dropped, they had been trapped in the canvass cover and knocked unconscious when the boat slammed to the water, twenty feet below.
The back of Miray’s head still bore the knot of striking the hard seat, and the headaches had started shortly thereafter.
She had received medical attention aboard the cruise ship, but she had to wait until they returned to the mainland before she could have a full cat-scan and MRI done.
What they found was a high threshold of neural activity and the presence of a dark mass that prompted her referral to a specialist at the Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas, Dr. Ralph Benton.
***
My fingers found the hilt of the Honor Sword.
The moment I touched the crossguard, the blade flashed as if ignited by an arc welder’s flux-covered rod. The runes on the blade became spinning symbols of words and letters of light that signified an ancient language and then clarified into letters I could understand and comprehend.
All this time I had carried a sword of the covenant by my side and never realized that the words stamped upon it were alive and resonating with a message pertinent to me. Ancient words, from the Ancient Text, written upon the blade even as they were written in my heart.
The swirling ash grit, stinging smoke, and white flaring spots of having been struck multiple times in the head blurred my vision and a part of me wanted only to give up and await what long darkness would soon follow. The pulsing light on the blade hummed, growing from a low decibel thrum then rising to a sweetening, softer note as if a chord set of piano keys had been lightly struck and emanated a harmonious vibration. I blinked away the wetness of tears, surrendering to the message in the lights and in the vibrating notes that, in spite of everything, worked to calm my inner spirit.
My vision cleared as if my head surfaced out of a deep lake, allowing me that first and vital intake of air, clearing my mind as well. The words rose before me, mirroring a calm and gentle voice within my heart, and I read them aloud to my very soul.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. [John 15:5 NET]
I heard the pleading voice of a child calling to me in the distance.
A simple shift in thought caused me to remember what I had said to Jeremiah along the road in affirmation of what he had been telling me.
“Connection is key.”
The key to all of it was Connection. All things severed from connection to The Source, The One, were in death throes. Life comes through connection to The One and through direct fellowship with The One. The Honor Sword exhibits the power of the quickening when it is bound to the arm of the one called to lead, and by their connection to obedience to The One.
I had admonished myself with those words in concept but had failed to grasp them in practical terms.
The runes flashed and rose again, continuing in gentleness to teach me.
“6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up.” [John 15:6 NET]
Just like the dead leaves, on the ground before me, had fallen because they lost their attachment from the tree, torn asunder by the buffeting winds, I could no longer lead these others to live out this quest without the Life being allowed to live in me.
The fires of the forest around us threatened us physically, the same as they did spiritually from within each of us.
The runes on the sword flashed and changed once more.
“7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.” [John 15:7-8 NET]
His Words, His Person, His Being, His Name and His Life. All were synonymous with Who He is. Of all my struggles to know and understand what was being asked of me in my calling to a place of leadership, I had failed to grasp the singular, most important part of all. The symbol of the stone I had believed to be lost, was elsewhere and had never been lost. Only my presumption had assumed it so. The runes rose again, this time reminding me of the truth of the One’s call and the reason for it, and the protection promised within it.
9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. 12 My commandment is this – to love one another just as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this – that one lays down his life for his friends. [John 15:9-13 NET]
I spoke quietly to Jeremiah who lay to my left.
“Jeremiah?”
He huffed a breath, wheezing in pain, his body bruised and battered, his legs throbbing in pain.
“What does that golem have in that bejeweled case, if it is not The Cordis Stone?”
Jeremiah attempted to pull his arms up, rising on his forearms, but his strength failed.
“She has an Aspect stone only.”
“What does that mean?”
“There are three Aspect stones related to The Cordis Stone. If they are removed too far from it, they will harden and become only dead stones again. Gravestones.”
“Then why do they shine and glow with a red light?”
“They are responsive stones, that shine because of semblances, but they are not themselves the heart. That is The Cordis Stone, and The Cordis Stone does not shine with its own light. That is how I knew the golem girl does not possess it. She holds an Aspect stone only. When she takes it away from here its light will go out.”
I thought about this a moment. The Pan had turned its back on us for its interest lay in what was happening around The Faerie Fade.
“Then the stone Caleb and I took was an Aspect stone.”
“Yes. The three Aspect stones are éros, philía, and storgē. The two of you, my brother by blood, and my brother by covenant took the philía stone.”
“Then which one does the Torlah creature have?”
“The storgē stone. The empathy bond. She and The Pan will twist it to their wills, to cause great deception, if they ever realize its significance.”
“Will it not harden and lose its significance when they take it?”
“When they kill us, all of these stones will go dark and silent. As I told you, the power of the stones is not coming from within but through them. We are the called of The One. It is His Life and His Power actualized within our connection to Him, that causes these stones to bear the signs of that witness. Our deaths will deny The Pan and his cursed Half-men the ability to get what he wants most. A way back into The Surface World.”
“So one Aspect stone remains if the other two in The Pan’s collection go dead.”
“Yes. And it is perhaps one of the most deadly of the Aspect stones. The éros stone.”
“Eros. Doesn’t that represent sexual love?”
“Yes, and that is why it is so dangerous if it falls into the hands of the kingdom of the Half-Men races. Even though they have unnaturally long lives, they can be injured and killed. If they gain the éros aspect stone and remain within proximity of Azragoth to prevent it from dying, they will become fertile again and eventually overrun The Mid-World with their savage brood, killing every last human that remains, ensuring that no future stone quest for Excavatia will survive the journey to the far mountain.”
“How far do the Aspect stones have to be from The Cordis stone to remain viable?”
“As long as you and I breathe, we carry within ourselves the Light of the Worlds. The distance is in relation to us. It only matters in relation to The Cordis stone if we are dead. If The Pan kills us and takes the Aspect stone out of Kilrane, which it will have to because of the fires, the storgē stone will die and those Xarmnian soldiers will most likely kill them. It is my hope anyway. Maeven and her Lehi rescued Corimanth out of Xarm City, but Jahazah has not forgotten that insult. And now with their Builder stones, being torn from their fortified holds, it gives him the excuse to track and hunt down the Lehi and Storm Hawk. And someone from within the resistance has been sending them letters of just where they might start looking to pick up the trail that ran cold.”
“Where is The Cordis Stone? You said it was under Azragoth.”
“It is safe enough from golems. They are not of this world and even they have their limits.”
***
The Pan and satyrs encircled the Faerie Fade covering moving around it, cutting off all possible means of escape.
Miray ducked her head into Nell’s shoulder, terrified of the cruel and massive form of The Pan.
Begglar had succeeded in drawing the group back up under the canopy before the dryads, troll, and menacing golem could cut them off from retreat.
Begglar stood defiantly, blocking his wife, the small child and other women from the black-eyed glared of The Pan, shielding them from whatever attack was to come. The young men, Dominic, Matthew, Mason, James, Tiernan, and even Christopher, nursing his wound but leaning against the right-front post, joined Begglar in forming a protective shield of their bodies around the women.
“Do you think, foolish man, that this flimsy structure will protect you from me?” The Pan laughed, and the company of dryads and satyrs laughed in response.
“What is this collection of twigs and sticks that you would wager your pathetic lives on? Do you not know what power I have over all things that grow from the ground and crawl and skitter upon these lands? I am a god here. Your lives are mine to dispose of or to show mercy to. Come out from under there and beg me now for your lives and I may yet let you live.”
Beyond the top of the hillside rise, the glow of the fires and the forest rose, sending waves of shimmering heat down through the trees and woods.
“The fires are coming,” The Pan raised his dark arms expansively, “and yet you outworlders cower beneath the kindling for a bonfire. Do you not know that I have the power to save you from what is coming?”
Miray had, at last, turned her face back towards the gathering and took in a deep breath, “You let Mister O’Brian and Jeremiah go! They did not do anything to you!”
Torlah moved towards the canopy, her face aging and her stature elongating to resemble that of the elderly Noadiah, that Nell had recognized.
“Give me the child, Nellus,” she said, “and we will let you all go free. Her life for all of you. Your son, your husband who I seemed to remember now from days gone by.”
She moved closer, staring closely at Begglar, just feet away from the edge of the canopy, “A sea captain, was he not? Or, rather,” she chuckled, “a pirate.”
“You are not Noadiah, creature,” Begglar growled, “Noadiah died at sea. She drowned. Her body was never recovered. I do not know exactly what you are, but you are not her.”
The form of the old woman cackled and spun herself around, opening her arms and then drawing them in fisted.
“I was Noadiah for a time,” and then she turned abruptly, her eyes feral and angry, “and then…your quests threatened everything in our world. Your presence drew the Xarmnians into our towns, gathering our people and marching them up to that terrible place of the Bloodstone Marker, where our people were slaughtered by the thousands because they dared to believe in the Hope of a fairy tale your kind spread like an infection into our world. It is not enough that you wreck and destroy things in your own place.”
She raised and stabbed an accusing finger at him, “Oh no! You had to stir up trouble here. Thousands have died because of your kind! You have meddled in our affairs long enough. The skull mounds piled upon that death site were the family and friends, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons of the native people living here, long before the Xarmnians and Capitalians came. Now give us the child and return to your lands and you will live.”
Nell hugged Miray and then set her down, holding her hand, yet freeing an arm to lift a sword defiantly, “You are not taking this child from us without a fight.”
“Then you will die!” the Noadiah faced golem hissed and turned.
“Why do you want this girl?!” Laura yelled at the golem, “You can take me! I have very little to live for, anyway. I am useless here. Let these others live!”
Lindsey grabbed Laura’s arm, “No Laura! Don’t do this.”
But Laura struggled to get free and break through from behind the protective circle of the men.
The golem creature tore at her hair spitting at them in hatred, “Because she has the ability to remember it all! No one will believe her as a child, but she will remember long after that! She must die here to forget it all!”
“No one has to go,” Christie said quietly, joining Lindsey in holding Laura back from what she thought she wanted, “Stay under the canopy.”
Grum-Blud pushed himself into the circle between the wooden legs of a tall dryad. A low-lying tendril snaked along the ground under the rolling steps of the squat man, earnestly seeking a much smaller foot to snag.
“Master, send me in there,” Grum-Blud growled, striving to make himself useful, “I will flush these quivering quail out for you!”
As he approached, Laura saw the creeper vine, slithering across the leaves, winding its way towards Miray’s tennis shoes.
“Look there!” Laura shouted pointing and the twisting green vine moving beneath Grum-Blud’s feet.
All saw it snap forward, extending like a lunging viper, between the troll’s short legs, and Grum-Blud reacted in fright, skipping away from it, no doubt believing it to be one of the slithering serpents that had so traumatized him when he had fallen into the swampy waters of the woodland slough.
As soon as the vine touched the threshold of The Faerie Fade’s dirt floor, however, the green shoot burst into white-hot flame. The length of the vine, extended from one of the dryads blackened and curled into smoke, and the dryad quaked violently and twisted in roiling agony letting out a shriek, as it crumbled and crackled from within.
In the distraction of the moment, the golem rushed the canopy and growled, “Give me the girl!”
But her forward momentum and reaching arms suddenly solidified as her clawing fingers crossed the invisible threshold above the dirt floor and beneath the edge of the canopy. A crystalline white and yellow powder hardened and stretched over the semblance of malleable flesh that made up the body of Torlah. Her stricken and angry face hardened into the yellowish-white crystal, sparkling under the gathering firelight that grew to a flaming height around them.
Something really was protecting the strange structure, and The Pan and satyrs and other dryads jumped back from the suddenness of the turnabout of events.
***
Maeven had held her bow taut, wanting to pierce the impudent taunting shape-shifter with a piercing arrow, but she had seen what had happened with the other golem harassing O’Brian, Jeremiah and Captain Lorgray at the base of the hill. It had wanted to be pierced and when Lorgray had complied, it had dissolved and its essence was taken in by The Pan, restoring to it the use of its eyes. There was no telling what advantage shooting this one would also give back to The Pan, so much as she had wanted to, she stayed her hand from making that shot. The troll, however, was another story. She could kill him. But for some reason and with the turn of events, she waited to do so.
“What has happened to the sand creature?” The Pan growled, “Frog-man, go see what is wrong with it.”
“Grum-Blud,” the troll mumbled, pushing himself up again after having taken a tumble backward when both the dryad and the golem creature were repelled by the strange structure, “I am not a frog.”
Grum-Blud looked up to see The Pan fiercely glaring at him with angry and unclouded black eyes.
“I’m going. I’m going,” he whimpered, and knuckle cantered back up the hillside.
Grum-Blud cautiously approached the solid, statute of what had been the golem creature bearing many faces. He reached out and cautiously extended a stubby finger, stopping short and retracting it instantly, lest the same transformation should happen to him. The fingers of the statue had been cut off where they would have extended over the threshold of the canopy, their dissolved substance puffed back and forming a powdery line at the edge of the structure.
With the alternative not to touch the golem statute, he crouched down and dipped the tip of his finger into the crystalline powder. Tiny grains of it stuck to his sweaty, blood-stained fingers.
He brought it up to his bulbous nose, but could not smell anything of an odor, so he touched it to the tip of his tongue.
“Salt,” he grunted, then turned to The Pan, “It’s been turned to salt.”
The Pan roared in frustration, striking the surrounding trees with its powerful fists, raking at its head in frustration.
“Then it has lost all of its faces. It is no longer useful to us!”
The dryad, standing in close proximity to The Pan gave it a wide berth while it raged but timidly asked, “Why should that be, my Lord. These wind spirits remember whose blood has been given to their dragon. Why not free it from this statute and let it serve us again.”
“Because of the salt, you fool,” The Pan grabbed her as if she were a mere branch in its powerful hands.
“Blood is removed from flesh using a salting process. The faces, the images and the construct of the beings these spirits mimick require a memory coming from their shed blood at the time the dragon kills them. Salt never decays. It is a sign of a covenant with the hated One, these beings serve. It is a sustaining savor. This golem is trapped within. It will never emerge, and it is lost to us!”
He tossed the dryad away, but she caught herself before falling into a smoldering bush.
***
“Captain?” I whispered.
There was no response.
I turned my head and saw that the top head was matted with blood and he was unmoving. I reached over to shake him, trying not to rouse the notice of the distracted satyrs standing guard over us.
I pushed him onto his side and saw what I had hoped not to ever see again.
His eyes were open and unblinking.
A trembling “Ohhhh” sound escaped my lips, as I released him and turned away, my hands clenching.
“What is it?” Jeremiah whispered.
And with clenched teeth, and tightly closed eyes, I told him the words I had never wanted to hear myself say again.
“He’s dead.”
Another one of my friends was dead.
“Get up quickly,” a voice behind us said, quietly, “You only have a moment.”
And suddenly we felt the strength of two powerful and massive hands lift us from the ground to our feet. Our captor satyrs lay dead and twisted upon the fallen leaves, their spines snapped, and necks bent at odd angles.
We turned to see who it was who held us up.
It was Hanokh. Known in the Surface World as Enoch, the seventh patriarch from Adam through the line of Seth.
A man who walked with The One upon the Old World for 365 years, exactly a year of years, before he vanished with this singular and mysterious testimony…
24 walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him. [Genesis 5:24 NLT]
Excavatia 