Tag: J.R.R. Tolkien Styled Fiction

*Scene 01* – 08:00 (The Light-Bender)

I heard the sounds of running water as it sang in whispers and trilled over stones on either side of me.  I could feel the steam off of the water in calcifying and bubbling pools to my left and a warbling chill from a shallow brook to my right.

The blade of the honor sword glimmered from a circulating light emanating and throbbing from within, igniting the fiery runes engraved and etched into its shaft, making them seem to move up and down the blade like the burn of a crackling fuse.  The honor sword, to the eyes of an ancient man, would appear to be a blade on fire.  Yet the power did not come from the blade itself, but through it, and through me.  I could even feel the pulsing of it coming through the bloodline tether bound to my arm, as if it had transformed into a conduit network of throbbing veins and arteries supplying blood and oxygen to my extremities and the blade itself, readying them both for battle.

My senses seemed sharper, as I cautiously moved over broken stone, proceeding deeper into the tunnels.  What once was opaque darkness that hungrily devoured all light filtering in from the land above, now seemed to be bathed in a grayish half-light that allowed me to make out a washed-out pathway across the tunnel floor.  A great deal of water had once passed through this area, and its unleashed weight cut uneven fissures through the dirt and rock.  Each step I made was calculated, careful and quiet, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the quarry I sought.

There was a presence.  An otherness that I could feel was somewhere ahead, but I could not get a specific fix on exactly where.  It seemed to shift its locale in a sort of undulating fashion.  Its movements felt fluid, yet in some ways furtive, constantly testing its surroundings for a bearing.

I could not explain it, but whatever it was, the creature ahead seemed to smell me, yet in some diffuse fashion as if it was confused by the scents it was picking up.  It wasn’t long after this, that I finally heard its movements up ahead and to the left of me.  Perhaps one hundred feet or more judging by the sound alone.

Clink, clink, snap.  A popping noise, as if rocks were being dislodged as something large wove in and out around the pillared mound stones, crushing and pulling loose gravel with it.  Sounds of rocks falling upon other rocks struck with a tumbling series high and brittle notes like the sound an old bamboo wind chime might make, swaying from a tree branch on a blustery Fall day.

Though I could not see the creature clearly, I was given the sense that it was of some length, perhaps somewhere between twenty to thirty-five feet, with a series of bony spines and thick scales running along its body.  My mind wanted to think of dragons of mythical lore, but that did not feel entirely right.  There was a suggestion of a burrowing reptile about it, but more along the lines of a serpent than that of any lizard of known variety.

Try as I might, I still could not see it ahead.  It was almost as if it was camouflaging itself, biding its time to strike out at me from the shadows.  I imagined the flare of the circulating light from my sword would expose me as soon as I stepped out to confront it, so I kept the blade blocked behind my body as I crouched and crept forward.

The thing had moved under the daylight in invisibility.  Nem had called its invisibility…something…that I struggled to remember because it was so briefly mentioned.  Ah, yes.  He’d called it a ‘Light-bender‘ when he’d spoken of Azragoth’s inner walls being covered in pitch.  It had not been so much that the creature was transparent in some magical way but merely had the ability to bend light around it somehow, to give off that kind of illusion.  I pondered this.  To do something like that, the creature’s surface skin had to have some sort of polish about it, a sort of mirror-like plating, that confused the eyes of those witnessing its approach.

In the darkness, there was no available ambient light to bend, save in what was emanating from the honor sword I kept outstretched and hidden behind me.  At most, I would be a backlit silhouette moving toward it, if perchance it had spotted me, but somehow, I didn’t feel like it had yet.  It would know me, and I intuitively knew I would recognize it, though I had never witnessed anything like it before.

Glancing slightly downward, carefully placing my feet as I moved stealthily forward, I noticed the sheen of an oily, mucus-like substance, winding and arcing about over the rocky cavern floor.  I crouched down to touch some of the viscous substance and could feel a tingling and burning sensation in my fingertips.  Whatever this creature might be, it was leaving a sort of wet trail as it went, perhaps excreting this substance to allow its large body to glide across the tunnel floors without attracting too much noise as it hunted and probed the darkness.

I realized that if I could catch the wet glistening of it from the patterns it subscribed over the floor, I might be able to track it from behind.  Provided it did not double-back on me.

That thought gave me pause, and for a moment, it felt like the glow of the honor sword dimmed for just a brief second.  But I pushed the thought aside with the trace memory of a verse from the sustaining words:

“Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff; they comfort me.”  [Psalms 23:4 CSB]

Ancient Texts offer up present wisdom.  There was a reason these passages were coming to me, and I dared not dismiss them.  I thought about the two instruments of comfort mentioned.  The staff of a shepherd, curved with a hook, kept a wayward sheep from straying, snatching it away from the path of danger.  The rod, a long cudgel, was used to beat back any enemy threatening the life of the sheep.  But most of all, the sheep knew the kindness and the over-watching nature of their shepherd’s voice which guiding them through dark valleys on their way to pastoral green fields and along embankments beside still waters.  The Shepherd, My Shepherd could be trusted.

*Scene 02* – 17:37 (Pernicious Letters)

Begglar was up early pacing the floor and clearly restless.  “What troubles you, dear?” Nell asked, yawning and sidling up to her husband as he watched the sun’s rays peek over the horizon through the window of the small bedroom they had been staying in since they arrived in Azragoth.  Begglar placed his arm around her hugging her close to him and sighed.  “Ah, it’s somethin’ I heard from Cori last night in the courtyard before it started raining.  I fear we have been much deceived in some of the people we have trusted in the past.”

“You don’t mean O’Brian?” she asked nuzzling up against his side.

“Nah.  O’Brian is transparent enough.  I know he struggles with the past, but at least he is honest enough about it.”  Nell leaned her head against Begglar as he encircled her with his arms, feeling the warmth of her.

“Who then?”

“Corimanth said that Lord Nem is being harassed by two fellows we know from Sorrow’s Gate.  Two that played us for fools.”

Nell sighed and closed her eyes.  “I think I know who you mean.”

“I never trusted Tobias.  I never could get used to his over eagerness to help us and fund the resistance.”

Nell nodded, “Him and his shady friend.  That Sanballat fellow.  They overpaid us for Noadiah’s Inn, and it did not feel right, but I did not know what else to do.  We were too well known in Surrogate…uh Sorrow’s Gate.  I doubt I will ever get used to its new name.  We had to leave, and you were already a wanted man.”

“I know. I know,” Begglar sighed resignedly.

“What did Cori tell you?  What trouble have they been making for Lord Nem?”

“We only spoke briefly about it, but Cori mentioned that there have been letters intercepted sent from Tobias.  Both Tobias and Sanballat are adamantly against Lord Nem rebuilding the walls of Azragoth.  They have tried to lure him away from the work on the wall many times, but Lord Nem would not be persuaded to meet with them.  They seem to think that rebuilding Azragoth will incite Xarmni to raid the towns and come towards the highlands with their armies to wipe us out.  At least that is their cover story.  But I don’t know.”

Nell shook her head, “I should have sensed it.  Tobias is a politician.  He ingratiated himself with the magistrates in Sorrow’s Gate.  He was strategically placed to get and give information and met privately with Noadiah many times.  She seemed to trust him, even though I always had an uneasy feeling about him.”

Begglar huffed, “Well, we will soon know more.  Cori suggested that we meet with that fellow we helped–Sage.  It turns out that his father was the palace historian for Xarmni.  He alerted Ezra and Lord Nem to Tobias’s background.  Seems he is an Ammonite.  Normally, they are suspicious of the Xarmnians, which might explain why Tobias was ready to help with the resistance, but he fell out of favor recently and I don’t think he is taking it well.”

“Who told you that?” Nell asked, turning towards him?

“Ezra and I talked when we were leaving the courtyard.  We are to meet with them soon, when Lord Nem gets back, so we’d best get dressed and get going.”

Nell and Begglar returned to the adjoining bedroom and did just that.  Soon they were downstairs and met Ezra as he was coming to fetch them.  They walked towards the governor’s residence, and Maeven joined them along the way.  They were led into the large multi-storied state house as work crew were clearing the walkways where several of the bough-laden booth structures had been lifted and blown off the rooftops, camouflaging the houses from the air.  Ademir, Lord Nem’s manservant met them at the door and led them into the large receiving room.

Lord Nem, Corimanth, another man of about the same size and stature to Nem, and the young Xarmnian refugee, Sage were seated at a long table, but rose as they entered and were announced.  After an exchange of warm greetings, Lord Nem introduced the unnamed man to them.

“This is my brother, Hanani,” Lord Nem announced.  “He is a one of the King’s couriers, who routinely makes trips to and from Capitalia, giving reports to King Xerxes, regarding his outer holdings and the communities still allied to Capitalia.  It is a dangerous job, and one requiring great skill in subterfuge and evasion, going to and fro through enemy territories.  Hanani relies heavily on the network of The Resistance to alert him to areas where the Xarmnian Protectorate have a roving presence.  Maeven and her Lehi riders have assisted him on more than a few occasions, creating a diversion, so that Hanani and his trusted team could pass through a patrolled region.  We have kept our familial relation secret, for there are those who might exploit his connection with me, if they knew of it.  Hanani, will you tell them what you recently uncovered?”

Hanani rose and took out a rolled parchment from a courier’s pouch he had slung around his shoulder and spread it out on the table using a flat stone paperweight to hold down the edges.

“Madam, I am told that you are a Seer,” Hanani addressed Nell.  “Would you mind looking at this script and telling me if you can identify the hand of the man who drafted this letter?”

Nell exchanged a quick glance at Begglar, received a nod, and slowly rose from her seat, coming to the head of the table where Hanani held down the parchment.

Turning to get a better look, she cautiously glanced at the letter, noting its sharp loops, swept curves that looked like hooks dragging through waters, and punctuated lines that looked as if the writer penning the ink pressed too hard down upon the paper.  Right away she knew who had penned this missive.  She had seen this hand style on many scripts before: Orders for stock supplies, notices of protocols for distinguished customers who would be visiting the inn, legal paperwork for merchant agreements, etc.  Yes, she knew this hand, and the very person it belonged to with certitude.  She and Begglar even had a bill of sale in their papers, with the same distinctive script drafted to transfer the ownership of Noadiah’s Inn to the interested friend of the broker of the deal.

The man had been given the confidences of the secret resistance, and had even visited Azragoth a few times, and, reportedly, mocked the rebuilding efforts that Lord Nem had undertaken to secure the city’s walls against former threats.

Lord Nem watched Nell carefully and saw her brow furrow in recognition.  “Tell us,” he said quietly.

Nell sighed, “I have no doubt.  This is the hand of Tobias.  I’ve seen his writing too many times working for Noadiah to fail recognizing it.  Tobias helped her with getting supplies and making arrangements with the magistrates for her to continue to conduct business, even when Xarmni kept a tight bridle on the town’s commerce and treasury.”

“I know you interceded on our behalf when we first arrived,” Lord Nem said, slowly.  “But if you remember, your host, Noadiah was strongly against our coming to Azragoth.  She warned us to leave that accursed city alone.  That nothing good would come of finding it again.  That the woods of Kilrane were damned.  Haunted, and the plague city was full of more death.  She strongly objected to us asking any more about it, saying the subject was closed.  That if we brought it up again, or if she heard of us making any more inquires about it, she would throw us out of her lodging, and we could sleep with the wolves of the plains.”

Nell nodded somberly, “Noadiah was never one to mince words.”

Hanani cleared his throat, “I believe she alerted this Tobias and his associates about Nem’s plans.  That is why this Sanballat fellow got involved.  They had made repeated threats, and derisive overtures cloaked as an appeal.  All of which were designed to stop Nem’s work and dedication to completing the wall.”

“I am not sure how to ask this,” Lord Nem said hesitantly, “considering all the help you have been.”

Nell raised her head, her eyes and her face reflecting sadness and fatigue that arose more from emotional stress than from lack of rest.  “Nothing is harmed in the asking.”

Lord Nem cleared his throat, “Do you…did you…share Noadiah’s opinion regarding this city?”

Sighing, Nell raised up and slowly shook her head.  “Much as I dreaded coming here…to the place where I lost my dear parents.  I have no doubt that this city needed to break with the past and serve as a place representing rebirth.  Renewed hope out of bleak tragedy.  No.  I did not agree with Noadiah.  Cori can attest to it.  My brother and I both pleaded with Noadiah to take us here when we were younger.  To see what had become of our parents.  To honor them in some way in death, as appreciation for the love they gave us in life.  I would not want this once great city to remain an anathema.  A blight in the annuals of history.  Fortifying its walls seems to be a promise of renewed strength.  I would not have it be otherwise.”

Lord Nem nodded and then gestured to his brother.  “Please read them the content of the letter.”

Hanani cleared his throat and stated, “This is just one of several.  We have received many other missives from other sources.  Some from the present owner of your former Inn in Sorrow’s Gate.  This Sanballat fellow, claiming that our motives here are to rebel against the Capitalian King, using his authorizations and provisions to stir up a rebellion against him, and have my brother here anoint and have himself crowned king, and if need be, form an alliance with Xarmni to undermine Capitalia’s highland claims and those villages still holding allegiance to Xerxes.  That now that Ezra and his former team have restored the temple, that prophets have been appointed to proclaim Nem king.  He attempted to lure my brother out of the city to meet with him to discuss these rumors, but we know they were planning to kill him if he dared go out and stop the work.”

Nell quietly returned to her seat next to her husband, her fists tightening and loosening, trying to keep herself from trembling.  She lowered herself carefully to her seat and Begglar took her hand, sensing her distress.  She felt strength in his calm, quiet grip, gently squeezing her hand in encouragement.

“This letter represents only the latest attempt to undermine us and lure my brother out of the city and distract him from his mission.  With these two and others, presently holding prominent and influential positions within the resistance, we can no longer fully trust those in that group to assist us in gathering information related to our shared enemies.  They could just as easily sell us out to the Xarmnians and eliminate our standing by creating factions when we so desperately need to be united.  They have even begun to turn some of the people within Azragoth against us, planting fear and threats in their minds to discourage their efforts in helping us complete all that is required to secure this city.  One suggested that my brother hide out in the temple and bolt the doors shut against a hidden assassin, but he refused, saying that The One who appointed him and gave him the vision and materials for this work was capable also of protecting him from harm.  That to hide out would set a bad example for his workers, and he would not stoop to fearing man over The One who called him to this purpose and present post.  We later learned that the man had been bribed to say this by both Tobias and Sanballat.”

“Sanballat was the more vocal of the two, and Tobias was more reserved.”

“Ever the politician!” Begglar snorted.  “The jackal!  Always playing both sides of the issue to see which profits him most!”

Hanani continued, “Tobias was communicating with many, trying to form a coalition against us.  Paying people to give good reports about him, to get us to trust him.”

“The sniveling weasel!” Corimanth interjected, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started.

“What none of them knew was,” Lord Nem spoke up, “I want given the right to delegate my successor.  The wall was just completed yesterday, and the gates were fortified and set.  I had made a promise to King Xerxes, that shortly after completing the task, I would return to his court to give an account of all that had been accomplished on my watch.  Hanani has agreed to take my place as governor when I return.  I have appointed Hananiah as commander of the fortress to assist him.  The Eagle is our field commander and is soon to return.  But this recent letter adds complications.  Read it aloud Hanani.”

“To the Esteemed King Artemis Xerxes: From your servants, the men of the region beyond the River Cascale.  Let it be known to the king that those you commissioned and charged, sent out from your esteemed court, have come to us to rebuild the rebellious and evil city of Azragoth, and are finishing its walls and repairing its foundations.  This act it due to stir up a rebellion, not just in inciting the kingdom of Xarmni to object to its insulting rise, reminding them of their once defeat, but it also threatens you, O king and your claim to holdings in the outer lands.  Since there is a great distance between your present might, and the encroachment of the resurging Xarmnian claims, this rising city must survive its rebirth only by making a treaty with the closest monarch for protection.  Xarmni is in defiance of your claims.  Daily they conquer towns whose citizens were once loyal to you and paid tribute to your treasuries.  Now, let it be known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls are finished, they too will deny you tribute, custom tax, or toll, and it will be detrimental to the revenue of the kings.  They may only swear fealty to the local kingdom, which you are aware stands against you.  Now because we remain in service to your palace, it is not fitting for us to see the king’s shame, and for this reason we have sent this present word and informed your Lordship, the King.  We request that a search be conducted in the record books of your esteemed father, the former sovereign of your mighty realm, so that you may learn the history of this rebellious city and its prior detriment to area kings and provinces in the past.  We believe that the curse of the plague that came upon it was due to its wickedness, and this was the reason the gods allow that city to be laid to waste.  We are duly informing the king that if that city is rebuilt and its walls finished, then because of this, you will have no further possession in the province beyond the great river Cascale and will cede all holdings to the Xarmnian empire.  We remain your humble servants, Rehum, the commander and Shimshai the scribe, whose hand penned this letter.” [Adapted from Ezra 4:11-16]

All were quiet, digesting the serious implications of the letter.

Finally, Nell spoke up, “Shimshai… was a nickname Tobias grudgingly used.  Noadiah gave it to him because every time he visited, he was always in such a dour mood.  It has a meaning in the old tongue.  She teased him often enough.”

“What does it mean?” Maeven asked.

“Sunshine!” Nell snorted.

*Scene 03* – 18:17 (The Haunted Hollows)

Water dripped from the ceiling of the karst cave, pinging loudly in the stilled pools of water, echoing down the shafts and tunnel tubes branching out in a web of black-throated hollows. There was a natural coolness in caverns, but I felt an additional chill from weird breezes coming out of the deeper dark.  In the half-light glow, coming from the blade, the walls of the cave appeared rough and scored by the grit and abrasion of dirt thrust through these hollows under the force of flowing water, but since the water had been diverted, as Lord Nem had said, the shift had drained these hollows and left an emptied basin and mere rivulets lingering in the few channels carved in the lower flowstone steps that led down into to those vacated hollows below.  If the sources of the water were from the seep of charged groundwater or rain that had permeated through crevices in the rock above, these rock formations would have been scoured by the naturally forming acids and perhaps the acids from the decay of organic decomposition.  Signifying this, the flow stone I carefully stepped down on had the appearance of a polished glass surface under the gleam cast from the Honor Sword.  I worried that I might lose footing or balance if the uneven ground stones proved to be too slippery.  Below was a basin with a series of naturally terraced collection pools of water trickling into those haunted hollows where the breezes were coming from.

The strange breezes intrigued me.  Typically, I would expect the air in a cavern to be still and have a musty odor with a coppery taste of limestone about it and a powdery scent of crushed chalk.  But the breezes indicated that there were either some porous holes in the rock above or there were other openings to the outside ahead.  The noises I heard before now seemed to come from a greater distance.

I followed onward, sensing that the creature might be moving away from me, but uncertain whether this was so.  Sound seemed to reverberate oddly here.  The oozing substance that I had found along the drier ground before seemed to terminate at the edge of the largest pool in the basin below.  The creature had been here, but not for long.  I saw strange abrasions in the cave wall as I neared that pool.  Water from above dripped into my hair and tingled my scalp, causing my face to tighten.  I glanced upward seeing the first sign of a cave formation I was accustomed to—a stalactite.  It hung over me like an unsheathed fang, sharp and pointed, descending from the roof of a mouth of stone.  I froze, and felt the room darken around me, as fear once again threatened me with immobility.  The drip that had landed in my hair snaked its way down the nape of my neck into my collar in down the groove of my spine.  I took in a ragged breath as the room darkened yet again.  The stone dagger above me felt like it might descend at any moment, pinning me to the cold stone floor.  This marbled flowstone would be my final catafalque, arresting me and my mission forever.  I was just a briefly animated morsel waiting to get skewered.  A foolish ‘shish-ka’ just waiting to be ‘bobbed’.  That thought struck me as funny, and nervously I laughed out loud.  In that unguarded moment, another gemstone from the Ancient Text came to my mind:

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” [Proverb17:22 NLT]

The original Hebrew word גֶּרֶם (pronounced ‘gheh’-rem’) can either mean ‘bone’ or ‘strength’ as in being ‘strong-boned’.  Translations vary but the phrase “Dries up the bones” in one translation can been interpreted as “saps a person’s strength” interchangeably.  Interestingly, drawing my mind briefly away from my present trouble into a meaningful aside, this word ‘גֶּרֶם – gerem’ is also used to describe the strength of the ‘behemoth’ creature mentioned in Job 40 verse 18 of the passage:

“15 Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like cattle. 16 Look at the strength of his back and the power in the muscles of his belly. 17 He stiffens his tail like a cedar tree; the tendons of his thighs are woven firmly together. 18 His bones are bronze tubes; his limbs are like iron rods. 19 He is the foremost of God’s works; only his Maker can draw the sword against him.”  [Job 40:15-19 CSB]

Pondering the phrase “only His Maker can draw the sword against him” in that additional verse that attenuated and paused my present renewal of panic, I was struck by that thought, while holding this Honor Sword in my grasp.  Then I reflected on the first part of that phrase “only His Maker” and immediately another verse came to me, punctuating that concept and driving it home.

“He who calls you is faithful; he will do it.” [1Thessalonians 5:24 CSB]

It wasn’t up to me.  Every instance where I was tempted to believe that it was, the light of the Honor Sword dimmed towards utter darkness.  This realization struck me.  I was struggling with my own lack of trust—Diminishing my faith when I conceived that this task was to be accomplished in my own strength, and under my own determination of will.  It was a fatal flaw in me.  One that both shamed me, seeing it as it was an investment in my own sense of pride.  My focus was on myself.  What I could do for The One, rather than surrendering to what He needed to accomplish through me.  Tears clouded my vision, and I wept, recognizing that seeking my own will as in fact rebellion against His call on me.

Only His Maker can draw the sword against him.  I could not defeat this monster that I hunted.  This sword was merely a toy stick in my own hand against sabers of spines, and a hungry maw that could eat through rock and dirt, crushing it as rammed through the underworld, making its own tunnels, piercing the core and heart of the surfaces we relied on to walk above it.

To defeat such a creature would require a miracle.  The odds were against me, if I solely relied on the calculus of human reasoning.  Once again, the words came to my mind:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of [the Surface] world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”  [Romans 12:2 NLT]

My mistake had been holding on to the mindset of my Surface World self.  I had often warned the others against that.  But hypocrite that I am, I ignored that admonishment that should have first convicted me.  I could not operate in this Mid-World under the assumptions of the Surface World.  The Mid-World embraced a duality, and its inhabitants recognized that physical resistance alone could not subdue an entity that posed a spiritual threat as well.  The Ancient Text affirmed this:

“Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” [Matthew 10:28 CSB]

What was required of me was full surrender.  This was not a call to inaction.  Far from it.  It was the call to surrender my own life to whatever I would face ahead.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.”  [Luke 9:24 KJV]

This was not fatalism—a shrug of the shoulders and saying, “whatever will be will be”.  This was choosing to leave comfort, self-reliance, the known, for risk, dependance, and facing the unknown.  Going forward and taking up a cross, headed for a death to myself, so that The Living One, could be who He needed to be through me in drawing out and using this Honor Sword against this ‘behemoth’ that ate up the very ground beneath our feet.

I wondered what damage this creature had already done.  I only had Lord Nem’s speculation as to how long this thing had been down here and did not know if its destructive rampages were caused by disorientation or by some vengeful awareness of the prey it had pursued above.  Nem had said that this creature was linked to me.  If it was, or ever had been, it was so no longer.  Those voices, first seeming to be my own, then unmasked into their guttural sibilance, had ceased.  Through my remorse and surrender my mind became quiet and focused on hearing The One alone.

I felt the wind again, but this time it seemed to draw away from me.  Fleeing in huffing breaths down that network of tunnels.  An inhale rather than an exhale.  What were those living sighs that caused temperature fluctuations?  What could I make of them?  What summoned them here to haunt these hollows?  What was their connection to this earthmoving beast?  A sword would be useless against them.  Were they spirits?  What was known about them?  I knew from the Ancient Text that supernatural entities had the ability to enter a vessel.

Luke’s gospel records the account of a father who brought his son to The One for release from a spirit that tormented him saying:

“A spirit seizes him; suddenly he shrieks, and it throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth; severely bruising him, it scarcely ever leaves him.” [Luke 9:39 CSB]

I knew that these creatures of metaphysical origin had the capability to demoralize and weaken the soul, even if they could not possess one who had committed his own life to the secure holding of The One.  These spirits may not be able to possess me, but they certainly could and would harass me, if I was not carefully submitted to hearing only The One’s true and peace-giving voice.  That voice came from The Word.

“For the word of [The One] is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  [Hebrews 4:12 CSB]

I had to simultaneously bear two swords to confront this beast: One of a physical nature, and one of a living and effective spiritual nature that could parry and thrust through thoughts and intentions of the heart.

In this acknowledgment, I felt a break tremor through me, followed by a piercing roar.  Deep in one of the branching tunnels, just beyond the larger pool of the basin, I saw a flash of light cast a strobic image of a claw along the walls of the deeper tunnel.  Flecks of gold sprinkled the glare, and I got the sense of seeing into a room with a shifting mound littered with round gold pieces.

I knew then, for certain, that the beast had lost its hold on me, and even though I was closer to it now, at least in my mind, it had yet to find me and it seemed confused by its inability to link to my mind again.

Not just confused.  Angry.  Extremely angry and petulantly throwing an enraged fit.  Lashing out at the foundations of the city above, unable to break through the ceiling of the cavern, or find a way up the walls to burrow through to the homes above.

It seemed drunk in its own fury, stumbling around in the darkness, its mighty tail swishing and smashing into stalactites and breaking stalagmites, and those of which had joined to form massive columns that supported the ceiling of the caverns.  Other large boulders also formed natural stanchions revealing that this cavern network was comprised of both fracture caves, talus caves, solutional caves and erosional caves.  So many forces were set to undermine the standing and security of the upper city of Azragoth.  Parts of the ancient cliffside must have fallen crushing and burying part of the older sites of this city, but they also created hollows and pits, cavities counterpoised on the stacking of sediments and underlayment of raw materials.  The area was a hidden honeycomb of tubes and runs, that one could easily get lost in; one seeking to find their own way out of a labyrinthian death trap, now inhabited by things beyond the ken of mortal man.

The ground beneath my feet shuddered and trembled, and the rumbling sound of an avalanche thundered in my ears.  The air in the tunnel was choked with swirling dust, coughing out from several tunnels before me, threatening to suffocate me with the blast of silt.  The Honor Sword flashed into brilliance, searing the darkness and causing it to shrink back, as I plunged into the shallow pool, wading through the sucking mud, thankfully finding a stony bottom that did not descend any deeper than a few feet.  I splashed through, sloshing the water and ascended to the abraded lip of the pool as it poured down the throat of the tunnel where I had witnessed the flash.  Nem had told me that these creatures were used for mining. That they had some magnetic quality about them, that drew precious metals to encrust their gargantuan bodies.  The scintillation I had seen had been of gold.  Gold coins and shaped ingots somehow making its body at least partially visible in its own greed for mammon.

I knew if I hesitated any longer, the monster might move beyond my ability to catch up.  Any further damage it might do, would further endanger those I was sworn to protect in the city above.  I could not let it go further towards the lower, outer sectors of the city for it would draw near the reservoirs of filth and disease that the people of Azragoth so assiduously and routinely to efforts to purge from their dwellings in the upper part of the city.  It was now time to charge the very gates of hell, fully yield the outcome to the providence and prerogatives of The One.  Once again the Ancient Text flared into my memory, its truth gleaming like a polished blade.

“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” [James 4:7 NLT]

I raised the shining blade before me holding it out in front as I plunged down through the smoke of the tunnel.  The smoke and dust parted before me, giving me a narrow hall surrounded by a miasma of swirling dust on either side that I could run through.  Hesitant no more, I muttered as my inner spirit prompted me, “As the prophet Isaiah declared against King Sennacherib (translated ‘the moon god ‘Sin’ multiplied brothers’), so I declare of you O beast of the underground, worm of the dust!  Thus says The One, who dwells in Excavatia, and in the eternity place within me as a guarantee of promise from Him whom I serve,

26 “…Have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen. I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble. … 28 “But I know you well–where you stay and when you come and go. I know the way you have raged against me. 29 And because of your raging against me and your arrogance, which I have heard for myself, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth. I will make you return by the same road on which you came.”  [Isaiah 37:26, 28-29 NLT]

Then with a loud voice I cried louder, “I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts!  You shall not escape me, Dragon of the Dust!”

*Scene 04* – 20:27 (Raising the Stakes – Part 1 of 2 “A Wanted Man”)

Begglar, Nell, Corimanth and Maeven remained seated around the large table in Lord Nem’s council chamber along with Ezra, Azragoth’s weapons master, chief priest and scribe, Lord Nem and his brother, Hanani, Nem’s soon to be successor, and the young man named Sage, a refugee from the city of Xarm, sheltering in Azragoth, and presently domiciled in Lord Nem’s own house.

Lord Nem pressed his fingertips together and sat very still for a moment, looking thoughtful with the slightest hint of irritation furrowing his brow.  Finally, he spoke quietly in response to Nell’s confirmation that the letter Hanani had shown them was indeed drafted by the hand of Tobias—a man who had insinuated himself into sensitive positions within the counsels of the underground resistance against their Xarmnian oppressors.

Hanani leaned back into his chair, his face clouding in an inscrutable expression.

Lord Nem looked to the young man rescued by both Begglar and Nell, named Sage.  “Now that Nell has confirmed what we suspected, young man, please tell them what you know about Tobias.”

Sage spoke up, “I was present when a delegation of the Kingdom of Ammon came to visit the palace and the Son of Xarm after his coronation.  I distinctly remember seeing Tobias there.  He is an Ammonite close to the regents.  Xarm and Ammon are not as opposed to each other as you might suspect.  They are a feuding and posturing family, to be sure, but they are still family.  The Queen of Ammon is the half-sister to The Son of Xarm.  There is enough shared blood between as much as there has been blood spilled.”

Hanani added, “Tobias is an agent of the Kingdom of Ammon.”

Begglar looked up, “And I had thought he was just a local politician!” irritated with himself for his naivete.

Lord Nem laced his fingers and spoke quietly, choosing his words carefully, addressing Begglar.  “This Tobias is indeed a politician.  He is financed by Ammon but enriches himself at every opportunity.  He was first attracted to Ezra’s mission to restore the Temple in Azragoth when he heard of him boldly bringing the golden and silver temple ornaments back to the city, having no military protection along the way but that which they entreated of The One when they encamped in tents near the crossing of the river Ahava.  But there is something further you must know about him; to fully understand the danger he poses specifically to you and your family.  I understand you have a son.”

Begglar leaned forward, the muscles in his forearms tightening, his jaw clenched involuntarily at the mention of a danger to his son.  Nell whimpered, clutching Begglar’s shoulder, as he responded, “Yes, Lord Nem.  My son is a young man now.  His name is Dominic.  His name means ‘devoted to God, The Holy One’.  Nell and I gave him that name because we had given up on the chance that we could ever have children.  When Nell was discovered to be with child, we dedicated him to The One in gratitude for giving us this blessing so late in our lives.  What danger does Tobias posed to him?”

Hanani spoke up, “Has Tobias ever met your son, or had any occasion to see you with him?  Even on a supplies trip to one of the local towns?”

“Oh, Begglar, dear!” Nell’s hand trembled as she raised it to her mouth, stifling a louder worried cry of alarm.

“I am sorry to alarm, you both, but as you know Tobias has a way of seeking to enrich himself at the expense of others but being in a sensitive position he will not expose himself openly, or act directly in such a way that might lead back to his part in a treacherous scheme.  The duplicity he has shown here by even posing as this ‘Shimshai’ character in this seditious letter, shows a level of deviousness that we did not realize he possessed.  He was quite open with his ridicule when we first began our project of repairing the walls, but has since quieted down, allowing Sanballat and others to berate us and lead in the attempts to undermine all we are doing in the restoration of Azragoth.  Tobias has a particular hatred for Ezra, but I’ll let him tell you of that.”

Ezra cleared his throat and nodded, picking up where Lord Nem left off.  “You know of me as a weapons master, training fighters in the Warrior’s Court.  But I am also a man of letters, and one of the chief priests charged with the restoration project of our temple to The One, here in Azragoth.  Our principal antagonists here are not merely those loyal to the Kingdom of Xarm but also have been those among our relatives that have compromised their allegiance to The One by disregarding His decree to be separate from pagan influences and not to intermarry with the peoples who hold to detestable practices in serving other gods.  We have kept an extensive record of families that were original to the city or born therein, after its founding.  Because we knew that the planned work on the temple would attract attention, we determined to accept the workmen and the priest from only those listed in our genealogical record.  When Tobias’s family could not be found, we refuse his help, his offered funding and the help of those he had hired.  He was insulted but still offered me a bribe, which I refused.  He threatened me saying he had a lot of friends in the surrounding community and that I was a fool to refuse his help or his money.  He has despised me ever since, so we have had him watched, not knowing what he might do.  That is why Hanani has had his men keep an eye on him.  I only recently learned that Tobais was an Ammonite.  Zerub was the governor then, before Lord Nem came.  Those we denied challenged our authority to do the work we had planned in Azragoth, but Lord Zerub produced the authorization we had from King Cyr of the northern clans, and that silenced them until King Dari succeeded Cry.  Later, we heard rumors that some of the discontents even sent emissaries into the Dark Woods to entreat assistance of The Pan and his creatures, but it was thought that nothing came of it.  The emissaries, reportedly, never returned, and some think they were eaten by those monsters.  Body parts were found, cast outside of the edge of those Dark Woods, giving credence to the latter thought.  Hanani and his spies have served well bringing us this information.  But I could not risk believing that the enlistment of the Half-Men had completely proved to be a dead end.  So we had to be vigilant against threats not only of human origin, but also of those comprised of the supernatural otherness.  There are creatures here that do not respond to the threat of a blade or the piercing of an arrow.  No bludgeon can fell them, nor device of warfare bring them to submission.  That subduing power comes only from the words of The Marker Stone, telling of the might and authority of The One.  The decrees given, and the promises made there hold faithful adherents into a place where no fatal harm may come.  The very words are imbued with an authority that comes from beyond our world.  That is why so many of us train for warfare not only in the Warrior’s court, but in the temple itself.  Two swords must be borne to fight those enemies which are more than flesh and blood.  But we must also be wary of those which try to deceive us and make us think that they are only what they appear to be.”

“We have met with such before.  But what does that have to do with my son?” Begglar asked, his voice rising with impatience.

Hanani reached into his leather courier pouch once again and pulled out another rolled piece of paper that was aged and tainted with water prints and wrinkled in places.  He unrolled it out and weighed it down as he had done with the other letter document before.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen one of these?” Hanani asked.  Pulling back and inviting Begglar to come to the head of the table.

Begglar rose cautiously and approached, scanning the paper and the writing above and below a smeared image of himself showing him as he had appeared over twenty-three years ago.  The image did not look much like him now.  At the time he had been much more of a barrel-chested man, broad in the beam, big-boned and stocky.  His face bore sun-reddened cheeks, his upper lip and chin were festooned with a walrus mustache and beard that brushed his upper chest.  But the cut of his brow and shape of his head and nose bore a heritable resemblance that he had unmistakenly passed on to his son.

“This is a wanted poster, bearing an image is of you back then when Xarmni first discovered your part in piloting a ship on the fjord lakes and river of Cascale.  You have changed your appearance much in the intervening years, but without the full beard, you must admit that your son does favor you enough to raise suspicion.  Notice also that the bounty on your head has gone up.”

The last words were a statement Hanani made, not a question.  5000 Xarmnian crowns in gold.  The original bounty had been set at 500 crowns, when Begglar first heard of it.  The words below the image were ominous.  “Dead or alive.  If dead, bring the Head only.”  In the Mid-World lands and surrounds, a man and his family could easily live for a year on the equivalent value of 50 Xarmnian crowns alone.  If a man possessed 100 crowns, he was considered to be wealthy.  Begglar’s hands shook, and he tried making fists to keep them from trembling.  He had long given up living in fear for his own life, but for the life of his wife and son…that was something else entirely.

“These posters have only recently appeared in the surrounding towns.  Sorrow’s Gate in particular.  We have no doubt, Tobias and Sanballat both would have seen these.  If they believe you have any sway with us or deep connections with Azragoth, they may take any opportunity to prevail upon you, and if they cannot influence you, they may try to threaten you with the life of your son in the balance.  Think back. When was the last time you or your son visited Sorrow’s Gate?”

Begglar ran his hand through his balding hair, seeming to age further in the presence of this news.  His beard was now much more trimmed and cut closer to his face, and his cheeks, though still weathered by a former life on the sea, and hard work in the sunlit fields of the highlands, were more shallow and less full and plump as they had been before.

He looked at Nell, his eyes seeking confidence he knew he could find in his uncertainty.

Nell gasped, her eyes lighting up in surprise at some revelatory thought that had just occurred to her.

She interjected and answered the question for Begglar, “Oh, I never would have guessed it!  Thanks be to The One who works all things to the good.  It has been nearly four years!  Four years since the Xarmnians came and threatened us with conscripting our son into their army!  Remember, dear?!”

Begglar slowly nodded.  Realization coming to the surface.  Dominic was born in the latter part of the third year after O’Brian went missing and returned to the Surface World through the seaside portal, the roving oculus.  That is why O’Brian had to be introduced to Dominic.  When the boy turned fourteen, he had lied to the Xarmnian Protectorate that the boy was only thirteen, three years from when the officers of Xarm considered boys ready for conscription to their ranks at the tender age of sixteen.  Old enough to fight, yet young enough to train and discipline.  Prime years of uncertainty, with the need to prove to themselves that they could handle manhood.  His son was now eighteen.  After the threat made to conscript his son, he had kept his son out of sight when Xarmnians visited the Inn at Crowe.  He had planned to lie to them, if they came back seeking Dominic for their military that Dominic had died of an illness.  He could not risk lying to the Xarmnians that his son was dead, if others could report to them otherwise, so he insisted that Dominic not be allowed to travel on their quarterly supplies trips to supplement what could not be produced in the vicinity of the local highland fields and stock.  He had avoided Sorrow’s Gate because of the risk of recognition and had not seen or heard from Tobias or Sanballat since the selling of their Inn.  They essentially disappeared and had no contact with that faction of the resistance.  They had allied themselves with Maeven and her Lehi riders and some of the limited go-betweens from Azragoth.  Hiding Dominic had, in the end, ensured that neither Tobias nor Sanballat even knew of his existence, or the present whereabout of Begglar and Nell.  Providence did indeed work all things to the good, and Begglar told them so.

Ezra responded, “That is all well and good, but do you know why this sudden renewed interest in locating you has come about? Why the Xarmnian outrage persists?  And for that matter, why the Kingdom of Ammon also has a specific hatred for you, under your former identity as Captain Duncan MacGregor?”

Begglar grinned, “Ah! That’s the name me parents gave me in the Surface World long ago.  But I thank you not to be so free to speak it hereabouts, seeing that Xarmni and Ammon still have such a keen interest in finding me. And I like to live a few more years with me body and me head together in one piece.”

Hanani spoke up.  “The head of the leviathan, that sea beast that you and your team struck and tore asunder has been found.  Fishermen discovered it and left it in a hidden cove.  The body had decomposed, but they snagged the creature in their nets and somehow managed to drag it ashore.  The monster’s head was left there to rot.  But later when they told the story in Skorlith, some of the Ammonite fishermen overheard and pressed the men to take them to the spot where they left it.  When they arrived, they discovered footprints coming out from under the monster’s slack and gaping jaw.  They believe something or someone crawled out of it, strange as that may sound.  The Ammonite fishermen started chanting and bowing in worship to the rotting head, and the Skorlithian fishermen became terrified and quickly left the area.  It seems that the Ammonite Kingdom and to some extent, the Xarmnian Kingdom once revered the Leviathan.  The Ammonites even ritually sacrificed their children to it, when it plied the waters of Cascale as a living monster.  The Xarmnians also worshipped the thing but for different reasons.”

Ezra spoke again, “The Ammonites called the beast Molech.  The Xarmnians called it Chemosh.  The Ammonites worshipped it in fear and thought to appease its hunger by designating one of each family’s children as its sacrifice.  They observed rituals where they tossed their children into the cold waters at a particular site and watched as the beast seized them and took them under.  Meanwhile the Ammonite fishermen would sail their vessels upstream and cast their nets for fish while the beast was occupied in the lower place down river.”

“That is terrible!” Maeven spoke up visibly shaken by such a pagan ritual.  “They murdered their own children?!”

“They believed their god demanded it.  That the leviathan would grant them a better harvest in fishing, since so much of the Kingdom of Ammon relies on that trade,” Ezra continued.  “They hate you, Begglar, for in their mind, you killed their god.”

Corimanth joined, “And the Xarmnians?  What is their view of the slain monster, since they are down beyond the sea rakes?  They built a barrier to keep that monster out of their saltwater lanes.  If they revered the beast, why would they prevent it from coming along their shore as well?”

Ezra answered, “They revered their monster Chemosh for its power.  Yes, they were terrified of it, but they were fascinated with it as well.  To them Chemosh was a symbol of Xarmnian power.  A living icon.  The beast suppressed the ability of the shoreline communities of Skorlith and the Ammonites to compete with them in profiting off of the sea trade.  When Chemosh swam to Ammon, the Ammonites surrendered their children, ensuring that the Ammonites would never be able to field enough of an army generationally to ever match the numbers of fighting men under the command of Xarm.  Ammon was kept in check by their own beliefs in their monster god of Molech, and they mocked them, saying that Chemosh kept them weak.  But it was reported to the Son of Xarm from someone who overheard the account of the finding the monster’s head that they could no longer rely on Chemosh to keep the balance of powers as it was, and that there was something in human form that had been rumored to have crawled out of the beast.  They believe that Chemosh has taken a different form, and think that they must find the ones who destroyed its body, before its living essence can return again to the waters of Cascale.  This is why the renewed interest in you, Begglar.  Both kingdoms are seeking you now.  A head for a head, is what they say.”

“So, what are you suggesting?” Begglar asked, returning to his seat.

Lord Nem rejoined, “That you reconsider following O’Brian on this quest.  The road ahead could be very dangerous for you, and if not, that you consider letting your son stay behind with us.  He is a very skilled fighter.  I noted his proficiency with both a staff and a blade from our first full day of training.  We could use more young men like him.”

“No!” Nell said defiantly, “That is out of the question! We’ve not let Xarm conscript him, and we’re not going to let you either!  He’s our son!  He’s all we have.  We are not likely to have any other children at our age.  I won’t be separated from my boy! No.  I won’t.”  She shook her head.

Begglar sighed.  “Can you give us a moment?  We’ll just step outside.  No need to get up.”

Begglar turned and took Nell’s hand.  She stared at it for a moment, and then finally took his hand and stood.  Her eyes welling up with tears.  Begglar led her to the door, turning to the room as he opened it.  “We’ll just be a moment or two.”  Then, going through it, closed the door behind him.

*Scene 04* – 04:54 (Raising the Stakes – Part 2 of 2 “Deciding Dominic”)

“The boy is of age, Sweetheart,” Begglar said. “It is time we quit making decisions for him.  He has earned the right to decide this for himself.  Let’s trust him to make his own way.”
Nell wiped a tear, and sniffled, “I know. I know,” she said, trying to reconcile her mother’s heart with the undeniable fact that her little boy, was now a man.  “It is just so hard to let go, when so many other things have been taken from us.  But he is the most precious thing.  I cannot bear the thought of losing him.  D’ya not hear tha horrible things said in there?  Child sacrifice?!”

“Pagan!” Begglar agreed, “So pagan.  How man could stoop to such debasement is beyond thought.  Straight out of the Dark Woods of the Moon Kingdom!  Something that The Pan and his monsters would conceive of.  But this comes from the pit of man’s darkness.  More’s the pity!”

Nell bowed her head and released a deep sigh, “But such as it is, we do not serve a God such as these.  Surrender is hard, but it is the path The One sets for us in all things.  Of course, you are right, My Love.  Dominic would follow whatever we say.  He is a good boy, that one.  But it is time he made decisions on his own.  I cannot protect him from life, dark and as painful as it might be.  We are agreed.  Dominic must decide for himself whether to go or stay.  It is his right to choose to become the man he should be.  A man like his father.”

Begglar hugged Nell closely and then together they reentered the room.

***

The others looked up as Begglar and Nell came back in and took their seat.

Lord Nem addressed them, “We would like to offer Nell a place here with us as well, if you feel you should go on with O’Brian on this renewal of the Stone Quest, or if you would prefer to stay…”

Begglar raised his hand slightly, “Before you go further Lord Nem, while we appreciate the gesture, Nell and I have known for some time that we would both be rejoining this quest again.  We’ve discussed it many times.  Planned for it, and feel it is the right thing for us, despite the danger.  You and the people here have been more than gracious to us, and to our neighbors, Shimri and Aida.  But I’ve never been one to abandon something just because it grew difficult.  Especially when I knew for certain that what I was doing was right and in line with what The One was leading me through.  This quest is not merely an interesting side journey, it is what I was called into the Mid-World to do, as it was with all who came with us from The Surface World.  Nellus and I are partners in the good times as well as in the bad times.  It is our covenant made with each other and with The One who brought us together from two separate worlds.  Nell goes where I go, and I will go where she goes.  But as for our son, he is of age and must decide what he will do.  I am his father, but not his owner as a master to a slave would be.  I will present your offer to him, but he must be free to decide for himself.  Please give him leave to do so.”

“Very well, then,” Lord Nem conceded and placed both his hands flat on the table before him.  “Our offer stands should you ever change your mind.  The road ahead will be very dangerous for you, but we thought to warn you of the particular danger posed to you and your family specifically.”

“And I appreciate that,” Begglar said.  “Nell and I have had several years to grow less naive than we once were when we first married.  We have met with our share of duplicitous individuals, and those wearing masks for one reason or another.  We have encountered strange unnatural creatures and have taken comfort in the protective and reassuring words of The Marker Stone.  O’Brian will need us as much as we need him…”  Suddenly, Begglar looked around the room.  “Where is O’Brian?” Begglar asked, “Shouldn’t he be here to listen to this too?”

“O’Brian is handling more pressing matters, at the moment,” Lord Nem responded cryptically.

*Scene 05* – 19:11 (Eyes to See)

Ahead of me, there was a loud staccato sound as if metal tines raked, scored and skipped across rough granite, tearing loose gravel and hammering against some barrier, that cracked and filled the air with dust and falling debris.  An ululating, bass rumble came from within the noises of breaking stone, and clouding earth sloughing off the cavern walls.  The floor seemed to shake with the violence of the impacts, and there was a thudding and swirling of air as something the size of a tree trunk whizzed destructively overhead, slamming into a tunnel wall, collapsing a ceiling and partially burying the striking limb of the beast in tons of rock, gravel, and sand.  The supporting earthen pillar near the fallen shelf of ceiling rock appeared to shrug under the added weight conceded by the fallen support column, but for the present, it valiantly bore the added burden surrendered by the fall of its twin.  The tunnel was not completely buried such that it was impassable, but if the remaining column failed, that passage would immediately collapse.

The creature was, for the moment, pinned on the other side of the tunnel and it would only be a matter of moments before it might struggle free.

If I was to, at last, see and subdue this creature, or hope to kill it, now would be my best opportunity.

I brought the honor sword forward so that it illumined the ground underneath me.  Wet viscous ooze showed the path that the creature had taken, and the weight of the beast, despite the secretions, still dug a pressure furrow in the dirt that was at least five-foot-wide in under its ponderous girth.  Nem was right.  This creature was very big, and by the cracking of stone over which it had passed, I could tell that it weighed more than I had even suspected.

I scrambled up onto the hill of debris and broken rock that partially blocked the tunnel that had lost part of its ceiling.  The mount upon which I climbed lurched, and I felt the evidence of incredible strength as the buried limb of the beast stirred, flexed and curled, working its way loose of its temporary grave.  Dust and silt clouded the stale air, blanketing the shifting surfaces upon which I had ascended.  A series of small quakes threatened to topple me, and I leaped from stone to shifting stone, avoiding the sucking fissures breaking apart and refilling with dirt and gravel.  The grit and powder stirring in the air dimmed all visibility, yet the pulsing light from the honor sword seemed to sift the clouds away, allowing me to quickly find my way over the summit of the mound, and ride the sliding stones down its leeward side.  Somehow, I maintained my precarious and teetering balance, as large slabs of shale rocked and spun and jostled into one another, moving from atop the lurching ones to those with less of a spin.  A perimeter of gathering scree rimmed the bottom of the fallen ceiling and as a particularly large semi-flat stone slid down to the gathering edge, I leaped from it to the sloping tunnel floor the momentum forcing me down into a spring-heeled crouch, my arc lighted blade held before me in a guard position.  It was then that I first saw a part of the partially buried creature.

The limb, a long, massive column of rock-like plates and spines, tore free of the top of the mount, thrashing and shedding dust and debris as it writhed and twisted with fury.  Rocks broke apart beneath it as it slammed the mound, and gravel spat out like a shrapnel assault.  Its spines had a metallic luster, the polished sheen reflecting and bouncing the light back from the sword I held forth.  Furious as the creature was, the light from the honor sword seemed to burn it, such that it shrank back and moved away from each scintillation that illuminated its oiled and lustered scales.  With such movements, I moved away for cover, lest it launch itself from the mound and set another crashing of stones and earthen walls down upon us.

Another thirty feet backward, into the tunnel, I turned fully, having never looked away from the creature for more than a few seconds as I moved out of immediate striking distance.  It was then that I saw a lone beam of daylight pierce through the fogs of dust and provide a darkling silhouette of the creature’s head suffused in tanned billows of dust as it rose over the top of the mounds of broken earth.  As the dust began to settle, the creature’s horned head shook from side to side, freeing its crown of stones and loose earth.  Its head bristled with silver spines as if it was no mere creature, but an amalgam of both monstrous machine and prehistoric behemoth.  Its maw opened and coughed out a bulldozer scoop of dirt on crushed stones as if it had been chewing its way through the tunnels.  Large gill slits fanned out from behind its massive jaw spraying forth clouds of dirt backward and away from its hoary head, making the creature seem somehow akin to a large fish of sorts.  Strangely enough, as it cleared its throat of gobs of sands its teeth seemed to torque in their jaw settings, as it clenched and unclenched its massive jaws.  The idea that it chewed its way through the tunnel system, I realized, might be closer to the truth than speculation as I’d thought.  Mesmerized, I gaped and stared at it, for a moment more.  Its head was the size of a van or mini-bus.  Its fringed crown sparkled as if it had some embedded diamond coating, gilding the cutting edges of each twisted spire.  And then I saw its eyes.

They had been closed and shrouded under some nictitating membrane like a shark would have.  They were oblong and bulged outward under a set of spiny scales that formed an epicanthic fold, preventing grit from gathering under its leading corner as it moved underground digging in pursuit of its prey.  I do not know what I expected to see in those eyes.  Perhaps, irises flowered with pedals of golden flame.  Blood red pools with the black spiked talon of a pupil.  I don’t know.  But somehow these were worse than my imagination could conjure up.  They were at one moment completely obsidian, and then in a blink appeared human with an icy blue flecked iris that gave one the feeling of frosts chilling the skin.  A bright white sclera, like a cue ball, peeked around the corners of the irises, appearing in each corner below the eye-folds.  Had I just witnessed an illusion or a trick of the dim light?  These were black at first, weren’t they?  Had they changed, somehow?  The creature chuffed making a popping noise, like that of a shotgun going off.  Those flat-bladed teeth in its maw twisting with its jaw movement.  A viscous ooze gathered in a drool, wetting its maw and the leathery tongue that descended out of a cleft in the roof of its mouth.  A sound, like that of the popping of a semi-tractor trailer’s airbrakes being down-shifted, erupted from the descending blackness of its throat.  Its eyes blinked black again, and I felt it find me, standing below about and about fifty feet away from its perch above the mound.  The light shaft above it seemed to pierce glass-like through its skin in patches, where the dust had not fully settled and blanketed its form.  The creature’s body suddenly convulsed, and its scales separated in some kind of inhalation and exhalation, causing them to weep out an oily substance that cleared the dust from its skin.  It was becoming more and more translucent as if the creature was beginning to vanish before my very eyes.

The creature glared at me, its eyes strangely shifting between blinks from black to the ice blue, with a round widening pupil probing me for some kind of psychic weakness.  I could feel it reaching out, attempting to assault my mind with accusations and condemnation.  The voices were guttural and muted like sounds heard through deep water.  A prurient watery echo garbled this mental assault, and I silently prayed for the assurances of the Spirit to comfort and strengthen me in His keeping.

A mental arrow came into the bow of my mine from the words of the Ancient Text, and set its shaft into the notch of a taut and stretched string:

“1 LORD my God, I seek refuge in you; save me from all my pursuers and rescue me  2 or they will tear me like a lion, ripping me apart with no one to rescue me.  3 LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice on my hands,  4 if I have done harm to one at peace with me or have plundered my adversary without cause,  5 may an enemy pursue and overtake me; may he trample me to the ground and leave my honor in the dust.  Selah  6 Rise up, LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my adversaries; awake for me; you have ordained a judgment.  7 Let the assembly of peoples gather around you; take your seat on high over it.  8 The LORD judges the peoples; vindicate me, LORD, according to my righteousness and my integrity.  9 Let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous. The one who examines the thoughts and emotions is a righteous God.  10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.  11 God is a righteous judge and a God who shows his wrath every day.  12 If anyone does not repent, he will sharpen his sword; he has strung his bow and made it ready.  … 14 See, the wicked one is pregnant with evil, conceives trouble, and gives birth to deceit.  15 He dug a pit and hollowed it out but fell into the hole he had made.  16 His trouble comes back on his own head; his own violence comes down on top of his head.  17 I will thank the LORD for his righteousness; I will sing about the name of the LORD Most High. ” [Psalm 7:1-12, 14-17 CSB]

Four components of warfare readiness clarified in my mind, telling me exactly what to do.

1. To trust and submit myself under the keeping and protection of the Almighty.
2. To confess anything that might stand in the way of our fellowship and the summoning of His fierce justice to this righteous cause.
3. To place my confidence in His ability to champion this righteous cause and to empower me to be used as His instrument to do so.

And lastly, 4. to give credit where it is due for the victory to be about to be won.

I had no illusions.  To eyes unable to see anything beyond the material world, this stand looked foolish.  I may bear the middle name of the young lad who stood defiantly before a giant, unable to stand up under the panoply of battle dress.  But I knew that victory would be claimed over this terrifying beast.  This was foolhardy.  I had nothing to protect my skin from one vicious sweep of its bladed tail.  Nothing to stay the crushing power of its massive twisting jaws from closing over my mangled and bloodied body.  Nothing to keep bits of my flesh and crushed bone from being sifted and sliced and expelled out of its gill slits in a spray of wet gore.  Okay, those thoughts weren’t helping.

No telling how far or how fast the creature could move, but I knew I could neither chase it nor run from it now.  I voiced a silent prayer and confessed my doubts and failure to act to the One who had called me to stand for this moment, and I prayed for the known and unknown members of my company in the city above unaware of the conflict here below.  There was no bargaining for my life, or that I may survive this violent encounter, for like any other soldier bracing for the battlefield, I had my orders, and I knew what I was being called to do.  To lay down my life for the sake of the others and to seek honor and glory of the One.

My sword flared and blazed anew, and I was suffused in a nimbus of light.  I could sense the mental arrow of truth, command the creature’s attention as it shot forth, shutting down its attempts to take hold of my thoughts.  The invisible and spiritual missive raced through the dank air, burning and cracking with power and before the creature could flinch away, the spiritual arrow pierced its black obsidian eye between blinks and drove its shaft into its cranium.  The creature’s nictitating eyelid fluttered over the invisible shaft unable to dislodge it in the physical or spiritual plane.  Its eye clouded with an almost immediate milky cataract, as if the frost from its changing eye, finally broke through to freeze the black lake where it supernatural insight swam.

The creature lurched violently, its massive torso coming up and over the mound, tearing and crushing and leveling the top, as it roared in fury.  I launched myself forward, scrambling over the scree, clamoring up the hillside as its summit slide and broke around me.  The light shaft above the creature was brighter than it had been before and I hoped it did not signify that another portion of the city would soon collapse upon us.

I could see even more of the massive creature coiling around the mound, its body had no legs to propel it, but it did have baffles down its upper body, with mirror-like plating that seemed to swim with an oily light.  The creature could sense that I was near.  It snuffed about trying to get a fix on me, but I had deliberately moved away from its line of sight into its blind side.  But I knew that would not last for long.

Parts of its body were already fading from view, blending in chameleon-like with the colors and textures around it.  I had to find a way to pierce its armor plating and get clear of its slicing spines before they returned the favor.  From what I could still see, the beast was heaving and flexing, gathering its strength and drawing its massive coils, slowing up the mound, as if preparing to launch itself up through the ceiling.

The ceiling.  The shaft of light.  Its head was lifted, and it was studying the foggy ray that had made its way down into the dark tunnel.  It was looking upward, searching the broken ceiling above.  Preparing to make a break for this way out of the tunnel system, and violently upward, emerging right through the very heart of the hidden city of Azragoth.

Every moment was weighed out in gold—drawn from the account of a very poor man.  And as that impoverished man, what had already been wastefully paid out plunged me into deep debt.  The creature’s belly lifted, and its circulating coils pushed its ponderous body higher and higher after its straining pulsing neck.  Up till now, I had not seen any appendages from the creature, thinking that is was more serpent-like in some ways, but now I saw, behind the gills, the two massive arms, as big as the boles of a tree, that jutted backward from a shoulder and then forward on powerful forearms terminating in bird-like feet and claws with long black talons.  I had thought to get behind its head and rush in where the gills were, hoping to drive the honor sword in through the back of its neck and up into its head, but I had not known about its folded arms, because the creature alternative between snake-like motions and now that of a lizard missing its rear legs.  This creature was mostly in its element underground, but it hunted on the surface, seeking to capture and seize its prey above and then drag it screaming and fighting to devour it at its leisure in the darkness below.

As I feinted in, looking for my attack approach, the beast caught my attempt and its powerful arms reached for me, its talons almost catching the edge of my cloak.  With the blinding, it had overshot its balance with its angry swipe at me and toppled sidelong across the top of the mound.  Its head curved and it righted itself swiftly, dislodging more large slabs that tumbled down into the scree below.  Its left eye roved back and forth attempting to compensate for the loss of its right one.  Its black tongue peeked in and out from a notch below its upper lip, sampling the airborne scents it identified with me.

At each attempt to gather itself and ascend through the broken ceiling above, I feinted in, trying to keep it preoccupied with its hatred and need to eliminate me as an irritant.  With the arms now revealed and ready to claw and rip me to shreds and with its serpent-like body, I had at last decided to classify this beast as a drake…or a dragon, as our Surface World legends describe them, among those of the Asian and Oriental variety.

No matter what I classified it, I still needed some way to keep this dragon down here and subdue it.  I could not just contain it within the tunnels, for its destructive rampage would continue to destroy the foundations of the city above.  I needed to bind it, maim it, or kill it and I further knew I could not keep holding its attention for much longer.

Then something happened that I had not bargained for.  Something that took away my ability to further distract it from its intention to ascend.

*Scene 06* – 14:00 (Jalnus and Judith)

Jalnus the Weinman was a tavern owner within the city of Azragoth.  He had been a wine merchant in Azragoth’s halcyon days, before the city became overrun with rats that spread a plague throughout the city under the Xarmnian siege.

In the aftermath of the destruction, he had moved to a small vineyard on the plains of Ono that was later burned by Xarmnian Protectorate men when he would not give the men further drink without payment.  After the fire had consumed his only means of trade, he fled again to Azragoth when Lord Nem returned to it and took up residence in one of the larger structures in the upper quarter near the vicinity of the old fountains and baths just inside the interior wall.

He reasoned that where there were returning residents coming from exile, there would also be a need for a tavern and meeting hall where food and drink could be served while the city was still under repair.  Ezra and Lord Zeb had brought over forty-three thousand people with them who settled in the surrounding lands, allowing him to sell the property remaining from his burnt vineyards for a fair price.  A burnt vineyard would have been worthless otherwise, but with the large influx of people coming in, the land itself became valuable, and Jalnus’s idea of a fair price went up considerably as the new demand for property conveniently increased its value.

If the Xarmnian monarch had his way, all properties would eventually be subsumed by the state, then leased out for use to those who could still afford to pay Xarmni’s high taxes for use.  Had Xarmni succeeded during this time and the lands been no longer under the jurisdiction and protection of Capitalia, the burnt vineyard would have been his complete ruin with no chance for recovery.  Personal ownership of his property had given him an out from the inexorable path toward destitution.

When Lord Nem arrived with a Capitalian guard of army officers and horsemen three years later and the work of reconstruction of the inner wall began, the workers and their wives expressed a need for more food and drink to survive for, during the days of quarantine, they had mortgaged their fields and vineyards and homes to buy food for survival and to pay tribute taxes both to the Capitalian King of their former alliance, and now to the taxes and fines imposed by the Xarmnian monarch whose landed interests now extended to the midlands just below the highlands.

Seeing the need as an opportunity, Jalnus and his wife Judith moved back into the old city, found an ideal multi-leveled place with a large cellar and opened a tavern with the remaining barrel stock he had salvaged from the vineyard storehouse vats, and the monies he had made from the sell of his countryside property, and opened a tavern with a large hall on ground level and several small bedchambers in the upstairs rooms to accommodate both workers and visitors to the city.  The move had been a shrewd and lucrative venture and Jalnus prided himself on his good fortune to be so happily situated and profiting from the city’s rebirth and the return of the former exiles.  Jalnus had enjoyed having a steady income, without the hassle of the Xarmnian Protectorate demanding his ware and further taxes and tribute, for the Xarmnians were still unaware of Azragoth’s rebuilding efforts or proximity to the towns and properties they had subdued.

Jalnus was also proud of the fact that he remained hidden within the old city, reasoning that if the Xarmnians could not find him, they could not tax him.  He would pay his dues to the Capitalian king, but not to the greedy and brutal monarch in Xarm.  Freed from that added fiscal obligation, he was able to invest in purchasing land again.  He had acquired mortgages on several vineyard properties outside of Azragoth and was making a supplemental income from them until Lord Nem shamed him and others for the practice of usuary and indenturing the children as servants from those people who could not pay the debts.

Lord Nem had every right, under the Capitalian king’s orders, to levy a municipal tax and charge interest from those he governed in the city and surrounds, yet he refused to further impoverish his workers and their families and those who supported the effort by making daily provisions for those who had come in from the outer woods to help with the repair.  He reminded them of his right to tax as governor but also of his example in refusing to place further financial burdens on those he governed.  Jalnus was irritated but acknowledged that, perhaps, he had charged too much for his management fees of the mortgages he held, and he, like the others, promised to restore those fees and interests paid to their owners and release them from further obligations.  He also reduced his wait staff of indentured service and offered those who wanted to remain a fair wage for their duties.  Getting their consent, Lord Nem had made it clear that he would curse any of those who failed to keep their agreement, emphasizing this by shaking his robe, saying “If you fail to keep your promise, may The One shake you like this from your homes and your property!”  And so, both he and Judith had made further concessions to provide food, drink and shelter to the workers who had yet to find a berth or home inside Azragoth until the walls were fully restored and had also agreed to shelter the strange newcomers who had recently arrived in their city as guests from lands unknown, free of charge.  A condition which Jalnus and Judith both were growing tired of.  Yes, they were wealthy once more, and yes, they had made good investments and were still making a decent income above their operating costs, but the decrease in their net income rankled them, nonetheless.  However, it was not wise to incur the ire of the leadership of their city, so they pretended to be delighted and enthusiastic in their magnanimity.  Now that the walls had been completed, they were secretly relieved that they would no longer have to feed and slake the thirst of so many workers without remuneration.  The whole experience had made them irritable in their private conversations and that irritability was beginning to show.  Judith routinely snapped at Jalnus for his tendency to drink more than he should in the evenings.  And for his grumpiness and grudging reluctance to take up the slack and participate in the mundane operations of his tavern now that he had relieved part of his unpaid servant staff.  Judith was forever sending him up and down the dark stairway to the cellar.  His rotund belly did not help him in the journey up and down the sublevel stairs either.  He always emerged sweat stained and breathing heavy from the effort of trundling back and forth up and down in the basement.  “Go get another barrel of spice wine,” Judith would say, “we’re serving in the dining hall tonight.” To which he groused, “And I suppose its…”

“Free of charge!” both he and Judith mouthed silently, with a sniff of exasperation being their only giveaway about how they really felt, lest the wait staff overhear them.

He had brought fifty-five barrels of wine when he’d first established the place and was now down to only a few barrels left of his original stock.  He had tried to supplement his wine cellar with wine barrels paid to him from the mortgaged vineyards for a time to offset his losses, but to tell the truth those pathetic vintners produced an inferior product that he could barely swill much less drink.  “Too many white grapes!” he grumbled, “Not enough red!”

In his mind white wine tasted like spit.  Its better use was for making cheap champagne, once a group of celebrants had had their tanks filled with the passable reds to give them a buzz and dull their senses to anything a refined palate might notice.  Those vintners never seemed to let their reds properly age.  They sold new wines to meet their debts, but the value never increased because the quality never had the change to season the fermented bouquet.  He sighed and mumbled, “Well, that is what comes of getting wine from poor people who cannot afford to hold on to it and properly store it.”  He ground his teeth thinking of the time when one of his renters had tried to pay him with some new wine put in old wineskins that burst during the transport back to the city.  He should never have sent that ignorant Abdullah to collect payments.  He had fumed over that loss and the tenant that had tried to cheat him using the old skins and had charged the man a large spoilage fee with a high interest rate as a consequence.  When the many couldn’t pay, he had taken the man’s daughter to serve in his tavern until the debt could be paid off.  The trouble was, he had not kept track of what the girl’s wages would have been, so he had no idea when or if that debt would ever have been satisfied for her to be returned to her family.

She had been one of the ones he had released from her duties and had elected to return to her family, for she had not seen them in three and a half years.  She had been a good worker, despite her father’s attempts to cheat him.

But more people were coming to live in Azragoth, now that the wall had been restored.  And more people meant the potential for more profits again soon.  Lord Nem had encouraged many to return to the city to complete the final restorations of the interiors and establish them again.  He had even had families chosen whether to remain outside or come to live within by casting sacred lots.  With the repatriation of former Azragothians, and the completion of the wall there would be a dedication ceremony and a cause for celebration throughout the city.

Yet once again, Judith pressed him to go back down to the cellar and bring up a flagon of wine and a cask of ale to serve the outworlder guests after their day’s work out in the Warrior’s Court.  The look on his face brought a stern reprimand from Judith and she batted her hand at him.

He started to protest, but she jerked a finger over her shoulder and whispered, “Skipper’s in the other room and you know how chatty she is.  Don’t give her anything more to talk about.  I’ve heard just about all I want from her today.  Now be off with you. Shoo! And be quick about it!”

Jalnus’s brow furrowed, and he scowled, muttering, “Be quick about it, Jalnus! Be quick about it!” in a mocking tone.  “Free ale, free wine, free cheese for everyone.  Free at the cost to me!”

Judith’s smile and wink didn’t help much, but he turned to go anyway.  Irritated enough to know that if he lingered any longer, he would most certainly say the wrong thing with too much volume and it would fall on the wrong ears and spew out of the wrong mouth in the company of the guest as the overly cheerful waitress both he and Judith had nicknamed ‘Skipper’ for her tendency to hop about while she served guest would share her employer’s present disgruntled mood with no sense and no filter, giggling all the while.

As he shuffled and trundled down the stairwell he wondered if he would be expected to donate more of his food, servant help and wine to the celebration again…unpaid.  He huffed.  He longed for the days when he could just sit in his counting house looking at piles of precious coins and getting his hired “strong backs” to lug barrels up the steps.  He had fired Abdullah after the wineskin incident, but perhaps he had been too hasty in his outrage.  The young man had been ignorant and was never taught how to recognize the difference between a new and an old wineskin.  An oversight, perhaps that he should have taken the blame for, rather than casting it all on the lad.  He snuffed once more remembering that though the lad was an eager worker, he had a weakness for the taste of cheese.  That is why the young man could not be trusted with the basement key.  The waxed cheeses were stored in the basement as well.

When Jalnus finally reached the bottom of the stairs he had to put his torch in a sconce as he fumbled through the keys for the right one to open the thick wooden door.  Unlocking it, he took up the torch again already sweating in the heat from the flickering flame.  Trying not to set what little remained of the sidewalls of his hair on fire.  He had singed the ends a time or two.  And it did not help that Judith laughed at him the last time it happened, and his partially bald head was smoking unaware.  He turned the release catch, lifted the torch as the door opened swinging inward.  Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw just beyond the threshold.

*Scene 07* – 12:00 (The Shaft)

Above us, in the aperture shaft that led to the surface, where the stray beam of light descended into this underworld, we could see the suspended edge of an outside wall and the partial interior of a cellar room now missing part of its floor.

A door opened, and a man bearing a torch stopped just short of stepping perilously down into the hole that now occupied the area just beyond the threshold he had intended to enter.  Flagons were stored in wall racks, cuts of smoke-cured meat dangling from ceiling hooks hung from floor beams and the tops of barrel casks could be seen in the flickering light of his torch, as could the shocked expression on his rounded and flushed face.

Despite the danger of my own precarious situation, I could not help but commiserate with the poor fellow, standing there stunned, looking through the hole in his floor into a face of nightmarish horrors, and down further into my dirty, upward turned face.  Indecision froze him for only a second before I distinctly heard him say, “I think I shall go back upstairs now.”  And upon those words, he quickly retreated from the doorway and, for good measure, promptly locked the cellar door.  Being somewhat of a corpulent fellow, I heard his heavy footfalls as he swiftly ascended the wooden stairs beyond.  Perhaps he was seeking the solitude of another room in his domicile.  From his parting expression, that room was most likely a privy.

As I said before, the paid-out moments spent in dealing with this dust dragon were precious and I could not afford further distractions.  This momentary one almost cost me the farm, the surrounding properties and the county in which it resided.

The dragon’s tail lashed out.  Its bony-plated, diamond-pointed, razor-honed edges slicing through the air cutting towards me with dangerous precision.  I had only a fraction of a second, between being impaled upon those deadly stone cutting spines and waving a portion of my lower body a bon voyage as it was flung into the dark tunnels behind me.  The light that encompassed my sword and my body flashed, and the flat blade of the honor sword bore the brunt of the impact, sending my body airborne, end over end down the embankment to land hard upon a pile of sand and silt at the edge of the scree-ring below.  I was winded, and my ribs felt compressed into my spine, and I gasped for breath, only to find the massive tail sweeping upward again, the bony scythe-plates angled down and falling towards the place in which I had landed. I rolled away, up onto a jagged stone, which I had just missed in my previous fall, just in time before the tail slammed hard into the sand, stirring the dust clouds once again until there was no visibility or clear air in which to breathe.  I used that lack of visibility to my advantage now.  Again, using the honor sword’s supernatural sweep ability to provide me with a way through it, temporarily hidden from the roving single-eyed sight of the creature.  The dust masked my scent as well, for I could sense the creature’s angry frustration at its inability to see whether its vicious lunge had succeeded or not.

I could imagine its rapidly blinking eye, bizarrely switching from ebony to ivory and blue, hoping for the savage satisfaction of feeling my dying agony, and witnessing the broken ravages of my bludgeoned, crushed and pierced body, pinned and buried beneath the weight of its cleaving tail.  I would give it no such satisfaction.

With the swiftness of thought, another arrow of the Living Breath of Life came into my mind, its jagged and honed tip, readied to be pointed at this gargantuan denizen of death.

“24 … “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [express a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].” [Matthew 16:24b AMP]

I responded in my spirit to the Voice of the Truth delivered to me.

“Lord, what do you want me to do?  How can I subdue this creature of deception?”

This time a knowing came into my spirit, which summed up what I already knew in my heart.

To paraphrase it, it came down to “Love the One who called you, above everything else, and love those you are called to lead and serve by laying down your life for them if necessary.”

I verbalized my prayerful response, making it more real for me, by conversing out loud with the One speaking into my inner Spirit.

“Lord, if I die here in this battle, how will the others know of the sacrifice I made for them?  Will my life have meant nothing?  Will they think that I abandoned them?”

The response came immediately, and it was in the form of a question that unmasked my cloaked pride.

“Whose glory do you seek, in giving up your life in this secret place?  Your own?  Or Mine?”

It was clear that I sought some degree of shared recognition from the others, and being faced with the truth of that, I became ashamed of it.

“Tell me what to do.  I need no other affirmation, but Yours.”

I had a sense of His pleasure in this, and the quickening glow that infused me and the covenant sword I bore, brightened with an intensity it had not shone before.

A knowing filled my mind that expressed the key to bringing about the demise of this terrible beast, and the way of doing it shocked me and threatened to make me fear again for my own life.

My heart, mind, soul, and body had come to a crossroads at which I, within my own spirit, had to make a commitment to surrender all in what to others would seem to be a terrible choice.

Beside the waiting and invisible arrow, I could only picture with spiritual perception, there arose another verse of the Ancient Text, that formed alongside the readied arrow delivered into my spiritual arsenal, this time the verse formed the lead edge of the stretched bow where the end of the shaft and the arrow tip lay.  The arrow guide, in which I was to focus this next assault.

“2 Your tongue devises destruction, Like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. 3 You love evil more than good, Falsehood more than speaking what is right. Selah. 4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. 5 But God will break you down forever; He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent, And uproot you from the land of the living. Selah.” [Psalms 52:2-5 NASB]

My target and point of assault clarified and stunned me in the same instant revealing to me that this dust dragon was the mid-world embodiment of a creature I had spoken about long before.  An agent beast of Deception.  Of course.  What else would be so intent on devouring foundations and undermining every plan formed by those above?  Deception creatures gained his power through whispering lies and misleading thoughts that distracted those following his covenant calling.  It also now made sense why there would have been a cloaked Banshee embedded in our party.  And why it so hated its exposure.  These Dust Dragons consumed the soil of the land and through his gullet, he transformed the engorged dust mixed with his unique saliva into a malleable clay-like substance that could be used to form a temporary physical body for the Banshee creatures of the wind.  The Banshee we exposed and displaced was a mole, a deceiver, planted and connected to this Dust Dragon.  It fed bits of intelligence back to this Dragon as it pursued and stalked us from a safe distance.  When we routed out and exposed that Banshee from among us, we cut off its ability to sow dissension within our company and reveal our plans back to the enemy.  So, the creature was only left with one alternative.  To subtly link its mind to mine and take advantage of my self-doubt and feed my uncertainty.  I was indeed in the thrall of this dragon.  Its supernatural probing sight found an opportunity within my waning confidence.  It had used the fact and worry that I did not have the assurance that I would be equipped once more by the Spirit’s commission and subsequent Quickening power to do what I had been called to do.  These sudden revelations were like an epiphany, that further opened my perception.  Giving me the clarity to how these Beasts between Worlds had conspired to insinuate himself into our mission and undermine it at every opportunity.

Another verse came to me, assuring me again that what I sensed needed to be done was, in fact, the correct path.

“3 Who have sharpened his tongue like a sword. He aimed bitter speech as his arrow, 4 To shoot from concealment at the blameless; Suddenly he shoots at him, and does not fear. 5 He holds fast to himself an evil purpose; He talks of laying snares secretly; He says, “Who can see them?” 6 He devises injustices, saying, “We are ready with a well-conceived plot”; For the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep. 7 But God will shoot at them with an arrow; Suddenly he will be wounded. 8 So he will make him stumble; His own tongue is against them; All who see them will shake the head.” [Psalms 64:3-8 NASB]

The key to subduing and killing a dust dragon lay in piercing or cutting out its terrible tongue.  I had only to trust in and launch these supernatural arrows at this dust dragon and see what would come of it.  Perhaps it would cause this creature to open its mouth once again in angry fury.  To release its vile black tongue from the cleft in its upper jaw, exposing the dark hollow of its throat.  But the arrows alone would only provide me with an opportunity to use the honor sword as I might, with surrender and obedience to the One to do what needed to be done.  I would have to commit everything, spirit, soul, and body to this chance to get close enough to strike a blow to its vile, scent-tasting tongue.  To be able to do that, I would need to be in its terrible rock-crushing mouth, between its twisting and torquing teeth.  I would have to allow this Dust Dragon to eat me.

*Scene 01* – 07:56 (Wooden Cage)

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

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

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

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

And then, the trees began to fall…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Those are booths,” Nem answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I hesitated and then followed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I don’t understand.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am not following.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I have…up to a point.”

“What do you mean ‘up to a point’?”

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

“You do that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nem fielded another question.

“Who told you to come to Azragoth?”

“Begglar told me we needed to get there.”

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

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

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

“I trust Begglar.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“More?”

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean?”

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

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

*Scene 03* – 07:05 (The Cressets)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dellitch’s head bobbed approvingly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why have you done this to me?!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nem?”

“Yes, Mr. O’Brian.  I am still here.”

“I know I needed this.”

There was silence, but I continued.

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

I paused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What does it look like?”

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

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

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

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

He let me ponder that a moment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But wouldn’t Maeven have…”

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

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

I heard him clear his throat.

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

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

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

He paused, letting me consider.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Kept out? Why?”

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

“Can they kill it?”

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

“What about Maeven, and her path forward?”

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

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

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

*Scene 05* – 20:00 (Pitch and Toss)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Out with it!” Briar huffed growing impatient.

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

“Since?!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Scene 06* – 00:00 (Entanglements)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Scene 07* – 13:00 (Ignition)

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

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

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

“Oh Jesus, I am scared!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another verse presented itself:

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Scene 01* – 11:27 (Bread and Broth)

When Begglar and Corimanth left O’Brian to talk privately to Nell, they walked across a glistening courtyard of foot-polished cobbled stone to one of several firepit stations serving the steamy bone broth drink.  Fire glow flickered over the sun-glazed stones giving them a coppery cast emerging from their dull grey base of grit and mortar.  Flames crackled and spit sparks and embers into the darkened sky, rising like fairies only to be doused by the evening’s moistening breeze.  Various groups of people gathered in huddles, speaking in low tones, with occasional laughter breaking up each hushed cloister into a crescendo of mirth and good-natured banter.

The broth had both a calming and warming effect, as both Begglar and Corimanth sipped gingerly at the edge of their bowl-like cups.  The vessels warmed their hands, as the hot salty broth seemed to soothe their aches and lessen the strain of their exercise weary muscles.  Corimanth had encouraged Begglar to take a few of the small hand-sized loaves of a baked hard bread and dip it into the broth, for an added savory experience.

“Oh, this right here!  Mmm-hmm,” Begglar nodded, taking his first bite of the broth-soaked hard bread, chewing with relish.  “Good, isn’t it?” Corimanth grinned, enjoying his brother-in-law’s delight.

“That’s champion, that is!” Begglar agreed.  “Who made this?”

“Some of our folks bake the bread in kilns, hereabout.  They use a wild yeast that they allow to slowly ferment when the bread grains are mixed cold.  They hand mix the batter, with a third of the amount of water, then let it set for a few hours before finishing the shaping.  The whole process takes about four days of cooling and drying letting it rise before they finally bake it.  I’ve made a few loaves myself a few times,” Corimanth said, grinning.

“Nellus never told me you knew about such things.  If I’d known you were here and could make these, I’d have had you come live with us and help me run the Inn with Nell.  We started as a bakery, y’know.”

Begglar dipped another piece of the bread into his broth, and took another bite, “Aahh, that’s good!  The broth adds the perfect blend of saltiness, to the warm buttery taste of the sopped bread.  Warms both the belly and the soul.  A harbor for the heart as well as the gut.”  Corimanth chuckled.  “Well, I’ve not always be able to eat like this.  Folks here live simple but wholesome lives.  They are hardworking, determined, yet watchful.  And with good reason.”

“Ahh, the ever-present Xarmnian threat!” Begglar quipped.  Corimanth shook his head.  “That is secondary, there is a more prominent threat we face, and that comes from some of those who despise Xarmnian rule as much as we do.”  Begglar stopped chewing, “Really?  And who are these antagonists?”

“A fellow by the name of Tobias,” Corimanth grunted.  “Works for an even shadier character named Sandballat.  Ever heard of such a name?”

Begglar almost choked, a small spritz of broth emerged from his lips, dribbling down onto his beard.  He set his broth cup down and used the remains of his bread to wipe his beard free of the spattered liquid.  “Sandballat?!  Why that is the man’s name who we ended up selling Noadiah’s Inn too.  What trouble is he making?  And who is this Tobias character that you say works for him, now?”

Corimanth’s brow furrowed, “So Nellus sold the Inn at Sorrow’s Gate?  I didn’t know that.  Well, that is disturbing news.”

Begglar grunted, “What kind of trouble are they making?”

Corimanth sighed, “Ahh, mostly threatening letters.  They’ve sent a few emissaries out here, wanting a meeting with Lord Nem.  They’ve been hot around the collar about us daring to rebuild the city of Azragoth.  Recently that wanted a meeting with Lord Nem to come out to the plain of Ono, where we share pastures for our cattle, and graze our flocks and herds in the open country.  I think they are wanting to renegotiate the bargains we have with the local stockmen, to provide us with our share of meat, wool and dairy products.  The forests here are no place to keep such animals, and the woods offer very few meadows for grazing.  We get wild goats and donkeys that break into the old city sometimes, but the old city is mostly burned out and overgrown with wild vines and such.  Nothing you’d want to feed your dairy stock.  The Ono plains are rich in grasses and have good water sources coming down from the highland shelf.  I think the suggestion of that place alone for the meeting is a veiled threat.  We are not naïve children here.  I am certain that they want whatever we are doing here to stop, and perhaps plan to even kill Lord Nem if they have to, to demoralize us.  But that is only one part of the trouble they are causing.  What worries many of us are the letters that we know they have been sending back to Capitalia, trying to characterize us all as troublemakers.”

“And this Tobias character is doing this?” Begglar growled.

“Him and Sandballat are both in on it,” Corimanth muttered, taking another sip of his broth, eyeing a man across the courtyard who seemed to be staring at them.

“But what…” Begglar started, but Corimanth put a hand on his arm, halting his question.  “Wait.  I think we are being watched,” Corimanth whispered.

“Who?” Begglar turned, scanning the clustered groups around them.

“That man over there by the north wall.  Middle-aged, short beard.  Lean angular frame.”

Begglar scanned and then spotted him, “I see him now.” Begglar nodded, “How long has he been watching us?”

“Only for a few minutes, but…,” Corimanth paused.  “Look, he’d coming our way.” Corimanth nodded forward as the man approached with some hesitancy.

Ezra emerged from one of the clustered groups and stepped toward the younger man, looking for a moment as if he might intercept him, but instead followed behind him.

The man flushed with a bit of embarrassment, as he approached Begglar and Corimanth, and both men exchanged a puzzled look.

“I’m sorry, but I think I know you…, I mean…we’ve met before.”

Corimanth, set his broth drink down on a short, raised wall next to Begglar’s cup and an additional loaf of bread.  Begglar stiffened a bit, adjusting his shoulders, leaning his head to the left and right, as if bracing, and loosening his posture for a fight.

As the young man came further into the glow of the firelight, both Corimanth and Begglar began to perceive some degree of mutual recognition to the man as well.

“I must confess, I am very surprised to see you both here.  I thought I might never see either of you again, and I wanted so much to thank you both for saving me and my family.  My wife, Corinna, is here in this place, but she is with the children.  We all own you both our lives, but I don’t know either of your names.”

Begglar’s eyes widened, “You’re not…?”

Ezra spoke up, behind the man, smiling and joining them in the glow of the cast firelight.

“This man is a fugitive from Xarm City.  His name is Sage.  His father was conscripted long ago from Azragoth, years before the plague and subsequent quarantine.  He was made a servant to the current monarch’s father, whom the city and its people are named after.  He was a chronicler, and scribe, a palace historian.  This man, his son, also followed in his father’s profession, and was given an apprenticeship under the royal guild of heralds.  He was recently sent to us by our network of agents working in the highlands for The Resistance.  He has provided us with key intelligences on the innerworkings and history of the Xarmnian courts, and of their rise to power, and the shadowy intrigues of the palace during that rise.  I am told we have you both to thank for that.”

Begglar grinned, appraising the man once again, with the connection clarified.  “Ahh!  You came to our Inn at Crowe!”

“Yes,” the man, now known as Sage smiled, “And I want to thank you for your kindness.  We have known very little of it living in Xarm City, even as prominent as my father was, it is a place of constant suspicion and posturing.  The royals are mercurial and cruel.  A dangerous lot, who rule by threat and instill fear in their subjects.  I had never known that there was another way to live, until I, my wife and children fled the city.  This place, and its people are kind to us, and I cannot remember ever seeing such kindness in others who were not of my own blood.”

“You’ve fattened up from when I saw you last!” Begglar laughed.  “I remember you being much leaner, and your children were such poor creatures, my wife could hardly stand it to have to send you on your way.”

Sage smiled, “Xarm did not feed well.  Its better food stores were reserved for the king’s banquet halls, and for its fighting men.  But here we’ve been more than taken care of.  And eaten more in a day than we would have been able to scrape together for a week back home.”

“Aye, that’s the truth!” Corimanth affirmed, “Even in the king’s guardian men, we hardly had enough fare to get skinny on!”

Sage nodded, “You were the king’s treasury guard.  I remember seeing you many times as we passed through the courtyards up to the balcony terrace of the king’s scribes.  You were the one who helped us escape the city.  We would have never been able to even approach the outer gates, if it had not been for you.  And you told us where we needed to go to find refuge.  That the journey would be long and dangerous, but if we could make it far enough to find the town of Crowe, there might be some help there from an Innkeeper who lived on the far side of town.  You gave me the keyword I needed to gain his trust.”

Begglar turned suddenly to Corimanth, “How did you know to send him too us?  How did you know to have him use my old surname?”

Corimanth raised his hands defensively, I have kept tabs on you two since you were married, brother.  I needed to be sure you were doing right by my sister.  Whatever put it into her head to marry a salty seadog from the Surface World, I’ll never know, but I wasn’t sure of anything.”

Begglar arched an eyebrow at Corimanth, “Perhaps it was my rugged, masculine charm!  Did ya think of that?”  He lightly cuffed Corimanth’s arm.  Corimanth grinned and responded, “That never crossed my mind.”

Begglar cocked his fist back playfully, “You’ve got some blarney in ya, Cori!  You better be glad, I’ve gained some restraint over the years, or you’d’ve gotten a clout fer that smart answer!”

Cori raised his hand’s defensively, giving a short breathy laugh.  “Shall we toast to this well met greeting and have another go at the bread and broths?!”

Ezra, Sage, Cori and Begglar all laughed, and gathered again around the firepit, and attendant’s serving station for another round of drink and dining, this time enhanced with the added flavor of welcomed friendship and good fellowship.

*Scene 02* – 05:24 (Night Hunters)

The sky had grown dark at the coming of the evening. Hadeon and his Protectorate entourage gathered in the grassland meadows at the lower base of the highland road.  The night breeze was moist and cool, but Hadeon restrained his men from building a fire and making a night camp.  The remaining Cerberi were anxious and restless but tired from the hurried descent down the long winding grade from the edge of the highland rim.  They panted noisily, tongues lolling and their eyes shining keenly as a hazy starfield began to prick through the purple canopy of the night sky.

By and by, Tizkon, Bayek and Kathair rode down off the lower grade as they made haste to join Hadeon’s gathered company.  They spotted dark shaped silhouettes in a field to the north side of the main road.

Seeing the approaching men, leaving the silver dusted road, Hadeon snorted and rode through the field’s deep grasses out to meet the trio as they descended into the valley, leading a team of five other horses.

“You’re late!” Hadeon barked, coming within shouting distance.

Tizkon looked over at Bayek as Hadeon approached, and muttered, “He’s not going to like this.”

Hadeon rode up, turning his snorting horse, riding across their forward path, allowing his mount to pace in front of them.  He glared and squinted through the half-light, examining the bare backed horse team, and the old man tied across one of the few saddled mounts.  He sniffed his displeasure and then stabbed his three tardy men with a razor-stropped glare of suspicion, moonlight glinting off his sweat-soaked beard.  “What is all this?!” he swept his arm at the group, “Where are all the others?!  And what’s he doing here?!”

Bayek quickly side-glanced at Kathair, and Tizkon, realizing they were expecting him to give their answer.

He sighed heavily, then raised his chin, resolved to endure the heat blast that he was sure would come.

“We had some trouble in the wooded trail.”

“Trouble?!” Hadeon growled, “What sort of trouble?!”

Bayek went on to tell him a clipped version of what he’d recounted to Tizkon, of the blockade created with the crashed wagon on the narrowing trail, of their foot pursuit of those fleeing, of finding the strange dead end and their sinister and deadly encounter with the wood siren.  He’d only been able to recover the extra horses, because they had tied them beyond the broken wagon when they’d pursued their quarry on foot through the narrowing rim trail.  He alone had been spared to deliver a cryptic message to their king.

“I don’t have time for excuses!  Those fugitives are in those woods somewhere, and we’re going after them.  Any sign from Aridam?” he growled.

“The last I saw of him, he and his team were following that other wagon to the northwest,” Tizkon answered, hoping to get some approval from Hadeon for offering additional input.  Hadeon snarled, “That is where I sent him, you idiot!  If you can’t offer more information, then shut your gob!  And further, why is this bundle of sticks packed on this mount.  Didn’t I give you an order to cut its throat?!  Have you forgotten which side of a blade to use?!  Shall I get one of these small-town smithies to give you a bloody saw, instead?!”

Though Tizkon could not see the heat reddening Hadeon’s face and the fierce furrowing of the Bruel’s brow, he could certainly feel an icy chill coming through Hadeon’s menacing voice.

Kathair spoke up, “We thought you mind find it more useful to carve this man up, as an object lesson to those others, once we catch them.”

Hadeon was silent for a moment considering Kathair’s carefully chosen words.  Finally, he sniffed and grunted, muttering, “Very well, then!”  He reined his horse back toward the meadow.  Sighting the group along the silvering billows of moonlit grass.  Bayek spoke up, when Hadeon’s back was turned to them.  “Should we wait for Aridam?”

Hadeon growled, “No!  I’ve waited long enough as it is.  We’ve got traitors to catch tonight.  We’ll get the Cerberi to track them through the woods yonder.  They seem to love the night.  They’ve not eaten much today.  Perhaps, they’ll catch the scent of blood soon.”  Hadeon spurred his horse and rode off through the grass again toward his other company of men and the remaining Cerberi.

Tizkon shrugged his shoulders and muttered, “Isn’t that the woods of Kilrane?”  Kathair answered gruffly, “The very same. Why?”  Tizkon shuttered, “Cause I heard those woods were haunted.”  Kathair started to chuckle, but Bayek spoke up, “No, Tizkon is right.  They are haunted…or at least they will be.”

Kathair paused, a slight mirth playing in his voice, “What do you mean ‘they will be’?”

“They will be,” Bayek growled, “…by us!”  And as he said this, he spurred his horse into the waving sheafs of tall grass, following after Hadeon who was now about thirty yards ahead of him.

*Scene 03* – 20:24 (Fit to Be Tied)

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The blacksmith’s hammer pounded the fired metal he held with forge tongs, flattening the orange glowing end upon his anvil.  Sparks burst and twisted upward from the piece with each loud strike.  While the hammer rang, the man’s assistant poured more molten metal into a cut mold and then ran a long file down the hardening molds, cleaning off the dross.  Another smithy operated a press, letting the molten steel cool a bit before pulling down a winch lever, that released a suspended counterweight, driving down a hinged molding plate into the trough of the mold further flattening the annealed steel to fill in the recesses of the press mold cavity that shaped the metal.  Some of the apprentices pumped the bellows of the six forges, burning down the iron in the smelters, and scraping away the bubbling dross off the top of each vat in the furnaces.  Other attendants, using ladles, dipped and poured more of the liquid metal into short vertical molds, pushing tongues of flames out of each casting sprue hole.  Others opened the pressed metal molds that had been set aside to cool and set with picks and hammers, while others dipped the newly forged pieces into cooling water tanks and then dried, rasped, filed and polished the resulting piece.  After the final tempering and polishing, each of the metal pieces were laid out on a long collection of tables and racks and then the strange, shaped pieces were linked and fastened to small metal cuffs with flared ends that had been browned to prevent rusting.

“What are we making these cressets for, Smyt?” one of the apprentice smithies asked.  “We only agreed to make the collar shanks, didn’t we?”  Smyt, the head blacksmith in charge of the king’s forges, growled, “Bes’ not to ask too many questions, Ori.  We just do what we’re paid for.  Ask too many questions and you might as well, forge your own leg irons and manacles too.” The man called Ori shrugged, “Must be king’s business. Forget I asked.”

The evening sky had already darkened to an ash purple, with luminescent clouds scuttling across the hazy moonglow.  The men working the forges were bathed in orange and yellow flashing light as the fires from the kilns and metal molds flashed under the softer firelight in the braziers.

“Locking collars are done, sir,” another attendant announced, set down a heavy box of hinged cuffs with locking cotter pins holding the flanged eye-tabs together.  “Ready for the fittings.”

Ori glanced nervously toward the paddock door, used to secure the royal foundry.  Metal implements were stacked, leaned, driven and hung all about the secured lot behind a thick wall of stone.  The men worked late on the special projects, and rarely, if every went home to their wives and families until well after dark.  But this ‘special project’ was outside the usual line of their work.  Beyond the outer door, strange winged creatures waited to be let in.  Smyt had ordered those waiting to remain outside until they were called, so that his men would not be so distracted from their work.  A sentry had conveyed his message to the head mistress of these beings, called Harpies, and had received a grudging concession.  Any one of those creatures could have flown over the wall, but for some reason they resigned themselves to wait until the blacksmiths were ready to recieve them.  Just knowing the strange, mysterious creatures were out there lurking about, gave Ori a strong sense of unease.  The creatures were not to be trusted.  They served the dark monster in the farther north woods called The Pan, and that ruler was not known to treat humanity with any sort of deference or mercy.  Many travellers were warned to stay out of the dark woods of the north, along the upper fjords of Cascale, or they would be taken and most likely eaten by that monster and his strange hybrid kinds.  Seeing those harpy creatures in daylight was disturbing enough.  Seeing them in dusk or in the darkest of hours of the evening was like haplessly stumbling upon a coven of witches, incanting and gathered around a low pit fire in a backstreet alley in the middle of the night.

Smyt ambled to the box that the attendant had set down on the table.  He huffed and picked one of the hinged tubular cuffs out of the wooden box and turned it over in his hand.  He took out a rasp file and pried open the cotter-pin out of its sheath, freeing the cuff hinge to move freely opening and closing.  He grunted, and nodded a tacit approval of the work, and then toss the assembly back into the box.  His face was stained and blacking from the smoke of the forges. The creases of his redden flesh were accentuated by the grim and blackened grit collecting in the darkened folds of each wrinkle and scar lining his grizzled visage.  “Very well, then.  Let ‘em in.  But see that they come in only two at a time.  Ugly things.”

The man who had brought the box nodded and then moved towards a heavy swinging gate, made of rivet hammered sheet iron, set in a thick, wooden frame.

The other workmen paused in their duties when the gate swung open, revealing a huddling of black feathered creatures whose most pleasant look, came off as a glowering scowl.  There were about thirty in all.  Their strange faces were that of old women, with aquiline and avian features: hooked noses prominent on their aged faces, with large avian eyes that seemed surreal in the deep, shadowy eye sockets of what might otherwise have been a human face.  They glared at the attendant standing by the door, sniffed a dismissive snort of displeasure and then hopped into the gated smithy court, their claws clicking on the cobbled stone, their feathered bodies ruffling and unruffling, as their forms bobbed up and down with each forward hop.  One of the attendants gestured at the tables and rack, with his hands, but was unsure what, if anything, he might say to these strange creatures.  The long tables were set with a narrow path between them, forcing the harpies to move along the parallel space roughly in pairs.  The strange crone heads bobbed and wobbled along the table line, their wild gray, white and black hair now muted in the orange washes of light from the fiery forges.  Their age-plowed wrinkles gave their faces a shadowy severity, afforded by the darkling night, disturbingly offset by flickering of the fiery flashes from the foundry pits.

Smyt was temporarily mesmerized by the procession, but soon regained his bearings.  He grumbled something unintelligible at his men who had stopped working to stare at the feathered creatures, hybrids of both human and large birds, each with a buxom ruffle of feathers covering gray bosoms, adding one more incongruent element of their human female origin to their present squatty feathered forms.

“Ori,” Smyt signaled.  When the man named Ori did not respond, Smyt barked his name louder. “Ori!”

“Hmmh?” Ori responded, turning away from watching the creatures, realizing Smyt had addressed him.

“Quit gawking and keep the men working!  We’ve not finished this order yet!”

Smyt wiped his soot-stained hands on a dirty piece of fleece wool and moved away from the smoking forges towards the group of creatures, now gathering along the edge of the long tables.

He looked at his attendant who had directed the creatures inside and scowled in uncertainty not knowing how to address these strange half-women half-fowl entities.  The man shrugged, offering no helpful clue either.

A taller, large creature pushed forward through the gathering of feathered fiends, moving with some degree of a limp.  Her eyes seemed larger than those of the others, owl-like in nature, but with a disturbing quality of perception in them as well.  She parted her pursed and wrinkled lips and directed her steady and unnerving gaze at Smyt.  She assesses him, looking him up and down, with some kind of sinister appraisal, her cheek twitching, jaws bunching as she did so.  Smyt returned her searching appraisal with that of his own, noticing that one of her legs appeared to be missing a clawed foot, but had been replaced with a wooden peg leg, fastened somehow with a strap that disappeared into her feathers around her avian rump.  Seeing the man looking at her leg, she raised her chin, stretching the waddled skin of her neck upward in a proud act of defiance.  Finally, she spoke in a raspy voice, with an odd cadence and warbling tone, “Are all the Son of Xarm’s men so mute that they cannot speak a word of welcome?!”  She sniffed in a derisive manner.

“Umm,” Smyt began, but that matron creature dismissed his response, before he could answer.

“Nevermind!  Collar shanks are what we are here for.  King’s promise, he did, and the service to the bargain.”

One of the hesitant men came forward to the table, suddenly solicitous.  “Yes, yes.  R-r-right this way to the fitting deck,” he stammered.  At the end of the long table was a raised platform with three broad wooden steps leading up one side and another set leading down the opposite side.  The strange group of harpies bobbed and weaved down between the long tables, eyeing the metal hardware that was soon to become part of their accoutrements.  The older, larger of the congress of Harpies, who had been the first to speak, scowled suspiciously at the steps leading up to the raised platform, and then waved one of her followers ahead to go up first to be fitted.  “Zefilah,” the matron squawked a command, “You go first! I will see how it is to be done.”

Dutifully, the harpy presumably named Zefilah, hopped up the short stair and turned stretching out a large talon with mottled gray and black pebbled skin, placing it forward.  One of Smyt’s men came forward carrying one of the hinged tubes open and fitted the metal tub around the shank of Zefilah’s leg, with the flared flange end fitting smoothly over the knuckle of her claws, raised just enough to allow her to flex the claws open and closed.  The metal tube covered her exposed shank and had a curved flare at the top allow the bird-woman to move her leg about without the top of the metal tube impeding or restricting her movement or gait.  Zefilah looked down inspecting the new installation fitting snuggly around her leg, her crone face broadening into a crooked smile.  “What about the other?” Zefilah looked up, turning to Delilah.  “They said there’d be hooks for our blades, and wing caps?”

Delilah turned, and snuffed, looking at Smyt, “Yes. Those things we want to see.”

Smyt nodded to one of his other attendants and the man came forward bringing what looked like a candle snuffer, with a curved hook on its conical point, and a thin belted strap extending from a short triangular fan, below.  The attendant approached Zefilah who eyed him imperiously.  “May I?” he asked.  To which Zefilah, simply thrust forward her wing at him.  The man mounted the steps of the platform and carefully placed the cap on the flexor radiale point of her wing, and clamped the triangular fan down between the pin feathers and secured the strap, locking the cap and wicked looking hook in place. Zefilah extended her wing and drew it back, flexing and stretching her broad wing to ensure her wing movements would not be impeded either in fight or in flight.  Satisfied, she ordered the attendant, “Do the other one.  I want to test it in flight.”  As the attendant bent to do so, the metal door suddenly pushed open again and another dark feathered form emerged, followed by two smaller harpies swooping in for a landing her.

Delilah turned and scowled, “You’re late, Delitch!  Where have you been off too?!”

Delitch chewed her lower lip, biting back a scathing reply, but bowed her head in abeyance, raising both her large wings in a genuflection in deference to her Matron.  “My Matron Queen, we have been scouting the upper highland ridges performing the duties you agreed to with this city’s sovereign.  We have much to report.”

Delitch was almost as old as her matron and was her approximate size and girth, though she bore a slightly younger visage than Delilah.  The Matron’s hair was almost fully white, yet Delilah’s still retained a bit of her ebony mixed with gray upon her head.  The Matron Queen of the harpies knew there was more to suspect than to trust in Delitch, for she knew the latter had always envied her position as lead and rule, but she had yet had nothing specific to base her suspicions of Delitch on.  Just a lingering sense that Delitch’s appearance of subservience was a cover for some scheme she was waiting to carry out whenever the future opportunity might present itself.  She knew that Delitch was irritated with her for not moving more openly against the hated nymphs and dryads, but was this outfitting of metal shank protectors and carrying hooks not enough of a sign that they were showing some degree of counter threat to those treacherous creatures?  Surely, Delitch should be pleased that she had sought audience with the Xarmnian monarch, and that it was done without the knowledge or consent of The Pan.  It was leverage needed against the nymphs and dryads should they ever convince The Pan to be rid of the Harpies and endorse open aggressions against them.  The Pan was mercurial in its moods.  One never knew just how he might move for or against any in his dark domain.  Sure, Delitch had reason to hate those nymphs and dryads, but she had not personally lost a leg over their internecine contentions.  None of the Harpies had known that when they agreed to nursing the sapling children of the nymphs that drinking water from the black pool would serve to poison the little suckling creatures.  The broken claw had sense been a mocking of her personally, whenever she saw it scrawled in the bark of a tree or formed by carefully arranged rocks on a mountainside or scratched in the dust over a barren field of hardpan.  The Pan had put a stop to any further outright acts of violence by the nymphs and dryads directed at the harpies, but had done nothing about the mocking, and giggling at her loss of the limb.  But Delilah could not be certain whether Delitch wanted to avenge her against those mocking halflings or she simply had a personal vendetta against them.  Delitch had agreed to Delilah’s plan to help the Xarmnian king keep watch for the encroachment of outworlders and provide him with vital communications about their arrival and movements within the lands of The Mid-World.  But still that did not answer her niggling questions about why Delitch had been late and secretive about where she would be flying in pursuit of that objective.  It was clear she wanted the Xarmnian smithies to provide them with armaments and protections as well, and she was anxious to be fitted for them, as soon as possible.  The other sisters’ had arrived early enough to be kept waiting, and she would’ve thought Delitch and her sisters would have been a few of the first in line on the other side of the metal door, but no…she was the last to arrive.  And something about that disturbed her.

One by one, each of the harpies made their way up onto the raised platform and we each fitted with pinion hooks, and metal shank covers locked around both of their legs and capping each of their wings.  Sure, The Pan would wonder about their new metal fittings, but he would understand why they would be reticent to turn out for the ceremonial transfer of the woods of Kilrane to the nymphs and dryads, since they could no longer live in close proximity to the dying woods where his dark water pools stirred beneath canopies of moss shrouded trees.  The waters were poisonous to them, even if the other half-men creatures sometimes partook of their mysterious living liquids.

As her subjects filed through their fittings, the Matron Queen Delilah could sense a change in the air toward the eastern sea front.  She always took special care to be aware of atmospheric flight conditions when spending any length of time on the ground.  Especially since losing her leg.  Flight was the one means whereby she might still command a lethal mastery over a threat from the ground borne.  She had developed and uncanny sense about the sky conditions.  She knew even now, what her sensory tells indicated.  Another storm was coming, and she and her subjects must take wing soon to get to some form of shelter before it hit.  There was a strangeness about the smell and feel of the air.  A heaviness, as if the coming storm was pregnant with a menace beyond mere wetness, wind and flashing spears of light.  She would speak more to Delitch, but not at this time.  She wanted to know what they had seen–the report, she alluded to.  But time was running out.  The men were working to finish up, but it was taking longer than she had expected.

The air turned moist and suddenly Delilah announced, “That is enough for now.  We must take flight. A storm is coming and I’ll not shelter in this stone city.”  She turned and realized that only Delitch and her three sisters remained to get outfitted.  She knew Delitch would not want to leave now and have to come back, but she felt pressed to get her subjects aloft.

“Come, Delitch.  You, Remitch and Neenitch can get this done later.  We’re leaving…Now.”

“But my Queen…,” Delitch began to protest, but Delilah raised her wing stopping her.  “I know you are disappointed, but you were late arriving, and this storm won’t wait.  You and your sisters may come back when the storm passes.”  Delitch’s eyes narrowed when Delilah turned her back and raised her wings to her kindred.  “Let’s fly!” she croaked and flapped forward from the platform and sailed over the wall where the metal door had been.  The others followed, flapping noisily, ascending into the sky like a cauldron of bats emerging from a dark cave starting a night of aerial hunting.

As they ascended, they did not notice that Delitch and her two sisters did not follow.  They had instead planned to stay a little longer in the city of Xarm and ride out the storm there.  They need a little more time to be outfitted with the three modified collars they had asked the blacksmith to design for them.  Leg collars capable of carrying a thing called a cresset, an iron vessel for mounting an oil and wick fired torch, crafted in conjunction and with one of the town’s chandeliers.  They would eventually follow their prior fliers, but they would have the capacity to carry something to bring a special housewarming to the woods of Kilrane, for unlike the others, they most definitely would be attending that ceremony in Kilrane…as unwelcome guests.

*Scene 04* – 10:20 (Call of The Wild Winds)

Earlier in the day, a finger of smoke rose from out of a long dark chasm running north to south along the western side of the Mid-World’s highest range of mountains.  Like the tentacles of a giant, tenebrous, sea beast the smokey fingers spread and flexed, as if searching for something to grasp along the upper rocky ledge of its shadowy abyssal trench.  The spectral finger stretched its gauzy, incorporeal limbs, reaching, searching, wetting the edge rocks with an oily touch of whispering mists.  As it moved along the edge it seemed to sigh with a thousand hushed voices, that warbled and blended into the suctorial sound of breathy winds.  The former gossamer finger was joined by a vaporous knuckle with other gaseous fingers sprouting from its reaching apparitional limb.  Another sprouting claw of sooty vapors chased after the former tendril shrouded in roiling clouds, followed by another and another, each one slithering along the edge of the long trench until it reached the estuary that flowed out into the surrounding seas, where the river of smoke turned into a flow of fogs moving along the southern cliffs and shoreline until it turned sharply following the eastern shoreline, that fell back and descended to spread out along the shallows of a sandy beach.  The long stretch of sandy beaches along the eastern seaboard, where in the past and recently, outworlders typically made landfall, was a place with a variegated history as colorful as the motley garb of a court jester.  Unknown to many, the living fogs that often plagued the eastern beaches of the Mid-World, were not actually seaborne, but were created by the strange foggy apparitions drawing in moisture from the sea as the smokey arms gathered around the outer edges of the Mid-World’s landmass, reaching through the mists with intentions that could only be viewed as malevolent.  These living fogs seemed intent on catching these interlopers into the Mid-World lands, to try and suppress their sense of themselves, and cloud memories and intentions, before a Stone mission might be undertaken.  Sometimes those fogs were successful.  Sometimes not.  For the mysterious fogs always retreated to their inlet and trench as the strange oculus portals approached the seashore.  No one knew why this was the case, but it was evident that even these mysterious fogs yielded to the roving presence of the seaborne oculus, for these strange portals were somehow linked to the mysterious will of The Marker Stone.  Newcomers to The Mid-World were always delivered by way of the eastern sea.  This fact was suspected by some, anticipated by few, and dreaded by most.  The long reach of the living fogs could not be sustained for long and often dissipated under the full heat of the overhead sun.  If an oculus appeared within sight of the long reaching fogs, the clouds would seem to shred into gauzy whisps accompanied by strange piercing shrieks and wailing noises, until they faded out of sight.  The fogs had the power to make the unsuspecting, and unfortunate soul trapped within their shroud forget, and eventually lose their mind and sense of purpose.

Mystery veiled the behavior of the living fogs and their shying and fleeing away from the oculi and those agents of the enigmatic Marker Stone, which appeared to reign over the realm of both the Mid-World land and sea.

This strange relationship between these apparitions of opposing intention created a peculiar dynamic of rulership and partitioning of holdings between the Kingdom of Capitalia and that of the Kingdom of Xarm.  For though the lands seemed to be parceled out between these two factious Kingdoms, the nature of the land and seas upon which these presumptive Kingdoms fought, were truly the subjects of another Kingdom’s prior claim—the one represented by the Mid-World’s mysterious Marker Stone.  A kingdom of ancient legend, and the pre-dawn of all time, called Excavatia.

The sea was thought of as being relegated to the eastern side of the Mid-World lands, but that was not truly the case.  Its shoreline eventually curved inland towards the north of The Mid-World lands jutting in among tall precipitous mountains of gray and black granite.  This granite channel ran north to south bifurcating The Mid-World landmass with a fjord chain of lakes and rivers through a gorge passage that emptied out into a southern outlet into what was referred to as the “eastern sea”, or more formally known as the Sea of Eustress.

The western lands of The Mid-World were principally occupied by the Capitalian clans, and with the building of their massive stone wall cutting off the only known passage, called the “Paraz Pass”, breaking through the massive mountain chain known as “The Walls of Stone”.  The far side of the ridge and pass was relatively unexplored country, for the descending lands west of The Walls of Stone, dropped off precipitously into a chasm that the people believed to be bottomless.  A river of gray clouds continually passed through that gorge and the overhead sun never cast its light down to the bottom of it.  Since the western side of the Capitalian lands were bordered by The Walls of Stone Mountains on its eastern flank, and the bottomless gorge to its far western edge, the Capitalians had to resign themselves with occupying that length of western stepped lands that curved back into the mountains and terminated in the north along the back of The Walls of Stone.  When the Capitalian peoples erected their barrier over the sole pass of The Walls of Stone, they thought only to cut their warmongering Xarmnian relatives off from attacking their lands, not knowing they were limiting themselves to a finite piece of the western Mid-World in doing so.  Eventually, they knew they would one day regret building that man-made edifice, when their people grew in population where the western lands could no longer sustain them.  This was why they had to reconsider their former desire to abandon the lands beyond the great wall and maintain some holdings and alliances with the native peoples of the highlands.  The forested citadel Azragoth was one of the primary alliances, as well as some other smaller cities and villages towards the eastern sea.  Overtime, however, since Capitalia could not easily reach those far allied cities, those places loyal to the Capitalian crown eventually fell to the Xarmnian warlords, because they could not get aid to them to counter Xarmni’s rise to power.  A war was eventually fought between the oppressive Xarmnian kingdom and the Capitalian kingdom, and it was decisively won in Capitalia’s favor, but it was soon seen by the defeated Xarmnians as a Pyrrhic victory, for Capitalia’s wall was never dismantled.  It became clear to the defeated Xarmnians that they need only bide their time, and Capitalia would lose contact with their prior alliances.  And that would allow Xarmni to eventually subdue them, pillage them, and seize and raze any town or citadel that resisted their takeover and demand for tribute to enrich that Xarmnian kingdom, or risk being consumed by them and taken by force.

As the day surrendered to the twilight, the living fog moved up the eastern shoreline, drifting in the coolness of the withering day, and rising up into floating carriages of cloud cover that were darkening into the threat of an oncoming storm.  The fogs blended and swirled into the lowering clouds, at last finding a way to leave the eastern shoreline and cloak themselves within the folds of the inland flow of stacking cumulonimbus.  The ashy color of the living fogs threaded the heart of the building storm caps like worms into apples, piercing and emerging the outer skins in a gluttonous frenzy.  Slowly, but with gaining speed, these aerial dreadnaughts plowed across the darkening sky moving like a fleet of ships over the edge of the upper highlands.  And at their current pace, it was certain they would eventually reach the city of Azragoth by nightfall.

Something bestial and throaty beckoned them.  A supernatural call that compelled them to come to it, and enter it’s grave-like tunnels honeycombed under the old city to serve a monstrous purpose only known in the malevolent mind of the monster calling them to its nefarious purposes.  Hollowed vessels awaited them.  Hundreds of bodies waiting to be filled, occupied and possessed.  An army of empty golems…  Ready to be seeded… with subservient spirits.

*Scene 05* – 21:40 (The Blind Seer)

When Nell and I joined Begglar and Corimanth at the firepot, we felt the first few wet drops of rain spatter our heads and shoulders.  The servers had set aside a few mugs of the warm broth and some loaves for us, but they were quickly packing up the main crocks and covering the warm loaves when we arrived.  The flames in the firepits began to sizzle as wet drops fell into the pits, and attendants began to smother the fires and cover the pits with hinged iron plates that protected these firepits when they were not in use.  We were directed towards a covered portico between the columns surrounding the open courtyard, where we could shelter and finish our evening repast before turning in for the night.  A low thunder rumbled in the background, coming from the mountains towards the east, as a heavy front of billowing clouds masked the light of the moon.  The sky to the east appeared dark, even as distant lightning blazed somewhere deep within its sepulchral billows, barely blooming into a faint greyish glow.  Under the shadowy colonnade, along the edge of the building, many of the huddled queues had broken up to retire, but Corimanth, Ezra, Begglar and another fellow that seemed vaguely familiar were engrossed in hearing Corimanth recount his experience during his time as a spy and a guard in Xarm City.

When first conscripted, he had expected to be promoted to serve in the Palace Guard, thinking that would best serve his secret role as a court spy, but he was instead assigned to guard the Xarmnian Treasury.  Disappointed but undeterred, he did not know if such a placement would serve to allow him to gather much if any intelligence that would be useful for his contacts within The Resistance.  The prearrangement was to meet with his contacts on an irregular schedule, never knowing when the next time one might show up to get his reports.  The Xarmnians would be alert to patterns, so there could be no discernable cadence to his meetings.  He had been told that he could not know ahead of time who his contacts might be.  Only that they would quietly identify themselves with a physical sign, gesture or code word, which changed at each meeting, to ensure that no hostile actor could pose as an informant by accident.  The risk of discovery was too high.

Every day as he stood at his designated post, he observed that there was an old, blind, beggar woman dressed in rags that always sat stationed just outside of the iron gates near the Treasury portico.  Something about her was familiar, but Corimanth could never get a good look at her, for she wore a drooping shawl over her gray head that kept her face in shadow.  He began to think about that and wondered, why a blind woman might feel the need to cast shade over her face, sitting in the shadows of a narrow alley.  Perhaps she felt the coolness on her skin.  He knew those who lost one of their five senses often compensated by experiencing a heightened sense of another, so he shrugged it off.

She never looked at him directly as he passed her, but he could still see her huddled, bowed form through the grate of the barbican and he wondered if she might be deaf too.  She never raised her head, and never seemed to pull back her shadowed cowl, even when a passer-by dropped a few coins into her old metal beggar’s cup.  He thought he might say something to her, but since Xarmnians were not known for their compassion, he wondered if he might bring suspicion to himself, so he kept quiet, but could not help but wonder about her.

Day after day, during his shifts, he found himself glancing over through the gate at the old woman.  Something about her kept drawing his attention.  Something nibbled at the back of his mind that there was something oddly familiar about her, but he laughed it off knowing that it had to be impossible.  But he kept watching her out of the corner of his eye.

She kept her walking stick close by and seemed to know when a stray dog or cat came by and approached her coin cup.  She unfailingly struck out at the stray animals, smacking the pavement, sending them scurrying down the alleyway into the shadowy side streets and refuse piles.  Well, she may be blind, but she’s not deaf, he thought in amusement.  Neither the sense of taste nor touch would’ve given her the ability to detect those animals.

Each day found her situated in the same spot, though the other guards routinely shooed her away as the day faded.  No one knew where she went each night, and none knew where she lived, but her daily routine brought her back each morning to the wall until she became recognized as a mere fixture, rather than a curiously enigmatic figure evoking suspicion.

Still there was a familiarity that Corimanth could not shake as his vigilant glances passed over her at his usual watching post.  The feeling persisted, until one day he caught her raising her head enough to expose her jawline, and the lines of her mouth and lower nostrils.  The sight triggered something that kept him unnerved even after his watch shift came to a close.

When he woke the next morning, realization clarified, and he suddenly knew who the cloaked figure reminded him of.  Someone both he and his sister had known very well.  But he was conflicted, because the one she favored was known to be dead.  Drown after falling overboard in a sea battle with the creature plaguing the waters of Cascale.  Noadiah.  She was the one who had given them a home after the loss of their parents and granted them part-ownership in the Traveler’s Inn in the town of Surrogate.

No, it couldn’t be.  But the thought persisted.  The woman did not seem to recognize him, but why would she?  He was not where she might’ve suspected him, as well.  He chastised himself for being foolish.  But Noadiah’s body was never found.  They just assumed the leviathan had swallowed her.  Could she have survived the plunge into the cold waters of Cascale?  Could she have made it to shore amid the turbulence of the sea monster’s lunging at the flotilla and the cannon fire from the ships?  He supposed it was possible, but what would she be doing here in Xarm city?  Could the cold have somehow blinded her?  Was she really and truly blind?  Her eyes, though he had only had chance glimpses at them, seemed to be occluded with cataracts.  She smelled, so few people came close to her, even if they were inclined to pity her and cast a few coins into her cup.  The secretive woman seemed to not want to be recognized and became irritable, when well-meaning persons offer to help her and encourage her to move away from her daily spot.

He realized his debate on whether to help her was risky.  But still…Why would she refuse help?  What was her true intention, remaining in the alley near the accessway to the Treasury gate?  Traffic was limited there.  If she wanted her coin cup to be filled, she’d picked a poor spot to beg.  Mostly soldiers came through there.  Her presence should have aroused more suspicion.

Hoping to gain a little more trust in his position or be advanced to another station where he might overhear more of the daily happenings, he decided to ingratiate himself with the Xarmnian brass by broaching the subject of the old woman’s suspicious behavior.  He had inquired of one of the king’s trackers, who occasionally stopped by the Treasury house, how long the old woman had been there sitting in the alley rather than occupying one of the open trafficked streets where she might get more notice and more charitable responses from the residents of Xarm City.  It puzzled him how a blind woman seemed to know where to come each day, and why she did not consider her choice of begging less fruitful than another place might be.  The tracker, Shihor by name, shrugged and said, “Maybe she expects something a little more than mere pennies dropped into her beggar cup, since the Treasury contains the more precious metal coinage.”  To which, Corimanth responded, “Well, I’ll be on the alert for anyone who decides to drop a golden ingot into her cup.”  This brought a laugh in response, and Shihor replied, “Yes, you be sure and let me know if that happens!”  And he went on his way chuckling to himself.

Shihor seemed to dismiss Corimanth’s interest with a grin and a shrug and go about his business.  That was until the Builder Stone in the Treasury was noticed to be making its way out of the locked and gated storehouse.

When the stone broke through the wall and passed through the alley, the guarding soldiers became more alert.  The old woman was driven from her post and the alley was cleared, and sentries were stationed at each end of the alleyway, preventing access to where the immovable Builder Stone was progressing.

Stone masons and plasterers were brought in to repair the broken hole where the Builder stone had punctured and pressed through the rock wall lining the alley.  The hole was sealed up, but the Builder Stone was still making slow, but inexorable progress through the city.  Guards stood around the spot where the mysterious stone rested, covering it with their regimented troops and a makeshift shroud, so that no one might see the stone causing such distress and uproar within the palace.

Corimanth told how the King Son of Xarm, and his advisers came to see the stone and were mystified by what might be causing it to move of its own accord, clearing heading towards the outer wall of the stone city.  Advisors speculated that while the Builder Stone might be able to breach the Treasury, it surely would be contained by the outer curtain wall of the city that boasted a thickness of twenty feet across, with interlocking granite boulders shaped and positioned as an impenetrable bulwark against outward assaults.

But the Builder Stone proved to be able to breach even that to the amazement and dismay of the royal counsellors.  The Builder Stone, they were reminded, had the capacity to lift, push, carve, chisel and carry large stones from the mountainside quarry, making the stonework an amazing feat of wonder.  Boulders could be dislodged and lifted weightlessly, merely by placing the conical stone up against their surface.  The potential loss of such a stone of power, angered the monarch and his royal counsel and finger pointing and dangerous accusations were recklessly hurled about.

Some thought there was some sorcery being done that was calling the stone outward, and that by merely sending a group of soldiers to follow it and cover its progress, they might eventually be led to the culprit.  Some thought that their Builder Stone might be being influenced by one of the other known Builder Stones held by their distant relatives and the clans that had once agreed to take charge of the mysterious stones at the base of the mysterious Marker Stone.

The suspicion grew, but they were hesitant to openly accuse their kinsmen, lest they reveal the present trouble they were having keeping their own stone contained and in their possession.  With the stone on the outside of Xarm City, it could no longer be protected within their massive stone citadel, and it would risk being stolen by others.

They could not predict where it might go, neither could they field a large army to follow its march, for that would draw away their military resources from their central duties and call unwanted attention to their dilemma.  When all of this began happening, Corimanth realized that he was in on the internal discussions, and right in the midst of the ideal place where a spy might serve to do the most damage to an empire who had shown little vulnerability to outside threats from rival kingdoms prior to the Builder Stone’s mysterious behavior.  His treasury assignment was strangely providential, and served whatever higher purpose was being revealed by The One who gave those stones their mysterious capabilities.  He now realized he was part of something much bigger than merely resisting and helping to thwart the Xarmnian schemes to enslave the Mid-World people.  The alarm raised by this Builder Stone was the key to deflating their arrogance and undermining their presumptions of manifest destiny.

The Xarmnians did not want to signal weakness to any of those communities, related by kinship or otherwise, that they had so often oppressed, extorted, intimidated and finally subjugated into their rule of fear and threat.  Xarmni could not appear weakened or distress to the outside.  So, they had to maintain their fearsome reputation, in spite of their difficulties with their stone.  If others were to get hold of and take possession of it, their stone city could not withstand its power that once helped to build and fortify it.  That stone could be used to weaken and dismantle it, toppling its massive walls with its mysterious power over stone.

When the Builder Stone reached the outer field and progressed into the head of the large lengthy valley, dividing the stone mountains bordering its trek towards the eastern highlands, Corimanth had been ordered to resume his post at the Treasury, rather than follow those soldiers chaperoning the moving stone across the plains into the valley.  He knew the presence of Xarmnians progressing through the valley would raise suspicion, and eventually word would reach the ears of those in The Resistance, and that would cause some from Azragoth to come to the stone city by stealth and hidden routes to provide some possible answers.  He need only wait until someone contacted him.

When the alleyway had cleared, eventually the old beggar woman returned to her usual spot, keeping up her strange vigil, so that he dismissed her presence, the same as the others who witnessed her before.

When Shihor visited again, the tracker mentioned that he would soon be dispatched to run scout patrols up in the highlands towards the east.  It was a long journey, and he expected not to return to Xarm City anytime soon.  He mentioned that the Son of Xarm was brooding again and began to wonder if there were any signs of the return of outworlders coming back into the Mid-World.  Somehow stirring up trouble and even possibly were responsible for the strange goings on with their Builder Stone.

The king wanted Shihor to ride up to the old site where The Marker Stone resided and make sure that it remained buried under the mound that they had erected over it.  He also wanted to be sure that the nonsense of Stone Quests was forgotten and that the fairy tales of the future king coming from Excavatia were not still percolating and giving the far outer land peoples hope of a renewal of the Mid-World’s troubles with the old prophecies.

As Shihor was leaving, he took another hard look into the alleyway, noticing the old beggar woman seeming to sway and rock side to side, as he exited the barbican gate.

A craggy voice of pleading inquiry issued out of the beggar woman’s cowled, and bowed head.  “Pittance of pity for an old blind beggar woman, Scout?” she said waving her tin cup with the slightest jingle of loose coins clinking against the inside of the cup.

“Get away from me, you stinking crone!” he growled under his breath. ” You reek of filth and soiled rags!”

At that, the old woman’s head came up and she carefully peeled back her head scarf from her brow, looking up at him with a broadening grin peeling away her aged and wrinkled lips.  Shihor glared down at her contemptuously, but then started, jerking involuntarily back, as he flinched at the sight.

Framed within the old chin and the crinkled brow, and bunched cheeks was the smooth skin and smile of a grinning female child, incongruently manifested and superimposed over the face where the old woman’s face should have been.

Startled, unable to believe his eyes, Shihor blinked, and, in half a second, the planes of the child’s mocking face molded back into the visage he had expected to see when she lifted the head scarf cowl.  The old woman cackled with quiet laughter, as she somehow saw the startled expression pass over Shihor’s face and then meld into a confused gaze, uncertain of what he’d just witnessed.  The old woman bowed her head again into shadow, rocking softly from side to side, as if nothing had transpired and she had not even been noticed by the man.

Shihor turned away and glanced back through the gate of the barbican, catching Corimanth’s eye.  He shook his head, unwilling to give voice to what he thought he might have only imagined.  He had to get going.  The king would want a report back in a few weeks.  It would be three weeks before he would reach the eastern coastlands, and the road would be long.

Corimanth was coming towards the gate of the barbican, and Shihor was sure the man might inquire what had caused his delay.  He wasn’t certain himself, but the old woman appeared in her hunched form, seated beside the wall, seeming unaware of him as he mounted up on his horse and peered downward, uneasy.  He cleared his throat and decided to think no more about it.  He had a lot on his mind and a long road ahead of him.  No time for such foolishness.

Corimanth watched as Shihor rode away down the alley, heading out on his mission.  He was sure he had witnessed some kind of verbal exchange between the old beggar woman and the scout, and oddly enough he realized that he’d never actually spoken to the old woman before, nor had he heard anyone else speak to her within his hearing.  The evening guards merely came up to her and lightly pushed her with their foot as if redirecting the path of a dog and told her it was evening and time for her to go.  She’d never responded to their order vocally.  She’d merely used the wall and her walking stick to brace herself as she creaked to her feet and shuffled away toward the open end of the alley, mumbling incoherently.  But this time, Corimanth was sure he’d heard her speak, and the voice was eerily similar to the voice he knew to belong to Noadiah, the seer of Surrogate, a village now rebranded as Sorrow’s Gate under the oppressive Xarmnian rule.

Finishing his account, Corimanth turned to Nell. “And what do you make of all that, sister?  Could the old woman really have been Noadiah?  I cannot seem to think back on it without seeing Noadiah under that hood.  I still don’t know how it could be possible.”

“Nor do I, dear brother,” Nell said taking Corimanth’s arm in her hands.  “But some things in this world are mysteries that only time can solve.  It may or may not have been her.  There is no way to know for certain.  Time will tell.  Right now, I think it best that we all get some sleep.  It’s been a long day, and this rain is falling harder now and with it the night chills will come.  Best we all get rested, for we never know what tomorrow might bring.”

As we all turned to leave and head back to the rooms where we had been quartered, I felt a strong hand clasp my shoulder holding me back.  I turned and was surprised to see that it was Lord Nem that had restrained me.

“O’Brian.”  Lord Nem’s voice seemed tired, His eyes and his voice’s timbre reflected a bone-weariness.  It was clear that the events of the day had taken a toll on him–both mentally and physically.  “You will be quartered in my own household tonight, for you and I must go early into the old city in the morning.  There is something I need to return to you, and something more I need to show you with respect to this hidden citadel.  We are in present danger of being exposed and perhaps worse than that.  It cannot wait any further.  We will go at first light, before the others awake.”

I looked back as my travelers filed out of the courtyard, under the long colonnade portico, and down the corridor steps.

“You need not worry about them.  They will be looked after and well taken care of.  You will be my guest this evening.  You’ll find the governor’s house to have more than adequate guest rooms.  You will need a good rest for what is ahead.”

*Scene 06* – 21:34 (The Old and The New)

The rain continued to fall as Lord Nem, and I walked together.  We ducked under covered walkways, trotted through open terraces, and passed through tunneled hallways, heading upwards toward the part of the city that backed against the overhang of the highland cliffs.  Attempting to keep dray as best as we could.  Nem was silent as he led, and I followed.  At first, seeming to debate within himself what he might say to me about what was ahead.  At last, resolved, he spoke up.  The topic was not something I could have anticipated, prior to being invited to his personal residence as a guest.

“I am in a bind.  You have brought danger to my city that you may not even be aware of, but I am not presently at liberty to tell you much more than that.  You need to be prepared for what I must reveal, and I am not sure you are ready to hear it yet.”

I was stunned.  “What danger did I bring?  We are only twenty-three people. What could we do to threaten any of you with so many of your trained warriors around us?”

“You misunderstand me.  It is not those who you brought that threaten us.  It is you personally.”

“Me?!  I assure you, I bear you no ill-will, nor do I have any nefarious intentions.  I am unarmed.  What possible danger could I be to you or your city?”

“It is not what you intend, O’Brian.  It is something you are not yet aware of. Something that you brought with you.  I cannot tell how it affects you until I have a chance to show you part of the old city.  Then you may be able to understand more.”

We walked in silence for a moment, me puzzling over what danger he could be referring to, and Lord Nem pursing his lips, troubled over whatever mystery he had yet to reveal.

Finally, he spoke again, “There is something further I must do to protect this city, but you will not understand it unless you remember what you once knew before when you first came to our world.  The foundation that will prepare you to deal with what lies ahead.”

He sighed, “I don’t know how much time I have to delay.  Every moment I delay doing what must be done, the danger to us increases.  Are you truly willing to assist me?”

“Of course,” I said. “Anything I can do to help, I will do.”

“If you truly are as willing as you say, you may gain more than you know for your team and your stone quest by remembering who you once were and drawing from that.”  He paused and then continued, “As I mentioned before, there is a gift I will return to you, when we are able to go to a place I will show you.  You will need it to help us, and you will need to remember how to use it against something far more dangerous than you have met with so far.”

Unsure of what he meant, I responded in a way I typically would in dealing with uncomfortable subjects-with ill-timed humor.  Before I could think better of it I asked, “Does this thing also have a black tongue?”

Lord Nem paused mid-stride, and I cringed at my own seeming flippancy.  I started to apologize, but before I could, he answered with no hint of the offense.

“Perhaps…” Nem said thoughtfully.  “Perhaps it does as well.  But my concern is that it may unleash the one belonging to our city,” he answered cryptically.

We had reached a covered balcony where we could overlook the city.  Though skeins of rain fell in curtains throughout the lower streets these were sheer enough to be able to see through them and catch the lighted lamps in various windows casting wet glimmers into the cobbled streets, as the washing water streamed into the side gutters and gullets.

Lord Nem turned and gestured into the city below pointing out the dividing inner way and the vestiges of the old city beyond it which stood masked in a darker contrast of deeper shadows.  No lights shone in the out rings, nor no visible signs of life retiring for an evening’s repose.

“As you can see there, Azragoth has the appearance of deadness in its outer ring.  It is choked with vines, and unchecked growth of weeds and wild animals roam the crumbling streets and abandoned houses that once extended our city to the outer gates. Anyone entering the breached walls from beyond it would think this city has no life remaining in it.  That Azragoth is, as the legends tell, cursed, abandoned and haunted by the long-dead memory of its former splendor.  From all appearances, for those entering or stumbling upon our city while wandering the wilderness and forests, that would all appear to be true.”

The rains hissed through the tangles of vines, and choking weeds in the outer perimeter, and it sent chills through me, reflecting on how different the rainfall sounded in the outer region from the inner lived-in parts of Azragoth.  The outer sounds brought forth images of piles of writhing and coiling vipers slithering over each other, hissing and intertwining with fangs bared.

Nem continued, somehow sensing my private chilling perceptions, speaking with a knowing nod and calmly drawing me back from the inner precipice of my rising fears.  “But beyond the outer deadness, there is an interior wall, separating the deadness from the life that is within.  The exterior side of that inner wall is coated with pitch and black tar.  Do you remember seeing that black wall as you were shown in to the inner courts?”

I nodded and quietly voiced a “Yes.”

“Anyone touching it or attempting to scale that wall will become coated or soiled by it.  So too, anyone attempting to enter Azragoth’s interior, without entering a gate with a key will be stained as an imposter and spy, and our guards and citizenry will easily be able to identify them on sight.”

He paused to let that idea sink in.  “Like the latent filth we routinely purge from under our city streets, that person will be marked for the death they bring upon themselves by attempting to breach the sanctity of our city.  No one comes to the inner gate without a long key.  No one puts their hand on the door without getting the dark pitch upon it, forever marking them as an enemy of the city.  Had anyone of you bore a black hand, you would have been executed by the doorway guards upon entry.  We cannot be too careful.  Azragoth is a city that has been reborn upon its ashes and is being renewed from within.  Its outer exterior is corruptible, but its interior is being strengthened and built up to endure.  The interior wall has been fortified and each family living in the outer courts has been responsible for the interior wall’s repair directly in front of their homes.  You might say, they have a very vested interest in making that portion of the wall very strong because it stands between them and the death rings beyond.  There are two key passages in the Ancient Text that read as follows:

““Don’t you understand either?” he asked, “Can’t you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesn’t go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer.” (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in God’s eyes.) And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” ” [Mark 7:18-23 NLT]

“And the second…

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward [man] is being renewed day by day.”  [2 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV]

“These verses are essential in understanding what is being done here in our city…AND… I must add, it is what happens within the Mid-World as a whole, and within each one of us within our inner being.  Your world, and my world as echoes of these principles.  We see your people as living in the dying world of the Surface.  Our Mid-World is likened to the inner world, being renewed again.  And the hope in Excavatia is the consummation of these worlds into eternal resurrection and rebirth.  A threading back through ours and your world to connect all of it to what it should have been, if not for the death brought into it in the Ancient Garden, that caused our worlds to be separate.  To preserve them for a King that will set all things right.”

“You Surface Worlders represent a dying body to us.  That is why so many here have difficulty believing that your presence here represents anything good.”

“But there is a deeper truth that many here fail to understand.  The One came fully through each of our worlds and transcends them.  But He had to come to your world to experience death, to bring about redemption for both of our worlds.  We cannot ignore the role you and your people play, anymore that we can ignore the role that we must play in that grand design.  Designs, which we have deliberately put in place here in our rebuilding efforts.  Azragoth serves as a symbol hinted at that greater Kingdom’s purpose.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, having listened intently.

“We have a way of marking intruders from entering Azragoth without using the proper gates of entry.  The black wall covered in pitch.  For you see, in the same way, anyone unauthorized who enters will be easily made known and readily dealt with.  Outward corruption is easy enough to identify, but the corruption coming from within, not so much.  Its inevitable flowing outward must be addressed and purged.  That is why we cleanse the city and remove from us those things that might again cause disease and death on a regular basis so that what is being built on the inside may not defile us.  Azragoth represents the body, soul, and spirit of mankind.  In a real physical way, we see it as being regenerated from within.  Like the body of man, the outward is corruptible and is on a constant journey towards death under the curse of all flesh and blood.  The body dies, but the soul and spirit remain and endures to serve an even greater purpose.”

“As I told you before, the filth that drains from our city streets is pushed to the edge of the interior walls and descends below the outer walls into a deep reservoir below the courtyards and streets beneath the dead sectors of the city and they fill the hollows of the outer wall with corruption.  The outer retaining wall and the cavities beneath are full of the city waste.  It is why our people have withdrawn from it and live beyond the inner wall.  The outer wall has been repaired enough so that this filth seeping within does not flow back into the city or the protected interior.  Anyone walking in the outer rings is walking mere feet above the buried moat of filth that flows out of the city.  Should the city of Azragoth ever faces siege assault again, the attackers will be forced to contend with breaching the outer wall and in so doing will meet their death in such an attempt.  In case of a breach, the waste will spill onto the outer field and woods beyond the gates of the city creating a murky slough of disease and plague, killing all who approach it.  The black tongue of Azragoth will flow from the breach, licking them up in death as it spreads across the field beneath the grasslands and flows through the stands of trees that line its outer gates.  It is important that you remember this, for once outside of the city, when you and your company leave us, as soon you must, if you ever think of returning to Azragoth from the south, be warned that you will surely die it you approach it after seeing the black tongue upon the golden fields.  Such filth will kill the trees and grass, and all manner of man or beast which go before it.  It is only by going through the narrow way that you may ever return to this city once that terrible black tongue goes forth.”

“Why would you destroy the main route into the city?  What narrow way would there be left, if you were forced to take such drastic measures?” I asked.

“There is a way in yet to be revealed, O’Brian.  When the time comes, if it comes, I should say, it will be revealed to you.  Suffice it to say, it involves a passage through the grave.  But I can say no more.  Be patient.”

He then turned and pointed me to a stone staircase that led up to a large wooden beamed house, overshadowed by large trees with a wide canopy masking its true size.  The front porch was braced by large wooden columns, with a wide double-door entry and low-lighted candles in glass lamps.  Two sentries stood guard at the front entrance, but I had no doubt there were others guarding the perimeter of the house and terraced grounds.  The stone steps led up to the wide porch under the portico, and I could see that the structure was at least two to three stories high, with several upper rooms lining the front.

Lord Nem led me up the steps and spoke quietly to his sentries, who stepped back into the shadows, allowing us access to the front entry.

I was hesitant to enter, after all we had discussed up to this point, and Lord Nem noticed my hesitancy.  “Are you sure you want to have me as a guest in your home, considering whatever danger I pose?  We have discussed weighty subjects coming here.  I’m not sure…”

Lord Nem cut me off before I could finish, “O’Brian, I do apologize for that.  I should have waited to speak to you about such things.  I have not been a very good host this evening I am afraid.  This day has been tiring and much has been learned and discussed relating to the safety of this city.  I know I have laid some heavy subjects on you before and this evening, but I think there is someone here that might bring you a little comfort.  I do not occupy this house alone.  I must warn you, I do have regular guests, and some that come and go for a visit.  My home is open and shared with some who do not yet have a place to live in Azragoth and are temporarily domiciled here in the governor’s residence.  I have only modest needs, and to be honest this home was built far grander than I expected.  I am much away for most of the day, overseeing the rebuilding efforts and occupied building portions myself, along with several of our clergymen whose main role will be serving in the temple.  The wall has been an all-consuming project, for it is the primary reason that I left the Capitalian king’s service to come here.  Please allow me to make it up to you.”

Saying this, he opened the door and gestured for me to enter ahead of him.  In doing so, I was met with quite the surprise, as I heard a girlish squeal, and turned to see Miray running towards me with open arms.

“Mister O’Brian! Mister O’Brian!  You’re here!  Come meet my new friends!  I am visiting them here and was invited to stay the night.  Isn’t this place fancy?!  Come look!  Come see!”

I knelt and embraced her as she ran into my arms, so excited by my arrival and so delighted to be able to show me around.

“Miray!  Sweet girl.  Have you been here all this time?  What have you been up to?” I said, smiling, unable to contain my surprise at her presence here.  I marveled at how someone so young and so small could seem to fill a large room with such exuberance and delight.

She hugged me and then quickly pushed back, taking my hand and tugging me forward into the large entryway, bouncing with energy only a child could contain.  “Come meet Sarleah!  She and I are besties!  She and her brother are here with their mother and daddy.  They don’t have a house, yet, but Nem and his men are building them one.  Sarleah is gonna get a dog!  I love dogs, but my parents won’t let me have one.  Daddy says we travel too much.  It’s not fleas-able.  I told him my dog won’t have fleas.  I won’t allow it, but he says I don’t understand.  Did you ever have a dog?  Nem’s nice.  He has a good lady that cooks for him.  Makes the best breads and cakes.  Delicious.  I told Nem how you are my hero, and he said, ‘ What for?’ So, I told him how you rescued me from the poop monster.  But I don’t know if he believed me.”

She put her hand to the side of her mouth, as if to whisper conspiratorially to me.  “I don’t think he knows about poop monsters.  But I assured him that they are real, and will sneak up on you, if you’re not careful.  So, he needed to watch himself the next time he goes into any cave to go potty.  He said he will, but I think he thinks I was kidding.  You need to tell him it’s true, so nothing happens to him.  He’s been very nice.”

Miray introduced me around to the family, the staff, and those with whom she had barely made an acquaintance.  She led me through the house as if we were on parade and she was the Grand Marshall.  By the time she had finished showing me the rooms, she and her new playmates had already explored, it was well past her bedtime, and thankfully, Corinna, the children’s mother intervened shooing away into the upstairs rooms serving as their apartments.

As Lord Nem and one of his attendants led me up to my guest room, Nem grinned and said, “You have quite the admirer.  One might learn much more about a person, considering how an innocent with no guile perceives them.”

“I think she might be overselling my value.”

Nem nodded, “Still, children tend to see through the masks we put up to hide ourselves from others.  I believe her perceptions are trustworthy, no matter how you may avoid their unqualified praise.

As they opened the door to the room, I was impressed.  The room featured a large four posted bed with a gauzy canopy to keep the forest’s tiny night flyers at bay, so as not to disturb the sleeper.  A side table featured a comfortable wingback chair, with a trimmed oil lamp to provide reading light.  Another section of the room held a large double-doored wardrobe, with artful engravings, and brass fixtures of lion’s faces, holding brass pull rings in their mouths.  A polished mirror festooned one wall over a glazed wash basin set in a metal rack with side panels draped with fresh linen towels.  A large window with open shutters, fronted a padded window seat, with large pillows set aside the inset walls on either side.  The floor was partially covered with a large area rug, and a straw thatched mat, fronted the washbasin, where a large pitcher of water was kept in a glazed clay pot, with a fitted lid.  A service tray had been set out on a low table, accessible to the wingback reading chair, where a carafe of cool water waited, as well as what I took to be a teapot, with small cups on either side, and some small biscuit wafers were arranged and offered on a low service boat dish, along with a bowl of dates and figs.

“Please let Ademir know if you need anything further,” Nem said, as I entered and turned back to him, the look of surprise still on my face.  “There is a bell chime behind the carafe on the service table.  His quarters are just a few doors down.”

“Lord Nem, this is far more that I deserve…” I began.  But he raised his hand dismissively, “What you will need is rest, for we will start early.  Help yourself to the service table, and anything you might need in the wardrobe there for the night.  I will have Ademir wake you in the morning and will meet you downstairs in the dining room.  I believe young Miray served as an adequate tour guide, so you should have no trouble finding it.  Peace be with you, O’Brian.”

“And with you,” I answered as he nodded and quietly closed the door.

I placed my hands through the gauzy sheers, parting them and lowered my aching buttocks onto the side of the fluffed blanket and thick down-filled bed.  Now all I had to do was get some rest in as lavish a place as I had ever spent the night in, and I felt my prospects in that respect were quite good.

*Scene 07* – 16:11 (Fingers of The Night)

The tall trees of the woods of Kilrane were the first to feel it.  Their tops swayed and creaked, as the storm came rushing in from the eastern seafront, hectoring and tossing the upper canopy with downdrafts that popped and crackled from its frothing and grumbling throat. Smokey tendrils descended from the purpled brows of the lowering clouds seined the forest, huffing and spitting over the old walls and finally raked through the stony streets of Azragoth like dragging knuckles sloughing and hissing across wet cobblestones.  The driving winds began to pick up speed, pushing splashing gusts against the walls in the Governor’s residence.  A high-pitched ssss’ing noise whistled at the edges of the windows, seeking a way into the warm and dry interior, determined to invade and bring a wet chill into the residence to douse any dwindling flame that still remained in the hearths that still dared to heat the rooms.

At some point during the night, I do not know when, I felt the chill penetrate the edge of the bedroom windows and spear through the down blanket that covered me in the canopied bed.  My eyes were weighted so that I could barely open them, but I could feel the prick of icy splinters piercing my bare feet.  I tried drawing them up, thinking I had turned and uncovered them in the night, but I could still feel the fluffy blanket over them.  I heard something like low whispers becoming more audible as I roused myself from the twilight of slumber into a half wakefulness.  My eyelids slightly parted, my tenuous hold on getting some sleep was slipping, but I was not ready to give up the fight to keep it so easily.  Had someone entered my room while I was sleeping? I wondered. No, the house was secure.  Perhaps more so than any of the other domiciles within Azragoth. This was the governor’s residence after all.  Sentries were posted, keeping a night watch.  Nothing to worry about.  But then I heard a splash.  Sounding like something had just fallen into the wash basin.  The whispering noises grew louder.  I squinted and then opened my eyes a bit more.  I felt that the room contained several presences, standing within the deep shadows, but I could not be sure, seeing them through the gauzy haze of the sheer curtains hanging from the bed’s canopy.

I could not make out the words being whispered, nor could I be certain from which side of the room they were coming from.  The window buzzed with the wind gusts hitting it from the outside.  A weird glow passed through the wet glass, casting a miasma of shadowy patterns across the walls that stood opposite from the panes.  I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my sleep clouded vision, unable to focus clearly on anything solid.  The whispers rose in volume, some softer, some louder, as if multiple speakers hid among the corners and recesses, some speaking boldly, other more timidly in a haunting sing-song, that sounded mournful.  Some voices seemed to almost laugh, but those laughs had no joy in them.  Rather, they felt sinister, and vengeful.  The whispers divided into three-part syllables, still coming at me with a sibilance that distorted their meaning, until it finally clarified into a word I did understand.  Mur-der-errrr.  The latter part of the word ending in a rolling and extending ‘R’ sound that echoed in the small room.  Murderer.  The whispers were vicious and accusing.  My eyes opened, my body tensed, but I was still unable to focus on anything.  I felt cold and stiff as a corpse.  I heard the water in the wash basin slosh again, with loud drops, pinging the surface, as if it were positioned under a chronically leaking faucet.  Gray, translucent shapes, whisked through the shadows, and the sheer curtains around the bed stirred and flapped as a breeze fluttered through them.  Murd-er-errrr!  A strange echoing voice hissed at me, as the gauzy curtains pushed inward and ballooned outward like lungs.  Faces pressed inward and outward into the sheers, but I could see no solid forms behind them.  The impressions scowled at me, howling silently, as if in pain.  ‘Remember!’ they hissed, cleaving the air. Remember!  Remember!  Faces with no substance, pressed into the billowing sheer curtains, hovering over me.  Faces I thought I recognized.  Faces from my past.  Faces of those friends that had been tracked, hunted and seized by agents of The Pan.  The faces of those who had fallen because of my foolishness.  I was pinned down, immobilized.  My arms and legs spasmed with sudden cramps.  Above be a face appeared that I recognized all too well.  My friend Caleb.  The face appeared formed of the porous material of the sheer curtain, its voice was strained, but harsh, coming out of the translucent shroud, speaking to me from the grave.  You were supposed to protect me.  You knew I would try something foolish.  Why did you listen to me?  Why didn’t you stop me?  Why did you run from me?  Why did you leave me in the woods?  Why didn’t you come back to help me?  You abandoned me!  You let The Pan capture the Cordis Stone!  You saw it rip the stone from my hand!  You saw his fiends mob me!  Tear at my flesh!  You left me there to die!  I was young and foolish, but you knew better.  You are the reason I am dead!  Just the same as if you had murdered me yourself!  Why didn’t you come for me?  Why didn’t you stop them from tearing me apart?  The words came out in harsh whispers, but they affected me like shouts and screams might have.  My chest was compressed so that I could not answer, even if I had anything to say that could have mitigated the charges.  Deep down I knew that what Caleb was attempting was foolish, and dangerous.  But he was headstrong and determined.  He was partly to blame, but I carried most of the weight of the guilt for he had deceived himself, but had not fully deceived me into thinking his plan could work.  The Cordis Stone was not a source of its own power.  It was never meant to be used that way.  Jeremiah had told him again and again, but Caleb wouldn’t listen.  Love never fails!  He said it repeatedly to me with such personal conviction, that I was lured away from my better judgment.  I wanted to see if he might be right.  That we could use that Stone to assault the darkness of The Pan’s parasitic empire.  But we were both wrong.  Caleb was deceived, but I knew deep down this plan was suicidal.

I felt my throat tighten, as the sheers fluttered, and I gasped from breath.  Feeling hot and cold flashes pulse through my body.  I saw smoke fill the room, and then hiss out underneath the bottom of the door, and hiss down the hallway.  I heard the sibilant sound of a little girl’s laugh, and a trilling noise from the other side of the hallway door say, “Miraaay!  Where are you, Miraaay!  Becca’s back.  Come out to plaaaay!”

NOOO!  I choked out!  Gasping through a desperate prayer I wheezed, “Oh, One and only, please help me!”

A voice seemed to come from within me, rising up to gentle speak into my ears.  “Remember the Quickening.  Yield and surrender and let my peace still you.  Release this guilt.  Surrender it to me.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I nodded, through gasps, “Yes.  Yes, it is Yours.  My guilt is Yours to take.  Please fill me again with your Quickening.”

My voice began to return to me, and the fluttering of the curtains ceased and stilled.  The whispering was replaced with silence.  A calm began to warm me, beginning in my feet and running up through my legs, releasing my muscles, easing the cramping.  The smoke I once perceived in the room was gone.  There had been a smoldering fire of glowing embers in the hearth, that now flickered back into flame.

“Miray!” I exclaimed, throwing back the covers, shucking on my shorts, and leaping out of bed.  I fumbled with the room’s door handle, forgetting for a moment how it worked, then finding the key turn lever and releasing the catch.  I stumbled into the hallway, panting, squinting in the gloom of the flickering candlelight sconces.

I could see no trace of smoke, but I bounded down the hallway, a little too loud for the hour.  I almost slid on a carpeted runner, realizing that I was barefoot, but I didn’t care.  Miray and the other children were down one flight of stairs in a similar hallway below.  I raced past the servant’s quarters, where I was told Ademir lodged, catching the newel post as I curved down the circular stairwell, landing heavily on the wooden treads.

Reaching the landing I vaulted down the hall, searching for any sign of smoke or vapor.

A door cracked open, and I saw a child’s hand on the door.  I rushed forward, as Miray stepped into the hallway, rubbing her sleepy eyes, yawning.  Her hair was mussed from sleep, and she blinked, as I scooped her up in my arms, hugging her closely.  Muttering a prayer, “Oh thank you, thank you.  She’s safe. Miray, are you okay?  Tell me you’re okay.”

“I am sleepy, but I thought I heard someone…,” she scrunched up her nose.  “Did someone call me?  I thought I heard…”  I hugged her, as others opened their doors up and down the hall.  Ademir, who I had just met, hurriedly came down the stairs.  “Is everything all right?”

I nodded, hugging Miray, almost breathless, answering, “Everything’s fine now.” And I repeated it again, reassuring myself that it was indeed fine.

The wind outside continued to buffet the house, spraying horizontal streams of water against the windows.  The trees overhead swayed and creaked, leaves rustling, with a few limbs snapping and swishing down the steps that led up to the governor’s house.

Gray mists drifted along the wet streets, blowing loose leaves, and other debris that the wind had snatched from various parts of the city.  The smokey tendrils had curled back into the dark clouds, twisting into a braid, and then circling back around the outer perimeter of the city.  The air currents circulated around the edge of the upper highland ridge, pull mists that heaved and huffed over the stream that ran along the edge of the eastern wall settling down into a thick fog that lingered on the outside of the tall city wall, until it reached a declivity that slanted downward into the mouth of a small cave.  The cave was choked with a mat of low-lying ground weeds, nettles, briars and bushes that had fallen into it, as it sunk into a hollow beneath the greenery.  A sucking sound preceded the vacuum that drew the mists and fog into the leafy hollow, creating surface eddies and a small vortex seining the wisps of the storm through the deep foliage.  A large ice blue iris blinked through the swirling mists, its striated orb, pulsing with an electric blue light.  A low rumble came from within the deep hollows of the cave, inhaling the mists, and huffing them beyond itself like giant bellows, stoking a flame.

The storm wind had died down and only a light rain remained as the cloud wrung out the last of their showers over the city.  Inside the governor’s house, Sage and Corinna, the mother and father of Sarleah and Sabean, stood in the doorway to their apartment, their children in their arms.  I set Miray down, assuring her that everything was alright.  She favored me with a skeptical look, not sure if I was being entirely straight with her about the situation.  Quietly she asked, “Did Becca come back?”  I knelt and gently squeezed her shoulders, trying to impart bravery to her, but I was not sure if I could.  Her eyes searched mine, as I said, “Sweetie, I honestly don’t know, and that’s the truth.  I think you will be alright tonight.  We just need to get some rest is all.”

She put her hand on my cheek, touching my beard.  “Something has happened, hasn’t it?  Something in you.”

I could not deny her perception, so I merely nodded.  “You are not as…heavy as you seemed before,” she whispered.  I patted my tummy, “Why?  Do you think I’ve lost weight?”  She knuckled my belly and said, “Not here.”  And tapping my forehead she said, “Here.”  Amazed, I nodded.  “You’re very sharp, dear.”  And she grinned, “As I told you, I am not a deer.  I’m just a Miray.  That’s all.”

“Okay, little lady.  Now its off to bed with you.”

She grimaced.  “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“I…,” I hesitated, knowing I could not promise that.  “I have to go out early with Lord Nem.  It will probably be before you get up to have breakfast.”

“Can I come with you?”

“I’m sorry, Miray.  Not this time.  I need to go into a part of the city that is not easy to get to.”

“Is it a secret mission?” Miray whispered, leaning into me conspiratorially so the others could not hear her.

“Can you keep a secret?” I whispered back.

“Yes, I’m good at keeping secrets.  Becca liked this boy on the boat, and I never told anyone about it because she made me pinkie swear.  Said if’n I told, somehow something would cut off my pinkie, and I’d never be able to play the piano probberly when I got bigger.”  Suddenly her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth, “Oops!  I just did it!  Do you think it will really happen?!”

I took her little hand in mine and said, “I won’t let that happen.  But just to be sure, make a fist!”

She made a fist, and I closed my hand around it.  “Whenever you are worried about it, make a fist and say, ‘Nothing is gonna take my fingers, or they’ll get boxed with my fist!”

She whispered, “Nothing is gonna…”  Then she nodded, emphatically.  “Got it!”

“So, you’ll keep my secret?” I asked.  And she pinched her lips, and made the sign of zipping them shut, then nodded again.

“All right. Off to bed with you now.  Keep Sarleah and Sabean safe!”

And with that, we all returned back to our rooms.  It seemed that my head had only touched the pillow for a few minutes before Ademir arrived to wake me again.  Strangely, though I felt rested.  Somehow, I did feel lighter, as Miray had said.

*Scene 01* – 10:12 (Birds of a Feather)
[Follow-up to Chapter 12 – Scene 4 & Chapter 17 – Scene 4]

Bracing winds whistled along the sawtoothed spine of the overlook mountain’s arête ridges raking the gusts into shivering treble notes passing over the broken rocky jags.  The wind notes flowed along invisible high borne staff lines jutting up against invisible scales winding a garbled melody into the shifting soundbard of a steely gray sky.  Clouds and mists roiled and shredded by lower winds, attempted to obscure the deep wooded valleys and rocky crags below with their ragged, gauzy shrouds.

A dark, shadowy figure moved through the swirling mountain mists, looking like a caped frier of some bizarre monastic order.  The hunched figure hopped from rock to rock, stooping over the broken talus piles, muttering to itself in a strange warbling fashion.  Suddenly, the figure pounced, its cape billowing outward with a screech of delight.  Another figure, similarly cowled, with a flaring cloak hopped over, intrigued by its fellow’s find.  A shrill squealing noise came from whatever the former figure had pounced upon.

“Hello, morsel!” the cowled figure squawked, raising its crone-faced head, from beneath its feathered shoulders, its black eyes gleaming, its crooked teeth revealed behind skinned lips.  With one large claw it held a small squirming short-tailed, furry rodent.  “You got one, sister!” the other crone exhulted hopping over licking its wrinkled lips, its eyes shining with unnatural envy.  “Share a bite, will you?”

The dark feathered harpy gripping her wriggling prize, squawked and hopped away upon a larger flat boulder. “My bite! My bite!” it snarled, “Catch your own fuzzy!”

The other harpy opened its wings and flapped them in frustration.  “I’ll take the tasty from you, I will.”  The clutching hunter, opened its own wings in threatening response, “Claw your eyes, first sister!  My crunchy!  I caught it.  It’s Mine!”

“You ate the last one, greedy!” the other scowled, her bushy eye brows lowering, squinting in outrage, her broad wings flapping in frustration.

Winds whipped through the feathers of the two harpies as they squared off against each other, taking aerial leaps and raking at each other with their talons flared.  The two fearsome faces, partially avian, partially aged human female, spat and snarled at each other, sparring like a couple of fighting roosters.  Each swooped at each other with spurs and vigorous flapping in a frenetic dance among the broken boulders that lined the peak and narrow ridges along the crests.  Their squawks and screeches echoed down into the valley below.

A large shadow swirled in a gyre out of a crest riding  cloud, materializing above the two oblivious combatants.  Flying in fast behind the one clutching the terrified rodent, the swooping form clipped the shoulder of the angry bird woman, causing her to shriek and flare open both claws in surprise releasing her prey.  The small rodent landed on a stone and raced into a crevice among the rocks, freed of its captor and making the most of its opportunity to evade further capture.

A loud screech, pierced the ears of the two squabblers, causing them to look up in shock at the swooping newcomer.

“What fools are fighting noisy about?!” came a croaking voice from overhead.

“She dropped it!” the other harpy wailed.  “Making her lose the tasty!”

The voice overhead clarified as the other materialized out of the high mists and landed on a jagged boulder looking down at the two incensed sisters.

“Tasties!  What tasties?!  Wait here until I returned, said I.  And you two fighting over a tasty!”

The other harpy winced at the rebuke and offered, “Waiting long time on this mountain, we have!  Eaties scarce up here.  Hungry, we were.  Juicy scurries down in the night valleys, but you say wait here with no berries or grubs.  When spied these furries hiding in the rocks.   Hunt them, we decided.  Little pikas, squirrel-rats.  They fast hiding.  Get down between the rocks where claws can’t reach.  But we waited.  They curious.  We sit quiet, and they return to nibble the high grass.  We missed night catches, waiting for you as promised!  You gone a long time, Delitch.”  The other snorted, as if those words were a judgment against their scolder.

The dark and grey feathered Delitch fluffed herself up against the high mountain breeze and scowled down at them, chastizing them with her glare as if they were two naughty children.

“You make noises that squeak down the mountain, that not hiding. I to thrash you both.  Break your wings, might.  But…”

The two harpies waited, as the older, larger harpy, Delitch considered doing just that, but her mind balked, knowing she still had need and a use for the this pair.

Shyly, the harpy who had lost her “tasty”, gushed, “We see much in following peoples.  Sacred sword taken.  Streams awaken, and fill the dry river.  Small one who was, returned to dust.  Screeched much.  Loud and strong.  Then blew away.  The peoples, they hide in the hillcaves. Then we fly when the terrible monster came out of the rocks.”

Sighing, she fluttered down onto the rock between them and spread her large wings in a gather, indicating that the two should come closer in to hear her next words.  “Hold on. Hold on,” Delitch shook her head, trying to make sense of the younger harpy’s seeming gibberish.  “What sacred sword?  What streams?”

The other harpy bobbed its head up and down, anxious to offer clarification to its sister’s story.  “The old grove of many trees.  One where men once worked the grains, in the ridge top.  Wagons come and go there.  Many gathering from the fields below.  And new water falls from the high rocks, as it did long before.  Sword in the wood has been taken.  And water now flows, where once it did.”

Delitch mulled this news over, blinking slowly, thoughtfully.  The outworlders were already beginning to bring changes to The Mid-World.  Somehow they had awakened the water from the place where grains were sifted and milled in the highlands.  That water would flow down the old channels and eventually gather into the streams that fed the rivers and watered the lower valleys, bringing the green back into the fields and forests.  This was not good.  Not good at all.  The plan she had in mind required deadness and parching.  Her lip curled in a snarl and quivered just mulling this news over.  But she was committed.  What she planned must be done sooner, rather than later, before the woods regained their old vitality and health.

Resolved, she gathered her two underlings in and spoke conspiratorially.  “I speak with The Pan.  When finished, I drank black waters of the mystic pool. The one where he searches visions into outer world.”

“What did he give?”

“No.  I thought we had favor to take Kilrane for ourselves. But he deceived us. He gave woods to another…”

“What other.  Who?”

“The nymphs,” Delitch growled, hating the taste of the very words.

“Betrayed us, he has!” one wailed, fluttering her feathers, her eyes rolling upward, as her head turned and twisted at odd angles.

“Careful quieting that where others may hear, sister,” the other warned.

“Hungry, cold, and betrayed!” the feathered sister squawked flapping her wings in indignation.

“What does matron Delilah say about this?!” the one who had captured the rodent demanded of Delitch.

“Delilah will do nothing.  Always bends to The Pan’s will. But we may do something.  Yes, we may do something about it.”

“What we do about nymphs?”

“We bring gifts to their new homecoming. Special flowering gifts to welcome them,” Delitch grinned wickedly.

“Why gifts those who robs us?!  Nasty seedlings!  Sirens love flowers.”

“Not the kind of blossoms we bring.  We will seed the woods of Kilrane with flower every nymph so desperately fears.”

“How?  How we do this?”

“The matron has made pact with king in city of stone.  We will wear carriers.  You will soon see how it will be.”  Delitch pulled the two bird hags in and explained the rest in urgent whispers.

*Scene 02* – 21:41 (Distant Measures)

When the creepy trio of harpies flew off the mountain, a portion of one of the rocks in the talus field slowly moved.  Hunched down between two jagged boulders in the mountaintop talus pile in a high ridge trough of the overlook peak of a range called Mount Zefat, a camoflaged scout carefully lifted a dusted and scraped shroud made to look like one of the weathered rocks.

The strange bird-like sounds had pierced and punctuated the wind noises in rising and falling falsettos drawing their commander’s attention.  The scout had been dispatched to make a silent ascent, check it out and report back as soon as the sources had been identified.  The strange noises of the fighting bird creatures attracted attention and could attracted other creatures to their location.

He had come out amid swirling fogs, moving silently up the back of the slope through blinding wet and white, careful not to slip on the moisture laden rocks.  It was a precarious climb but he soon located the bird women on an upper section of the arete shelf, approximately seventy fee higher than his present company’s secret redoubt.

Creeping closer, he had insinuated himself among the broken rock field and sparse tufts of weather beaten scrub grass, located on the short sharp shoulder just below the top of the granite peak.  The two harpy creatures appeared to be preoccupied hunting small, mouse-like creatures, called pikas, among crevices in the rocks. While they were distracted, he hunkered down in a cleft break where ice and snow had fissured the edge of the precipise through its perpetual cycles of freeze and thaw.  He pulled his disguised shroud over his crouched body, silently settling in to wait and watch.  For about forty minutes, he observed the two sister creatures squabble incessantly, seemingly irritated by their long wait on the upper peak for another Harpy, they called Delitch.  From what he could make of their garbled speak, this Delitch had ordered them to fly to this upper talus field and wait for her until she could meet with The Pan and return.  Best he could tell, the harpies seemed to be unaware that they were not the only ones presently occupying the mountain, and were heedless of the possibility that anyone else might chance to overhear them.  They complained of wet feathers from exposure to the cold moist air, the lack of sheltering options of spartan and stunted alpine foliage and the discomforting growling in their pot-bellied stomachs.

Two days prior, the scout and his fellow rangers had stealthily climbed the ascent to the top of the mountain under much more favorable weather conditions.  The rangers were comprised of men who were trained residents of the ghost city of Azragoth, presently under the command and direction of a seasoned and renowned warrior, the men called “The Eagle”.  The company had spent the last four days climbing to the upper stone shelves along the shoulder of the mountain, up through a lightly traveled switchback trail under and through the mountain’s tree cover.  When they ascended past the timberline, they each donned carefully dusted gray cloth covers to make them blend in with the exposed stone faces of the mountain, until they reached the upper summit.

The crest was strewn with exposed stone and broken talus rock, and loosened gravel peeled off of the jagged stone by the merciless claws of wind and weather.

Almost within moments of crossing to the talus field and being led to a small, obscured outpost hidden in a boulder field on the high-shoulder ledge, the weather changed and grew wet and windy.  When additional storm clouds rolled in, a draft of warm air was sucked upward from the leeward side of the range forcing the upper mountain mists to descend, obscuring their view, requiring them to spend more time on the mountainside than their leader had initially planned.  Two days they waited in a long cave under the stone redoubt before the lower clouds had thinned enough to allow the watchers to begin to peer into the lower valleys.

The place was an ideal strategic vantage point, but when the weather conditions worsened it was hard to tell much, for the resulting cap of fog lowered to cover the top of the mountain, stirred by winds blowing scouring ice grit.  During the two days of hunkering down around firelight that cast flickering orange light against the stone walls, their lead assured them that the weather conditions would change and should clear within a day or two.  That though mountain weather might seem unpredictable, it did follow slightly predictable cycles that were constantly changing due to the confluence of warmer winds drawn up from the plains and sunlit valleys, and the cool moisture-laden breeze that flowed from the sea across the highlands into the drop from the upper shelf hitting air masses rising from the rivers and the falls as they depended into the lowlands leading to the fjords.  The cave was well-stocked with warm furs, iron pans and fired cookware, sealed cannisters of tallow, salt, and spices for cooking and other dried foodstuffs suited to long term storage.  An ample supply of dried wood that had been hewn, bundled and carried up from the lower hills, lay piled upon elevated racks, to allow selection of varying lengths and thickness to feed into the four firepits that both heated the cave and cooked their food.  Piles of straw and fir boughs served the party as warm beds for the troops, and the stone stacked walls around the firepits served as reflectors keeping the warmth distributed throughout the cave and half tunnels.  Stone chimneys allowed the smoke from the cook fires to escape and be channeled up through vents in the crevices of the overhead rock ceiling.

Most of the time, the cloud cover settled on the upper crests of the ridge, carving through and around the pointed peaks that soared into frosted tips.  The strategic position of the lower shelf at an elevation of 6,430 feet typically gave them a broad view of the plains and the upper and lower valleys without exposing them to the high-flying winged spies of the strange Half-men creatures.  Those creatures tended to either soar over the cloud tops or low enough under the cloud ceiling to give them visibility as they glided through and around the upper peaks.  These might be able to spot them on the upper shelves of the mountains as they flew over the cumulus cloud banks.  At 6,500 feet, the base of the cloud coalesced at a dew point, creating a perpetuating ermine stole of cloud cover that shifted in the churn as cooling air was forced and pushed into the peaks, before descending into the lower valleys beyond.  The Zefat range gave the illusion that its rocky teeth held up and constantly chewed into the frothing white belly of the Mid-World sky.

On a sunny day–their commander claimed–one could see for miles and miles, just under the white ceiling, and with the advantage of a good spyglass, one could spot and track the movements of any large group approaching the highlands from the westering lands.  Few of the land-based leaders knew of this strategic place, for most of the overland transit moved by horses or pulling wagons or came on foot, utilizing the valley passes, with no need to climb to the summit of the Zefat range.  But observant and battle-wise military minds knew the value of a highpoint with a broad field of vision.  And that was why ‘The Eagle’ had overtime invested resources and valuable cached supplies in creating a secret outpost here.  From the front of the cave, three naturally eroded channels carved by ice and snow run-off coming down from the high back of the cave and overhanging slab of rock, radiated outward to the precipitous drop-off of the cliff, dropping a sheer five hundred feet down to a lower talus pile that descended into the lower tree line that scaled the steep decent to the lower valley.  These radiating scars had been deepened and carved into half tunnels and had large slat slabs placed over their runs to the edge.  Hanging woven mats covered the passages from the cave, keeping the heat from the fires from escaping down the tunnels.  At each end of the tunnels, a small chamber was carved out where the spyglasses were lock down and anchored into the rock under a slab ceiling.

Two of the anchored and pivoting spyglass scopes he had positioned to sweep and focus on strategic points in the lower valleys where groups in significant numbers must necessarily pass.  One focused on the positions of the townships located within the wide valley basins, and another held the aspect encompassing a broad view of the half-moon harbor where the village of Skorlith received large wooden ships. Such vessels had deep drafts extending below the waterline, allowing them to ferry significant shipments of commercial supplies, while also featuring deep, high capacity holds filled with freshwater fish netted and caught up and down the broad and long fjord lakes of Cascale.

When the clearing began, the rangers in the company finally understood the strategic value of the place.  From within the hidden rampart redoubt, they were soon able to observe distant troop movements in the split valleys and rolling plains descending to the large lake chain fjord.  Surprisingly through the large anchored multi-lens spyglasses they could even make out the distant fishing village of Skorlith on its far shores.

For the past two days they had finally gained enough intel to be able to make modest calculations on how far the hostile companies had progressed and how soon they might converge on the other armies moving along a parallel valley that would eventually channel into the pass in the Zefat mountain range.  For days they had watched the armies through field glasses and a large lens scope, making marks and tallying the numbers of each landing party.  Down a central valley, the distant silver band that was the long chain lake called Cascale glimmered in the half-light of mottled cloud cover combing the sunlight overhead that sparkled and danced upon its waves.

The scout that had hidden among the upper rocks carefully made his way down to the lower ledge taking cover in a fog of mountain mists.  He materialized out of the white, stepping carefully across the wet rocks down to the cut ledge, and into the long shallow cave that was merely a scooped scar under an angled pillar of granite.  A net stretched across the opening, masking the presence of the cave from spying eyes that might belong to tellers with wings.  Channels, that had been carefully carved and cleared, radiated outward to the edge of the shelf, allowing the soldiers to move back and forth to the edge and view the panorama of lower terrain through their staked and anchored long lenses.

A sentry posted at the tent opening to the cave raised his bow weapon, as the scout entered.  The man spoke the password, and the sentry lowered his weapon, relaxing the draw on the nocked arrow and string.

“What did you find?” the guard asked.

“Harpies.” the scout answered.  “They flew away after another joined them.  Two of them were fighting, but the other broke them up when she arrived.”

“What were they fighting about?”

“They were hunting among the rocks and one of them caught a rodent.  I think they were both just hungry and irritable.  But there was mention of The Pan, some sword, and something to do with the nymphs.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Not sure, but I need to report it to The Eagle.  Perhaps it’s nothing, but if it’s important, he will want to know about it.”

The scout moved forward into the cave and turned down one of the chute halls passing underneath the canopy.  The scout knew The Eagle would be stationed at the large spyglass with his personal scribe, giving his assessment of those marshalled in the fields below, with their central tent covering what he now knew to be one of the clan’s Builder Stones.  The scribe would be dutifully taking down the notes dictated by The Eagle, so that the notes could later be drafted into a field report and the strategies could be discussed with the council when they returned to the city.

The Eagle had remarked that the mysterious stone was making progress across the lower plain in the valley.  Its location had been spotted through breaks in the layered clouds along the second day and the change in location marked on the third day when the overhead sun had fully cleared the cloud cover.   The tent had moved a quarter of a mile toward the northeastern pass and split through the Zefat mountain range and was causing the field troops to adjust their positioning with the gradual progress.  The observers were anxious to note today’s progress, compared to the prior day, and they had spent the morning searching through their glasses for its current position, but the misted occlusion was making that difficult.  Since the morning the lower mists had risen again, pushed up and over the bridging valleys by a westerly progressing low pressure front gathering moisture from the coastal seas to the east.  The clouds now flowed like a roiling stream settling between the two valleys, but beyond them the distance had cleared along the silver glimmer of the lake chains.  Dark forms plied the waters, angling towards the lakeside village of Skorlith.  A banner of blue appeared at the top of one of the lead ships central masts, that could just be seen through the large spyglass that held The Eagle’s interest.

As the young scout approached, he overheard The Eagle speaking to his scribe.  “Looks like the Capitalians have achieved a lakeside landing.  Skorlith has long been wary of strangers.  I am surprised that they were allowed to anchor in their harbor still flying their colors.”

“A bold move for those so far from the safety of their wall.  I wonder what gives them such confidence?”

“They must be expecting reinforcements soon to follow.”

“But still, the Skorlithians have always maintained their need for neutrality in their position along Cascale since they are one of the few deep water ports.  Do you think they have finally chosen a side?”

“I doubt it is as simple as that.  Some port authority might be bribed or coerced, but I am sure they fear retribution from Xarmni if word gets out.   The Ammonites will surely be watching.”

“How many of the towns are actually loyal to the Xarmnian crown?”

“Loyalty is not a characteristic of regions governed under the threat of Xarmni.  These municipailities will act in their own self-interests, and if that means spying for Xarmni, that is what they will do… unless they have some greater dread,” he said more thoughtfully to himself.

Returning to the present focus, The Eagle squinted again into the eyepiece of the large telescope, continuing to talk to his scribbling attendant.  “So far I can only count six foreign ships.  Estimating the size of each galleon, at capacity each vessel might be able to field seventy or eighty fighting men.  They have four masts.  Vessels like that can accommodate one hundred men.  Maybe one-twenty tops, but that would sacrifice too much of the cargo hold space.”  He pulled back muttering to himself, working out the possibles in his mind.  “Of course, they will retain twenty or so to hold and defend the ships.  That would be the only reasonable thing to do.  But it would still allow for an advancing force of nearly five hundred Capitalians to stage an overland assault with half a battalion.”

“So few?” the scribe wondered aloud, pausing in his writing.

The Eagle nodded, explaining, “Larger divisions would be harder to mobilize and feed.  They will surely need provisions and riding stock which will take some time.  I doubt they travelled from the far shore by ship with much livestock.  Skorlith will be hard pressed to make accommodation for them and will most likely want them to leave as soon as possible.  I doubt the city guards would be a match for such a large landing force, so whether by will or by duress, they may not have had much choice in granting or denying them anchorage in their harbor.”

“Will the Ammonites report the landing to the Xarmni?”

“Not if they wish to maintain trade relations with the Skorlithians.  They are dependent on the fisheries, and on the master shipwrights who maintain their boats that ferry them to the far shores of Cascale.  In general, they hate the Xarmnians almost as much as the Skorlithians do.”

“It is odd to hear you talk that way about Xarmni.”

The Eagle nodded.  “What was done, was done long ago.  Ammon and Skorlith still have a lingering dread of Xarmnian influence.  They distrust each other too, but they share a common enemy in Xarmni, and I think that tenuously binds them together in spite of their mutual suspicions.”

“What’s our next move?”

“Has the scout returned?”

“I’m here, sir.” the scout spoke quietly stepping out of the hallway shadow, into the watcher’s chamber.

“Did you identify those noises?”

“I did.  Harpies, sir.  They were awaiting another which finally came.  I could not make out much of their speech over the winds, but I did hear them mention both The Pan and something of the Kilrane woods.”

The Eagle rubbed his forehead leaning back on his heels.  “Harpies,”  he sighed, “I suspected as much.  The Pan is getting bold coming out from the twilight north.  He has long had some peculiar interests in the Kilrane, but the legends of the old guardians kept him from seizing those woods.  I doubt the edicts of Xarmni’s quarantine had anything to do with it.  If The Pan has designs on Kilrane, it won’t be long before they discover the ruins of Azragoth at the back of it beneath the shadow of the upper highland shelf.  Were you spotted?”

The scout shook his head, “No, sir.  The two harpies waiting above were hunting and arguing.  Too busy to notice when I slipped into the cut in the rocks to watch them.  I don’t think they would’ve spoke so freely if they suspected I was there.”

“Did they comment on the movements deep in the valleys below?”

“No, sir.  The older, bigger one they were waiting for seemed annoyed and preoccupied when she came down to join them.  She may have been flying above the cloudtop and missed what was going on below.  She gathered her two in and that is where I heard them mention Kilrane and The Pan.  I think, perhaps they may have plans of their own related to The Pan’s nymph sirens.”

“Sirens!” the Eagle jerked his head up reflexively.

“What is it, sir?” the scribe asked in alarm at his commander’s sudden reaction.

“The Son of Xarm will be implicated if ever the sirens return to the woods of Kilrane.”

“Sir?” the scout inquired.

“The present king of Xarmni has a little known history related to the wood sirens.  They spared his life once, but at a terrible cost.  He was charmed by them, but also fears them.  He is addicted to something only the wood sirens can produce.  But he must trade with them in blood.  He has tried to hide his need, but every flowering season, it comes raging back, driving him mad.  Few of his personal council know what causes this.  It is a guarded secret, even from those he eventually sends out on a suicide mission to “collect” what he needs from those bloodthirsty wood-maidens.  Anyone speaking of those rumors, the king silences with an elite group of dark inquisitors.”

The Eagle stood up tall, turning into the low light from the opening beyond the anchored spyglass, a metal breastplate of steel armor covering his chest, emblasoned with a fiery red eagle, wings flared across it.  He stared hard into the distant valley, gathering one last considered glance into the now tiny movements in the valleys below.

“I think we’ve seen enough here.  Gather the other rangers from the two look-out chambers and bring their scribes.  Xarmni is moving inward from the south and these two groups below may be unaware of each other until they reach the joiner pass.  It’s time we returned to Azragoth.”

“How much time do we have, do you think?” asked the scribe as both he and the scout followed The Eagle back down through the cut tunnel towards the long cave.

“So far, they’ve made slow progress, but that may change.  Those stones are moving steadily now, but I don’t know.  From what I could tell, the soldiers below are cover troops.  Not field soldiers.  If they intended going to battle, they would carry Grauplin boxes for a first skirmish.  I don’t think they are aware that the Capitalians have landed and are poised to follow on the other side of the pass.”

*Scene 03* – 15:28 (The Damage Path)

“Do we know approximately where the digging beast is now?” Nem asked Ryden as they quietly rode their horses along the shadowy, narrow gap behind the back of Azragoth’s towering perimeter wall.  Their current path took them along the northern side of the city’s massive curtain and parapet, butting up under the slight overhand of the highland cliffs and the dense forest situated in a slanted hidden gorge just beyond it.

For the past several hours, since witnessing the fault lines and the strange behavior of the precious metals in the city’s vault, brought to his attention by Kallem, the city’s treasurer, Nem had attempted to remain calm and give no indication of a general alarm, until he had found out more about what was going in the rock layers deep below the city.  The fissures that he had witnessed with his attendant, Chetsrown, in inspecting the former day’s work on the rebuilding of the city’s inner wall, could be attributed to the work of the strange burrowing beast that the Lehi Ryden had warned him about. [Chapter 22 – Scene 3]  Ryden and the couple from Crowe had discovered the signs of the beast where it had emerged from under the upper ridge covered by the forest of Rim Wood.  From what he’d been told, it appeared that the large beast had breached the cliffside, collapsing part of the edge down into a tailing of debris and comprised of deep earth tunnel dirt and the broken talus of the upper cliff’s edge and collapsed rock face.  The beast, according to what Ryden could make out, had left a damage path through the forest at the base of the highland cliffs, tearing across certain parts of the back trail that the Lehi had but rarely used to work their way toward the backwoods leading to Azragoth.  They had track the debris all the way to the massive fortified wall and the streams fed by branch off-shoots from the highland rivers that ran along the lower eastern wall, forming a partial half moat near the area of the city once designated as The Fountain Gate near the curtain edge, running through grates under the wall to fill a basin with fresh water once known a the King’s Pool.  Ryden had encourage him to examine that area along the outer curtain of the back wall to see if Ryden’s perception matched with Lord Nem’s objective assessment.  From there, he and Ryden had moved to warn Azragoth’s city council.  Since their general military leader was still away from the city, leading a team of scouts and trackers to make observations of the Xarmnian troop movements from his secret watchpost on Mount Zefat, the had not military mind to consult to deal with this new monstrous threat to the city’s foundations.  The damage extending along the wall rebuilding effort comported with Ryden’s early assessment, as an effect of underground displacements in the proximity of where Ryden had thought the beast entered the city’s underground.  The risk was serious enough that he had opted to waste no time in having Ryden inform the council of this new danger.  He had then met with his chief project managers and stonemasons to alert him if they saw any further sign of subduction along the walls and foundations, hoping that they could track and anticipate the heading and progress of the monster, so that they could figure out how to draw it away from the underground vats holding the city’s toxic “black tongue”.  So far, he had received no further reports and this puzzled him.  The next alert he received was from Kallem, when he had urged him to come to the treasury vaults to witness the damage being done there.  He had stationed some of his trusted men to continue to watch the vaults with Kallem’s staff and try to follow any signs of sinking and depressions that might indicate that the beast had left the vaults and was proceeding deeper into the city.  When the shaking of the metals ceased, and the gaping fissures no longer widened, Kallem enlisted the men to help get what remained of the city’s wealth into another location that did not have fault line damage.  For hours, there were no indications that the underground beast was still lingering directly below the treasury.  No further reports came to him, so Nem had opted to join the newcomers in the refectory for the afternoon meal.  His men were to alert him immediately if any further damage was found.  After the meal, he quietly withdrew, asking Ryden to go with him and show him the place where Ryden believed the creature had penetrated Azragoth’s underground.  This required them both to go outside of the city, into the backwoods, so they went to the stables to get mounts to ride along the back wall to the area Ryden suspected.  They rode quietly through the narrow path between the stone curtain and the shadowy overhang of the upper highland cliffs.  When they reached the turn along the eastern wall, they could hear the gurgling of the stream up ahead.

As they approached the area of the stream where it had curved around to run alongside the high wall, Lord Nem and Ryden dismounted and staked their horses to crop grass.

The far side of the bank had tapered and sloped downward, impressed under ponderous weight.  The moss had been torn and ripped, the tall grass and reeds were broken and their swirling ends bent into the water.  The opposite bank along the backwoods had been folded and forced down to into a slaloming gulley that cut through and exposed twisted roots formerly covered by a rise the ran along the stream’s crushed and swollen bank.

There was no doubt some massive, slither-crawling creature had caused the damage.  Brown water churned and eddied in the widened pool created by the beast’s watery entry.  The large swirling pool, now part of the narrow channel,  appeared like a liquid version of a constricting serpent’s stomach, where its recent kill blistered its elongated form as the consumed victim was slowly being digested and broken down in the viper’s pulsing belly.  The riverbed in the pool was occluded, but it was clear that the rocks lining its bed had been pushed into a conical depth, and the dirt, gravel and rocks had closed in upon the bottom of the pool where the creature had burrowed beneath its rippling surface.  The banks beyond the pool were muddied and wet, where the displaced water had receded and the surged over the opposing banks resulting from the monster’s foreceful plunge.

Ryden and Lord Nem bent down studying the broadened pool and observed where the water gurgled along the city’s outer curtain. Dust and silt still stirred above the rounded hole and muddied the formerly clear water that once ran over a rocky bottom that could be seen at a former depth of 12-13 feet.  The rounded pit in the bottom caused the stream to swirl and eddy as it flowed over the scooped-out bowl of dust at the bottom.  Part of the embankment that led up to the base of the wall had slumped and dipped down into the water, exposing part of the deeply buried foundation of the city’s stone enforced skirt.

“Have a look there,” Ryden pointed to a section where the bottom of the stone base slumped into the water.  A fracture and jagged cracks spidered up through the crumbling mortar grooves, and bits of the massive bottom stone skirting were chipped and broken, sagging into the water of the pool. “See where the monster tore away part of the lower foundation of the wall’s deep buried base stones.”  New nodded, “Yes, I see it.  The wall has weakened.  The weight of the upper wall is bearing down on the area where the footing buried underneath has split apart.  And look here,” Nem pointing into the edge of the water near the wall where a swirling eddy spun around a dark encrusted black barb barely jutting out of the water.  Lord Nem squatted and moved in for a closer look.  He grabbed a stick and probed at the barb, as silt and dust swirled around it.  Rising to his feet again, Nem nodded and spoke quietly, “That is part of the lower underwater grate, where the water flowed into under streams.  These once provided the city’s source for fresh water.  It also was the water supply for the cooling of the heated volcanic vents, feeding the mineral baths in the old sectors.  This also was a feeder stream that ran and filled The King’s Pool, and the Fountain Gate, just around the bend and on the inner side of this wall.”

“There is more damage in the woods leading up to here.  I could show you where it breached the upper cliffside and tore through the woods, pushing aside trees, digging furrows through the underbrush,” Ryden said.

Lord Nem wiped his hands, dropping the wet stick as he turned toward Ryden and nodded in the direction of the quietly grazing horses.  “I’ve seen enough here.  I agree with your assessment.  There is no mistaking what happened.  And it is disturbing and ironic as well.”  They climbed up the grassy bank, removing the stakes and gathering the reins of their horses’ bridles, preparing to swing back up into the saddles.  “Ironic, sir?”

“Its seems this beast is reopening old wounds.  These water ports along here,” Nem gestured with a downward sweep of his arm, “are where we suspected that the city’s rat infestation entered the sewers.  Wood rats that eventually led to the plague when the gutters clogged with debris carried in by those filthy rodents.”

Seated and mounted, they turned their horses and rode back along the narrow path between the outer skirting wall and the highland’s broad cliff face.  Nem continued to speak quietly to Ryden, explaining what was done in the rebuilding and restoration of Azragoth. “Those channels had to be closed, and the water feeds bricked in.  Too much debris, and the underground pipes were grimed and polluted.  We had to find a new water entry that could not be so easily compromised.”  Ryden nodded, “Was that when the tunnelling was done?”

Nem grunted, “Not exactly.  We found a purer source through a seep from the river higher up on the ridge.  The water is cleaned by fissures and filtering through loose river rocks, on the upper side of the forest gorge.  The stream that feeds this lower tributary also bleeds into that sidewise seep, and it comes down through the far side where we had to quarry stone from the northern side of the city back.  There is no known way that the forest vermin can get through those rocky crevices, so we realized we had a purer source to supply the city wells.  We built underground aqueducts to route the water to where it was needed to be accessible to the fountains and deep wells above.  The fresh water is kept separate from the wastewater, by design, but these old submersed grates will still leak through to push the waste waters along the city gutters.  We pressurize it in holding tanks and then release it to flush through when we perform the cleansing.”

 “About that,” Ryden cleared his throat and cast Nem a worried, sidelong glance, “I’ve been meaning to speak to you.  Is there a chance that those underground reservoirs…”  He paused, dreading the thought he was about to voice.

“What is it?” Lord Nem asked, when Ryden did not immediately continue.

“While we were out on the latest assignment, I had a chance encounter with The Walker.  He is on the move again.  And this time he has taken a particular interest in the upland rivers and watercourse.  He suspects they are being tainted.  Contaminated.  He had this stoppered vial with him, and in it…”

Ryden went on to tell Nem of the black writhing substance that Hanokh had shown both he and Shimri  and its effect on a capture Xarmnian prisoner.  He described what happened when the mysterious giant had him touch the glass vial, the terrors and feelings it called forth in him, and the prisoner’s fearful reactions whenever Hanokh had brought the vial near him.  “…The black twisting substance had sudden filled the vial to opacity, and seemed to absorb the firelight that should normally have reflected on the glass vial, and the cowering prisoner’s eyes had darkled into a matching blackness.”

“In that case,” Lord Nem said, stiffening, “I suspect we may be receiving a visit from The Walker sometime soon.”

As Nem and Ryden returned to the stables, deep below in a large cavern the monster moved back and forth through the length and wide of the cavern, leaving odd mud-caked mounds covered in a filmy gooey substance in its wake.  As it slithered along each ranked row, its gills pumped out mud forms in short columns, with the oozing substance forming a plastine, glistening covering over each mound. An occasional pulse of liquid light throbbed and flashed over each mound, causing it to gather into a rising conical point and twist and writhe with each darkling flash given off by the weeping scaly surface of the creature’s skin.  Row after row of regimental bumps, over mounds of expelled dirt, clay and rock, jiggled and twist, bending and stretching upward under the embryonic ooze, responding to the liquid flashes that briefly illumined the dark cavern walls, casting jumping shadows of conical shapes.  When the cavern was almost filled by these strange forms, the creature huffed and snorted, expelling dust clouds that swirls and twisted to mask the ghost lights of the strange forms it had created.  Its dark eye, and pale blue eye blinked rapidly, seeming to scan the cavern walls for something more.  Its ponderous head raised and lowered in a rhythmic fashion, scanning and searching for something it needed.  Finally, it curled its neck and its massive claws dug deep into the rocky floor, as it drew a shuddering breath in, tensing, coiling its legs under it, preparing to lunge.  It had sensed a weakening in the rock strata.  A place where it could cut through and clear a vent tunnel to the outside mountain upon which the city overhead rested.  This was where it would bring them in, to complete the work it had begun.  To give these seedling creatures of its digestion an awakening, using the fouling breaths of its forbearer.  Its likening.  Its monstrous kind, that had emerged from the ancient world so long ago.

*Scene 04* – [Part 1] – 17:03 (Dangling Death – Part 1 of 3 “Blood Baskets”)

“I smell blood!” Brem shivered, trembling under the burly and brusque, knobby-kneed troll and the chaffing saddle, strapped tightly around his under girth.  “Keep your yap, shut, and keep moving!” the troll growled, jerking the collar and bridle that he had fastened around the onocentaur’s human neck, cruelly fitted with a choak ring the troll could slide to the ends of the reins at the back of his mount’s neck to ensure the man-animal did not entertain any wild ideas about ditching its cruel rider along the shadowy and bushy trail. With abraded arms Brem attempted to push the intersecting brambles and branches out of the way, as his cruel rider drove him forward over a trail barely visible under the moist ground cover and molding forest detritus.  The smell of decay was thick in the air, sickeningly moist and sweet.

For the past several hours, the two sullen trolls, Grum-Blud and Shellberd, atop their reluctant rides–a pair of onocentaurs, named Brem and Bray–forged ahead through a dense wood as their lead scanned the way for scant traces of the dim path their human quarry had recently taken along the irregular brow of Rim Wood.  They climbed up through shadowy thickets and dipped down into irregular gulleys leading them along the tracer trail rarely used, but still discernible to the trained eye of any competent pathfinder worthy of a modest wage.  The ground was soft and spongy, caked with lime green moss, earthy mushrooms, and layers of decaying leaves, all of which were covered by low lying ferns that would shield any signs of a prior passage to untrained eyes, who might have stumbled unaware into the snarls of these winding woods.  A few times, Grum-Blud had had to dismount, and part the fronds of the ground foliage, to find the hoof tracks that had pressed the detritus mats down into shallow moon arcs, and had cut and scraped moss beds, chewing the mossy carpet up as the proceeding horses had scraped its hooves across the stones and blackened, broken branches beneath them.

“The scent’s getting stronger.  I smell it, too, Brem!” Bray the other onocentaur concurred, risking the ire of their riders.  “Hssst!” Shelberd hissed at Bray, the onocentaur he was riding carefully following behind his fellow Grum-Blud and Brem.  “Don’t make Grum mad.  You won’t like what he does when he gets mad.”

Bray turned his head slightly, grumbling quietly over his shoulder to Shelberd, his rider, “What more can he do to us than he’s already done?  If he hobbles us, or injures us, whose gonna carry his tack?  You?  You trolls have the boniest butts I ever did see.  These saddles are not thick enough for us.  Feels like you have broken bricks in yer britches.  Faces like frogs…”  Up ahead, Grum-Blud turned and snarled, “Shut him up, Shel!”

All of the sudden, Bray felt his throat tighten under a sharp tug of the leather strap collar, as a cold metal ring gathered the coarse reins and pinged against the back of his skull.  He gulped and gurgled as the leather pressed his Adam’s apple into his windpipe.  “Anything more to say, donkey man?!” Shelberd snarled.  Bray wheezed against the pressure.  “Frogs, is it?!” Shelberd snapped.  “The Pan may get away with calling us that, but we’re not taking that kind of talk from you two mouthy mules!”  Grum-Blud turned again and glared.  Bray’s face was turning red, his eyes bulging.  He pawed frantically at the air in front of him, trying to get Shelberd to release the choking ring he had fisted at the back of his head.  Bray’s mouth gaped, opening and closing like a fish out of water.

Finally, Grum-Blud nodded and turned back to face the front, growling over his shoulder.  “Better let it breathe, Shel.  Lest you want to be walking after us, carrying our packs like he said.”

Brem had stopped moving forward and had spread palm fronds apart, staring and shuddering.  A loud gasping sound signified that Shelberd had finally relented and pulled back the choking ring, allowing the slack in the reins to loosen around Bray’s neck.  Bray huffed, filling his lungs, taking in the stale and fecund air, no longer caring so much that the scent of blood and flesh rot had grown more pungent.

Noticing that Grum-Blud had ceased to urge his mount forward, Shelberd leaned to the side, trying to get a better view of his fellow through the intersecting branches.  The senior troll had stiffened and stood up higher in the short stirrups.  He moved his head from side to side, surveying whatever had caused Brem to stop suddenly.  Worried, Shelberd called out, “What is it, Grum?  What do you see?”

In a low voice, Grum responded, no longer as confident and brash as he had been before.  “I now see why these two have been smelling blood,” he answered ominously.  “We’re gonna need to dismount and figure this one out.”

Shelberd and Bray, still wheezing a little from only recently having gained his breath back, moved forward on the narrow leafy trail, pushing mottled fronds aside and crowding next to Grum-Blud and Brem.  They collectively gasped gawking up and down at the disturbing scene before them.

Large, densely woven pods hung above a collapsed pit, like massive cocoons spun in thick vine wrappings from the spinner thorax of some gargantuan and monstrous spider.  Thickly twisted vines anchored these dangling pods to the treetops, dangling these disturbing cocoons some thirty to forty feet over their heads and over the sunken and oblong pit depressed into the ground before them.  A pungent wetness seeped from each of about six or seven dangling pods, dripping and drizzling into the sunken earth.  One of the pods dangled much lower than the others, for one of the trees that it had been secured to, leaned outward over the pit, and the back of its root ball had lifted from the anchoring earth, showing signs that this pod would soon fall with the trunk it had been secured to.  A bad smell of rot and decay came from the lowered pod, as they watched it sway and dangle over the pit, realizing that the tree might soon collapse and drop its pod down into the hollow beneath it.

“W-w-w-what ARE th-th-those, Grum?” Shelberd stammered, breaking the stunned silence.  Grum-Blud shrugged and tugged on Brem’s bridle.  “It seems these beasties might know that answer to that.  Speak up, donkey!”

Brem answered quietly, “Blood baskets.”

“What might those be?” Grum growled.

“The wood sirens spin them.  They drink from them.  Just like a hummingbird sips nectar from morning dew left on the petals of a flower,” answered Brem.

“Drink from them?!” Shelberd recoiled in disgust, shivering.

“It is how they maintain the appearance of their human forms.  Blood keeps them looking youthful, even though they are centuries old.”

“What kind of blood?!” Grum-Blud grunted in disgust.

“The only kind that works for them,” Brem replied with a shrug.  “Human blood.”

“You mean to say…?” Shelberd gasped, pointing at the grisly pods swaying overhead.

“Um hm.” Brem answered casually, “They collect their victims at random.  One here, maybe two there.  Anyone wandering in the woods, unaware that they are being watched,” Brem said, trying to hide his savage pleasure in Shelberd and Grum-Blud’s apparent alarm.

“So those ‘blood baskets’ are filled with blood?” asked the senior troll.

“Partly.  In a manner of speaking,” Brem shrugged.  “They catch their victims, wrap them in crushing vines and then pierce them through and through with tubular vines to drain their lifeforce.  Then they hang them up to let them ferment, slowly softening their skin and organs down into a kind of soupy mix that they can drink later, during the mating season, when they are pollenating.”

“How do we know when they are…pollenating?” Shelberd asked, dreading the answer.

“You’ll know.  The forest leaves and ground will be coated with the golden dust they give off.  If you breathe it, or get too much of it on you, you will fall asleep and wind up in one of their sleeping bowers.  Woven hammocks that they build in the treetops.”

Grum-Blud grunted, “I’ve heard stories about these wood sirens.  What is the difference between them and those they call nymphs?”

“No difference really,” Brem snorted.  “It is merely phasing for them.  Their nymph form is what pleases the men they seduce into their bowers.  The unwitting man won’t realize what they are until it is too late for them.  They expect extreme pleasures, but they will get exactly the opposite when they lie with one of these creatures.  You should see what they do with their nurseries.”

Shelberd gulped. “Nurseries?”

“Yeah, just like an insect.  A female mantis kind.  They mate, and then sever the heads of their male victim, and deposit their fertilized egg seed into the brain of the victim. Then they string it up into the treetops to hang by its spinal cord wrapped and reinforced with strong vines.  Their seedlings sprout from these like potted plants, and when they are ready, they eventually crawl out of those dangling skulls and up the cord and vine into the treetops to feed in the sunlight.”

Grum-Blud urged Brem to turn and walk along the edge of the pit, keeping shy of the softening shoulder.  “Bring me closer to that lower one that is leaning towards us.  I want a closer look.”  Bray followed, carrying Shelberd after them until they stood just below the leaning blood basket.  “Look there!” Shelberd pointed, as the vine woven cocoon twisted under the forest’s dappled glow.  Rays of mote-filled sunlight passed over the grisly pendulum, illuminating the twisted mesh of vine.  Just inside, the outer weave, something stared back out at them.  They had to twist their heads to the side to be sure, but as the sunbeam landed on the bottom edge of the ‘blood basket’, they saw it more clearly, realizing the inner form was inverted.

A shocked face stared blindly out from among the mesh of vines, eyes bulging, mouth sprouted and gawking from the side of the blood basket.  Grum-Blud grunted and shivered, muttering, “I know this one.  He was one of Bayek’s crew.  Name was Lerk, but the men called him ‘Slurp’ behind his back.  Hated that name.  Got very mad if he caught anybody saying it.” Shelberd answered, quivering as well.  “He was the one missing his front teeth, wasn’t he?  I thought he was that Chewnek fella.”

“Both of ’em had no teeth, but I think this one was Lerk the Slurper.  Chewnek had a lazy eye.  Squinted a lot.  This one’s got both eyes bulgy.”  Grum gestured downward and across the pit, where the present ‘basket’ once hung closer to the trunk still partially rooted across the pit.  “Looks like this basket also dropped a hand down there.  See it, partway down the bank of the other side, caught in that bush?  It’s missing two of its fingers, but that is not a new injury.  It fell from this basket here.  Definitely belonged to ‘Slurp’.  He could barely hold a blade with that hand.  I think one of the Cerberi took those fingers from him.  He was slow releasing a piece of meat he pitched to them.”

“Well then, that’s the one,” Shelberd coughed, covering his nose at the putrefying smell.  He turned to Brem and asked, “And you say these sirens will come back here?”  Brem nodded, “These kill baskets are prepared for drinking when the time is right.”

“Well, if Brem is right,” Shelberd observed, “and the body is getting juiced by the piercing vines of this blood basket, it looks like it won’t long before ‘Slurp’ gets himself ‘slurped’.”

Grum-Blud chuckled at that.  A savage sound that gave Shelberd chills at his senior’s cruelty.  “What’s funny?” Shelberd asked.  “Never mind,” grunted Grum, shaking his shaggy head.

In the disturbing quiet that followed, Brem offered, “It is not often that the victim’s head can be seen through the weaves.  I think this one fought quite a bit, before succumbing to the siren’s assault.  Its face is still fairly enfleshed, so these are fairly fresh kills.”

“What are you saying!” Grum-Blud barked, tightening his fists into the reins around Brem’s neck.  Brem answered, with a trembling tone, not wanting a repeat of what happened to Bray.  “I’m only warning you.  Don’t be mad at me.  Both Bray and I know how these nymphs behave.  I could keep what I’m telling you to myself, but I thought you’d want to know.”

Grum-Blud relinquished his hold, allowing the reins to slacken once more.  “Speak donkey.  I would hear more of what you know.”

Brem sighed, relaxing a little, but was cautiously aware that the troll would not brook any duplicity from him.  “They’ll let them season a while, but you can be certain they will return to drink whatever remains after they are given time to rot for a bit.  It is possible that they could still be in the vicinity, but without the time for these bodies to decompose, there is no immediate reason for them to come back here.  Unless…”

“Unless?” Shelberd prompted, his voice rising in barely controlled alarm.

“Unless they feel the need to post a watch.  This back trail is mostly untraveled, but if they suspect others might follow those we are tracking, they might guard this particular clutching of their hanging drinks.”

Tentatively, Shelberd raised the question, he had been hesitant to broach.  “Do sirens have a taste for trolls?”

Bray snorted unable to restrain his resentment.  He answered Shelberd’s nervous query in a raspy voice, before thinking it through, “They might go for frogs.  Yes.  They have killed other creatures, just to sample them for taste.”

Brem snorted a warning at Bray, wincing at the thought that this response might bring them a further, more painful reprimand.  Shelberd was distracted and disturbed by Bray’s answer, but Brem knew that Grum-Blud would act more swiftly and impulsively in his displeasure.  Quietly, however, Grum-Blud seemed more thoughtful about Bray’s hasty answer.  In a low voice, Grum asked, “What about you two?  Have they a taste for your kind?  Do Half-Men creatures eat others in their own kingdom?”

“Sirens have no problem killing.  But they do have preferences for what they choose to… uh… taste.  I am sure that neither Bray or I would be the first on their menu.”

“Why not?”

Brem shrugged.  “They are not shy about deciding on what is beneficial to them and collectively suits their strange tastes.  They tried to eat a cousin of mine, but it didn’t go so well.  Their matron, Briar, once told me, that I would not have to worry about it, but I’m not too sure she was serious when she spoke to me.”

Shelberd spoke up, “What did she tell you?”

Brem tried to hide another savage smile, and Bray grinned in spite of himself, knowing exactly what was coming, for he’d heard Brem’s joke before.

“She said, ‘Sirens don’t eat ass.'”

Grum-Blud threw back his head, belting out a deep, sonorous belly laugh, and Shelberd, nervously laughed too.  A nasal sound that squeaked, in a weird accompaniment to Bray’s wheezing guffaws.

Their laughs seemed to echo oddly throughout the wood, but the tonal quality had a higher pitch ring that just felt…in a sense…female.  The liquid laughs split, resounding and reverberating all around them.  From the low brush of the dim trail to the overhead canopy, huffing through the shadowy branches, adding a hiss to the myriad clapping of a million rustling leaves.

*Scene 04* (cont.) – 15:34 (Dangling Death – Part 2 “Wailing Sirens”)

A spray of leaves exploded around them as sirens seemed to sprout out of the bushes and drooping canopy on all sides.  They were surrounded by leafy bodies swinging among the branches overhead.  They swung lower, swiftly brushing by, waving leafy branches across the frightened troll’s bodies, as Grum and Shelberd tried unsuccessfully fend off those abrading them, swatting them, whipping them in a rollicking, swiping frolic of playful mirth.

“Go this way!” one of them chimed, swatting Shelberd, when he jerked his head around raising his arms.  “Go that way!” another chirped, smacking Grum-Blud on his back, with a branch.  “Not that way!  This way, shorty porty!” one conked him on the head, flattening the crown of Grum’s hat, and laughing.

“Into the hole, you roll, troll!  Into the hole, you roll!”  They taunted again, striking randomly with short branches and laughing in a singsong trilling melody.  The two trolls fought and panicked.  Their assailants were all around them, popping out and shrinking back into the brush in a whimsical fashion.  Grum-Blud spurred Brem, attempting to goad him to charge forward, down the rim of the pit.  But Bray spoke up, refusing Shelberd’s rocking and kicking efforts to get him to move and react to the assaults.

“Took you gals long enough!” Bray croaked.  “These trolls were getting wise, ’cause you’re all getting sloppy.”  He gestured up at the dangling basket with the inverted face of the one Grum-Blud had recognized as ‘Slurp’.  “How’d this one get his face out?”  And he swept his arms, pointing downward.  “‘Sides that, your baskets are practically spilling out body parts.  There’s a hand down there on the slope of this pit.  Fingers missing.  These frogs spied it.  They know these men, and they’ll report this back to their king.  The one you call ‘Sonnezum’.”

One of the sirens laughed, descending out of the canopy on a lowering vine that spun out of her raised arm.  Her lowered body, beneath her entwining and unraveling branch, appeared to be that of a human female with curvaceous hips, a bare, narrow and muscle-toned waist–a stunning figure.  Her form was shapely, her skin was fair and alabaster smooth, her torso and hips shimmered in a green web of tender leaves.  Her face was framed with luxuriant, shoulder-length, black curls that shined in the forest twilight like polished ebony, waving as she wagged her head.  A look of gentle amusement creased her cheeks with dimples, and she smiled sweetly, as if watching the antics of a beloved infant.  “Talky, Donkey.  You are so sweet in your innocence.  Precious, precious.  Too bad you do not taste as sweet as you seem, Honky-Donkey.  Leave Sonnezum to us.  We have an arrangement with the human king.  His needs will give us seeds.”

There was a ripple of laughter that reverberated as beautiful bodies and faces came up and down around them, but Bray held his ground, while Shelberd cowered behind the onocentaur’s upper torso, peeking around him.  His eyes darting from each beautiful form unable to decide whether he should be charmed by their seductive beauty or chilled by it.

“Eeee!” Shelberd suddenly squealed, scrunching as one of the siren beauties that had moved up behind him, softly walking her fingers across his shoulder and the back of his neck.  “This one seems like a sweet one,” she cooed, her voice soft and breathy.  Shelberd ducked his head into his arms, covering his head and back, shying away from her.

The former siren turned, smiling broadly, then pouted her lips.  “What are these two shortlings doing with you two double-donkeys?  Did poodums, gettum ‘selves lost?  Hmm? Little squatty froglings? Hop the wrong way, diddums?”

A warbling giggle made its way around the circling, swinging sirens, each sweeting smiling with eyes that shined in the dappled forest rays, giving their fair skin a leopardine appearance.

Bray croaked again, turning to the siren that had descended in front of him, “We were assigned to these frogs, Briar.  The Pan fancies them.  They are something other than mankind.  Something that is not quite clearly one of us, but it is enough to intrigue our master.  But if you feel like you doubt our words, you are welcome to take a small, non-lethal bite of either of these you may choose.”

Brem spoke up, “Might I suggest this fat one on my shoulder.  He has a finger he likes to point too much at us.  I’m sure you might find it to your liking.”  Grum-Blud, who had so far remained silent in the back and forth exchange, but suspiciously watchful, gritted his tusks teeth, bulged his jaw, and lunged forward, slapping the back of Brem’s head, almost toppling out of the saddle with the force of the blow.  Brem grabbed the back of his head with one hand where it stung, and twisted around, glaring at Grum.  Angered by his outburst.  “On second thought, how ’bout you take off this frogling’s whole hand!”

“Why you…!!!!” snarled Grum-Blud.

A sudden vine shot out, wrapping around Grum-Blud’s wrist as he snarled and raised his hand again for a fisted blow.  “Now, now, little squatty!  That’s enough from you.  It’s not polite to interrupt our friendly conversation.  We’ll decide when dinner is to be served, my puffy lil’ dumpling.”  That choked off Grum-Blud’s growl, as his worried eyes turned towards the tightening and twisting vine that had swiftly arrested his angered swing.  Another slithering vine caressed his bearded and bunching cheeks.  The siren holding him smiled and winked, lightly licking her ruby red lips.  The girl’s eyes flashed and glowed with a yellowing sheen, like those of a wide-eyed cat watching a flickering campfire.

“I like this one,” a siren cooed, emerging and shedding her leafy guise, transforming fully into her complete nymph form, matching the appearance of a fully human female in a sheer gown, looking like one of the ladies in the king’s court.  Her fingers brushed and stroked Shelberd’s leg, palming his knee, her nails raking gently against his pant leg and thigh.  “I could make him a golden boy, real easy.  Would you like me to?  Huh, Cutie-pie?”  Shelberd’s eyes widened, unsure, his mouth gaping at the transformation.

She quickly blew him a kiss, and Shelberd’s face was suddenly spritzed with a yellowish powder that puffed from her parted lips.  Before he knew it, Shelberd’s eyes drooped, and he felt woozy.  He leaned forward and then rocked backward, trying unsuccessfully to maintain his balance upon Bray.  When he swayed too far to the left, he crumpled from the saddle and fell into the beautiful woman’s arms, and she caught him and gently caressed his face.  Despite himself, he smiled up at her, before closing his eyes and falling into a deep sleep.

Grum-Blud had twisted around and saw Shelberd fall from the Bray’s saddle, a dreamy, euphoric grin on his face, as he blinked a few times and then drifted off into snoring slumber, with yellowish powder on his face.  He felt a hand on his thigh, and jerked back, seeing a pixie-cute redhead, smiling up at him as she rubbed his calf.  “What about you, chubby?”  The dappled light from overhead added a coppery glow to a light spritz of freckles on the beauty’s feyish-quality face.  She crinkled her nose, “I could golden you up like a cute little Buddha.  Put you on a pedestal while my sisters and I sip our nectar-sweetened tea.”  Grum-Blud flinched, pulling his leg up, shrinking away from the seductive siren.

Seeing his reaction, she smiled and pouted her lips, giggling.  She turned her attention to Grum’s stowed provisions and the oddly shaped, black-stained bag, he had tied to the back of Brem’s saddle pack.  “Whatcha carryin’, chubbs?  Can I see?”  Grum-Blud reached behind him, remembering his grisly prize.  He gripped the stained sack, pulling it loose from its slip knot to cradle it protectively.  As he pulled it forward, the blackened end of the sack brushed the girl’s reaching arm, and she gasped.  Grum-Blud tucked the rounded back into his lap and growled, “You can’t have this!  It is only a prize for your master!  It won’t work for you, girlies!”

Only then did Grum-Blud and the other sirens notice that the young redhead had backed away from Brem and the troll.  She had a stricken look on her face.  Her freckles had an ashen quality, her face was reddening and perspiring.  She held her arm out in front of her and it was beginning to blacken, shrivel and wither away.  Her fingers curled and crumbled away, like fire-scorched twigs.  The blackened stump that was her arm looked like a blackened fire log.  Black webbing, spread over her upper torso, coursing through her veins, as she twisted and writhed and shrieked, curling up on the forest floor, teetering, and then falling into the dark pit in the forest floor.

“Black rot!” several of the sirens started screaming.  “He’s brought black rot into the wood!” one frantically pointed at the dark sack that Grum-Blud was clutching. “Get them out!  Get them out!” another wailed.

The woman that had descended out of the canopy, whom Bray had called Briar, turned on the two onocentaurs.  “What is the meaning of this?!!!” she hissed, as barbs and thorns erupted from her once smooth, alabaster skin.  Wooden spikes branched out of her cheeks, as her green eyes shone with a limelight blaze.  Her hair became a wild tangle of writhing thorny vines, snaking in and out from behind her wooden fury.  Her arms twisted and corded, flaring and phasing between gnarled branches and smoothing out again to be covered with human flesh.  Bren backed away.  Bray stepped back, but bowed up, pushing his half-human shoulders back, puffing out his chest.

“Briar, I tried to warn you.  But to you I’m just a stupid ass.  Well, I’ve just had about enough of being sat on, pushed around, and poked and jabbed.  I been prodded once too many.  And this time, I ain’t steppin’ and scrapin’.  S’Time you learnt that this ass kicks back.”

Briar began to calm a little, growing thoughtful, and as she did, she began to phase back, metamorphosizing into the stunning, woman, she had been before.  Her body was sheathed in a light green, delicate, leafy gown.  Her hips were slender, curved and feminine, carrying her forwards in a rolling, regal grace, where she proudly stood before the two onocentaurs and their sullen troll, clutching the bag that had brought death to one of them, and had the potential to do more.

“What’s in the bag, frog?!” she commanded Grum.  He raised his chin, jutting his tusk bearing jaw out at her in defiance, “I am called Grum-Blud!  I am a troll.  My brother’s head is in this bag.  Shall I bring it out for you?”  Grum-Blud made to loosen the top of the bag, raising his arm to reach inside, but the siren woman, called Briar shrunk back.  Seeing that he grinned, a cruel chuckle spilling from between his gritted teeth, coming out with an accompanying hiss and spittle.

“Hold your hand, troll!” Briar warned.  “If you think to threaten us, remember that it will not end well for you either.  What is the black stuff, oozing from that bag?”

“My brother’s black blood.  What would you expect to come out of a severed head?” Grum-Blud snarled.

Suddenly, there was a loud buzzing sound, followed by a smacking, licking noise followed by a puttering.  The wood had grown quiet, so the sound was as puzzling, as it was strange.  Grum-Blud looked behind him, seeing Shelberd’s plump leg and foot shift and moving as it curled away under the lower brush.  Grum-Blud grinned.  Shelberd was still asleep, but the siren that had caused him to be in such a condition stood far away from him, slinking back into the trees, still in her lithe nymph form.  Shelberd had always been a noisy sleeper, which usually annoyed Grum, but this time, seeing how his nocturnal dissonance was causing alarm, further unnerving these sirens, he took a sinister pleasure in having once again gained the upper hand.

Briar turned an accusing withering glare on Bray.  “And you knew this?” she waved her hand back at Grum.  “You knew these froglings have this black death in them?”

Brem spoke up, wanting to gain standing and stick up for his fellow.

“We didn’t know for sure.  It is not as if we go about cutting them to…”

“Shut up!” hissed Briar, “It was you who suggested we take this fat one’s hand!” jabbing an accusing finger at him.

She whipped around, turning to Grum-Blud once again.  “What could The Pan want with this head of yours?  What is it that you would offer him?  Has The Pan promised you anything concerning us nymphs?  Have you had dealings with those…treacherous harpies?!” she ground her teeth hissing out the last phrase.

“My offering is a look into another world.  A living look, that only us trolls can offer.  My brother’s head is linked to one that has passed over into the old world.  The ancient one from where all origins of flesh come.  It is a gifting that comes within our black blood.”

“Where were you born, troll?!” Briar demanded.

Grum-Blud sat up taller in the saddle, bowing his chest out proudly.  “I have no memory of being born, or of having a childhood.  My first memory is from coming out of a locked box in intense pain, ravenous with hungers I cannot explain.  Of warfare, and of fighting.  Of ripping, tearing, smashing and beating.  Of cracking bones, clubbing flesh to pulp, stabbing and piercing, and sprays of blood.  That is my memory of birth.  I was born in violence and for violence.  Some of which I am happy to demonstrate, if provoked any further.  You’ll find we trolls are not so fragile as are men.”

*Scene 04* (cont.) – 14:36 (Dangling Death – Part 3 “Hanging On”)

Briar seemed disturbed, but undeterred in her pursuit of answers.  “I will only ask you once more…where did you come from?”

“I am a Xarmnian.  From the great stone city of Xarm.” Grum-Blud grunted and then pointed at the sleeping Shelberd’s foot protruding out from under the shrubs and ground ferns.  “We both are.  That stupid one and I.  I had one other, but he got careless and was caught and killed by enemies.”

Briar was thoughtful, and her eyes flared again, flashing with a pulsing green light.  She appeared to quit listening to Grum the instant she heard the words “Xarmnian” and “Xarm”.  She turned her back to him and the two onocentaurs. Her brow furrowed again; her pores seemed to open to reveal thorns once more.  “So Sonnezum has made his move…!” her fists twisted into wooden knuckles, looking like tree knots.  “I wonder what else that fool of a king thinks he can pull over on us and our master’s kingdom.”

“I say again,” Bray cleared his throat, gaining his voice a little better than before, “The froglings are particular to The Pan.  He charged us to bear them on a mission that serves his desires.  He didn’t tell Brem or me what that was, but he put it to us to bear them for a while until we can bring them back to him.  You know The Pan keeps his own affairs private and he wasn’t gonna give us the particulars. I ‘magine he keeps quite a bit ‘uv secrets from you and your leafys, don’t he?”  Bray huffed, blowing.  “Point is, if we don’t bring these here pollywoggles back to The Pan, in relatively one piece, he’ll want to know why. An’ you know he’ll get his answers, one way or t’other.  Shall Brem and I give him those answers, or d’you want you and your sisters to answer for them?”

Briar considered Bray’s words, surprised to recognize how much sense the donkey-man was making.  She looked at the brave little burro with a new kind of respect.  One that she never thought she’d have for this odd little creature.  At last, she nodded, signifying her internal decision and agreement.  She phased back into her more pleasing nymph form, her organic beauty shifting into lithe human grace.

“Girls, this one speaks true,” she indicated, waving her fingers in an aerial grace, sweeping back towards Bray.  “Molest these creatures no further.  Give them safe passage and ensure nothing thwarts them in their return to an audience with The Pan.”

Grum-Blud spoke up, “Well, ain’t that a dandy!  But you girlies put my buddy into a snore.  He’s useless to ride in a saddle.  You don’t expect me to carry him now, do you?  It’ll take a lot longer getting us to see The Pan.  Can you wake him up or something?”

Briar sighed and pointed to the dark-haired nymph standing at a distance who had put him into his present condition.  “Sylvan, since you gave him the pollen puff, you get to carry him until he wakes.”  The nymph raised her widening eyes in alarm, “But I…”  Briar threw her a stern look, silently showing she would brook no argument or complaint.  The nymph called Sylvan looked up at Grum-Blud with a worried look.  “Is someone gonna carry him too?”

Grum-Blud grinned wickedly, “You’re welcome to carry this sack for me, sweetie.”

Her eyes flared, and she moved towards Shelberd’s sleeping form, pushing aside the brush and ferns.  “Is he…?” she hesitated, “Does he…?”

“Does he what?!” Grum-Blud barked.

The nymph looked up at him again, her eyes seeming to water in fear.  “Does he leak?”  Grum-Blud creased his forehead, “Leak?”

The girl looked sheepishly from Briar and then back at Grum-Blud who was glaring at her.  “Is he cut anywhere?  Anywhere, where he might drip…”

Grum-Blud wagged his head, “Ahh.  I see.  He is not bleeding, if that is what you mean.  Unless you cut him with your branches and stuff.  He does fart in his sleep often enough and drools out of that big gaping mouth of his.  So, I guess you could say he does leak some.”  The nymph then bent down and easily lifted Shelberd up into a sling of vines forming out of her legs, her arms branching up into the upper canopy.  She pulled herself up, turning into a mixture of leaves, bark, trunks and branches.  She and Shelberd lifted into the upper trees, moving ahead and getting lost in the canopy.

“So, what about us, Briar?” Brem asked.  “We cannot keep up with the speed at which your kind travels.  Besides, there’s this long pit in front of us.  When did you start hanging your blood baskets over a pit?”

Briar looked down at the sunken pit, frowning.  “This was not here when we strung our drinking cups.  This is evidence that there was a Digger under these woods.”

“A Digger?!” Bray yelped, “You mean the kind The Pan used to use for…”

“Mining,” Briar finished, “Yes. Those monsters.  They usually kept to the wastelands, where The Pan banished them.  We thought they had eventually all died off, but this one must’ve survived.  They avoid the sunlight.  Darkness is their principal domain.  They can pierce through rock and mountains, but they never ranged this far from the mines where precious metals are buried.”

Brem interjected, “How did you know this?”

Briar straightened, raising herself up from the ground about six feet, her lower torso sprouting roots that dug into the dark soil of the forest floor.  “You claim to know so much about us, Brem.  And yet demonstrate that you still know so very little.  Rest assured we know what lies beneath us, little ground walker,” sniffing at his ignorance.

“Did it pass under you or your ladies?  Sniffing at your skirts?!” Grum-Blud quipped.

Suddenly, a vine arced down and spun swiftly around Grum-Blud’s neck, jerking him upward out of his saddle and dangling him over the deep pit.  Briar’s head extended coming up from the stalk of her neck, perched over the abyss, to glare at Grum-Blud as he struggled and dangled, turning red and then purple, unable to breath under the constricting vise grip of the woven vine.

“I do not repeat a warning, I issue, Frog Troll.  So listen, and listen well.  I may not be able to eat you, but I can certainly kill you.  I have spared you so far, because you are a curiosity.  But I could have but raised a buried root under your feet and tossed you down into this pit.  This way you could find out what exactly a ‘Digger’ is capable of.  There are enough deadfalls in this wood that I could use to beat you with and not get a drop of your nasty spillings on me.”  Her head leaned in, eyeing him with flashes of green light, coming from her irises, and Grum-Blud could feel the puff of air on his face as she whispered her warning, “Be careful what pours out of those fat lips, and piggy tusks, for I will answer your insolence and disrespect with swift action.  Then I will proudly account for your demise before The Pan.  He would be so regaled, in the way of my telling, that I need not fear any consequences.”

With that she tossed his body on the other side of the pit towards the direction that Shelberd had been taken.  Brem and Bray were lifted by slung vines and swung across the pit to the other side with far more care than had been shown to Grum-Blud.  When the vines released Grum’s neck, he gasped and spat into the ground, struggling to catch his breath.  Brem approached him, and stood neck to him, as he struggled to climb back up into the saddle, now as a much meeker traveling companion than before.

Bray merely looked at the humbled and cowed Grum-Blud and sniffed in contempt, then trotted up ahead as they followed the sirens swinging overhead in the treetops.  When he was far enough ahead, following Briar, as she shifted from nymph to branched woodling, he asked in a quieter subdued tone.  “Diggers tend to move under the deep.  How did you all detect this one?  What brought it so close to the surface?”

“You are persistent, donkey.  But courageous in that, and so I will answer you.” she responded.  “My girls and I have been watching the movements of men.  The time draws near for the mating season, so we watched them from the woods.  A group of Xarmnians, some of these we captured in our baskets, followed a group of others into this upper wood.  They had their three-headed dogs with them.  Cerberi.  Those dog beasts got split up, a couple followed the men pursing a group that had come in a rolling wagon, but the other Cerberi caught a new scent and wove into the woods beneath us…”

Briar went on to tell Bray how she and her sirens spotted a strange furrow moving through the upper fields, heading towards the Rim woods.  It moved fast, creating a wave of rolling earth, flinging stalks of wheat and grains into the air as it tore a tunnel underneath the tilled soil.  When the wave reached the edge of the wood it descended, flattening out again, some of it sinking into a deep trench behind it.  Trees swayed and tossed leaves, branches snapped, boughs broke and crashed to the forest floor as the beast beneath tore through the root system.  Some of the sirens near the edge of the forest fled the oncoming subterranean onslaught.  They caught sight of the weaving Cerberi barking and chasing, fleeing and growling as the surging ground rose and fell beneath them.  Some were sucked under the ground wave; some were pulled squealing downward as the ground folded them into a roaring burial embrace.  Briar and her coven of sirens surmised that the men who had fled into the side trail along the edge of the highland shelf were to blame, for the burrowing creature was clearing in pursuit of those moving along the upper surface.  She told how she had confronted them, finding out that they were unaware of the underground beast.  It was then that they learned of the return of Surface Worlders to this land and left one survivor, Bayek was his name, to deliver a message to the Xarmnian king.

“So where is The Pan now?” Bray panted, trotting through the wood as best as he could, trying to avoid falling and crashing into the boles of trees, stumbling over exposed roots, kicking through soft spongy moss, and the crunch of fallen and decaying leaves.  Briar responded.  “He is coming to the lower edge of Kilrane to an inaugural ceremony that will grant my sirens and I the taking of those lower fertile woods.  But we must warn him that there is the Digger coming.  He is the only one of us with the authority to command something of that nature.  If men cannot stop it, our hope remains in The Pan alone.  Perhaps, it will remember him and respond, otherwise this creature will destroy the woods before we have a chance to fully occupy it.  We haven’t had the chance to explore it yet, because of the memory of the guardians that once protected those woods, but they have not been seen in many years.  We needed to be certain, so The Pan agreed to accompany us for protection just to be certain before granting us full title to it.  He is bringing others of his throne guardianship with him.  Dangerous creatures of threefold kind blended to savage lethality.”

Bray panted, falling behind, unable to keep pace anymore.  Brem emerged from the wooded trail behind him, carrying Grum-Blud, only to overhear Bray shout a question to the back of Briar as she swung through the treetops surging ahead.

“Which dangerous creatures?  Surely not his…”

In the far away distance ahead, Briar shouted back over her shoulder, but the word was barely perceptible above the rustling of the forest leaves and canopy.  But Bray froze and shivered, showing that he had indeed heard her response.  The visage of the creatures, the word brought to mind, were some of the fiercest and cruelest beasts ever conceived.  Creatures with a grizzled aspect, bare vestiges of those who were once hairy men, with the long, massive body giant war cat, and the most disturbing insectile appendage that struck fear just imaging what damage it might be capable of inflicting.  Horrific sentries, that roamed and guarded the dark palace ruins in The Pan’s own kingdom woods.  Manticores.

*Scene 05* – 19:11 (Death on the Downgrade)

The main road down from the upper highlands, was a winding steep grade, curving down and around hundreds of feet of each slanted bend to descend to the lower shelf plains, woods and wetlands over three thousand feet below the top of the highland caprock.  Because of the difficulty in moving a large force and contingent of troops, much of the uplands had been spared the overreach of Xarmni’s initial spread of tyranny.  But as the kingdom grew in influence and power, amassing resources through raids and conquest, suppression and gaining control of strategic supply routes and chains, Xarmni’s king dispatched roving raiders.  Thuggish bands of Xarmnian troop units, to instill fear and provoke the townships into resistance so that they could justify aggressive acts of violence that decimated the defenses of the native villages and starved them into submission and grudging fealty and homage to the Xarmnian crown.  Their commerce was controlled, their traditional, and longstanding alliances with other villages broken, and filtered through those subjected to Xarmni’s will.  Collectively, those bands of Xarmnian patrols were known as “The Xarmnian Overwatch”, but individually the brute squads were called “The Protectorate”.  An ironic appellation, since the only thing these thug squads did “protect” was the selfish interests of the Xarmnian king in gaining power and control over the towns and labor, goods and production of the peoples of the outer lands.

When the Bruel Hadeon had split his company of Protectorate hunters, between himself, Bayek and Aridam to pursue the fleeing group of outworlders, the Inn keeper and his family, their Xarmnian scribe and his brood, and the strange band of riders purporting to be weaponry supplies escorts from the Iron Hills foundry, he hadn’t expected the latter to demonstrate any relationship or knowledge of the former group that they were seeking to capture.  When he and his company had spotted that fleeing group on the main road, from the top ridge of the valley where the remote Xarmnian stables her located, he and his team realized that the weaponry convoy might serve to detain those fugitives before they could get to them.  When they came down from the valley ridge, they set their Cerberi dogs loose to begin the chase, following those vicious creatures on horseback, to make sure the weapons convoy did not seize their quarry and take personal credit for their capture.

Leveling off, down to the main road, they could not see beyond the brow of the distant rise that led down the shelf of the upper highland.  They witnessed some form of engagement by the convoy group, and a seeming pursuit, but it was not until they reached the top of the brow that they realized the engagement between the two groups had served as a ruse.  They had been surprised to find that the two convoy wagons, had raised their canvas covers, making them appear from a distance like the one the Inn Keeper kept and used in his conscripted service to the locally installed magistrates of the Xarmnian Overwatch.  These wagons, and their attendant riders were splitting up, going in different directions, forcing Hadeon to divide his company to continue the pursuit, not knowing which of these contained the specific fugitives he was looking for.  To Bayek, he had given the charge to follow the wagon fleeing along the little used Rim Woods trail tracking along the edge of the highland shelf towards the east.  To Aridam, he had given the responsibility to run down the fleeing wagon and its posing retinue who had fled along the northwestern wood trail that ran down into the valley head of the declivity that extended back towards the remote Xarmnian Stables from which they had just come to refresh and replenish their travel supplies and rotate their prior mounts with a supply of fresh horses.  Hadeon opted to lead his own warriors down the main road in pursuit of the central wagon, which he believed was piloted by the Inn keeper and his traveling charges, both from the Outworld, and that of the traitorous scribe that he and his team had tracked for weeks from their initial flight from Xarm City.  The side routes seemed like mere distractions, for he was not aware of any way down from the highlands from this far north without utilizing the main road.  A fault line separated the two landmasses, with the highland forming the upper rim, and the lowland forming the slanting valley descending down towards the open harbor front of the fjord lake chain of Cascale.  Beyond, the land rose again stepping up towards the distant high range mountains until they reached the massive range called “The Walls of Stone”.

Hadeon and his crew had followed one of the wagon down the winding grade, intent on catching them on one of the curve-backs, but that was not to be.  Part of the way down, on a particularly steep grade, the men in the wagon started dropping supplies down onto the narrow road, breaking open wooden crates of long swords, battle axes, unhooked flat shields, and steel-cleated maces, strewing them down upon the dirt path, creating dangerous and sharp obstacles for the horses, men and Cerberi dogs following them.  A box of caltrops–wicked metal spiked, fist-sized clusters of spines, used to cripple and stab the feet of soldiers and beasts on a field of battle–were dumped and strewn across the downgrade, causing the pursuing horses to rear and twist away, loosing footing and sending their riders crashing to the ground and other unfortunates over the steep edge of the road falling to their deaths.  Hadeon’s horse had stumbled, its hooves slipping on a metal shield, slamming Hadeon hard into the ground rolling towards the steep edge of the road.  As he fell, he quickly unsheathed his knife and stabbed into the dirt roadway, trying to slow his slide towards the precipice where the road-edge fell off.  His blade stuttered on the hardpacked earth, scratching at stones.  The impact had knocked the breath out of him and his vision was beginning to dim.  His other arm and hand flailed grasping and clawing at anything that might slow his slide.  Clumps of scrub grass crackled and tore under his fingers, its shallow roots popping as he twisted and flexed his grip, finally coming to a stop with one leg dangling over the graveled edge.  Other riders tumbled headlong, some plunged over the edge with their horses, slamming against the side of the cliff and landing on a lower roadway over a hundred feet down with a sickening wet crunch and thud.  When Hadeon’s breath returned, his chest heaved taking in deep draughts of air, filling his lungs again.  A horse and rider skidded past him, barely missing stomping and kicking Hadeon’s prone body over the edge he’d just avoided.  The horses of the band shrieked and snorted.  The men yelled in alarm, grunting and roaring, as their bodies and mounts fell or were wrenched out from under them.  Two of Hadeon’s men were trampled, one had impaled himself on a caltrop, another had his wounded mount throw him and then roll over him crushing him under the weight as they slid down the graveled grade.  Their momentum in the chase and the tug of the slanted roadway propelled them into the strewn field of obstacles.  The abandoned weaponry proved to have a much more devasting effect than they might have had if they were each wielded in battle.

Hadeon sat up slowly assessing the damage.  Seven of Hadeon’s sixteen men were lost, another two were mortally wounded, five horses had been lost over the edge, two suffered debilitating injuries to their legs and feet, and most of them suffered abrasions and cuts.  Two of the six Cerberi that they had brought lay dead on the road, ragged gouts of flesh and blood wet the dirt roadway.  He had seen one of the creatures plunge over the edge of the road, growling and clawing at the edge to no avail.  Hadeon roared in rage and forced himself up, backing away from the narrow edge with a fist full of dried scrub grass clenched in his hand.  His blade had snagged the edge of a buried stone and had unearthed part of it, leaving a shallow cavity beneath.  The wagon and company they had been pursuing were now rounding a curve in the roadway several hundred feet below.  Their canopy had come down, no longer needing the pretense of masking their appearance to look like the other wagon they had seen through their spyglass in the early hours before.  No doubt it was tucked away to allow them to better unload their battle cargo and scatter it to such devastating effect.  Seeing this, Hadeon pounded the ground in rage and rose roaring, shaking and gesticulating angrily at the party below getting farther and farther away.  He had lost his own horse, and he spun around fiercely looking for another to continue the pursuit.  They would not get away from him.  They could not.  He would rake through the coals of Hell to find them, for what they did.  He would personally tear them apart, shave off their skin under his dagger, beat them with flails, shove dirks into their eye sockets, bash their skulls and cut them down into little bloody pieces.

He stomped up behind one of his men attempting to climb back up into the saddle of his horse.  He caught the man by the leg and jerked his foot out of the horse’s stirrup, pushing the man back down onto the roadway.  Unaware that the one who had grabbed him was Hadeon, his Bruel, the man spat and went for his dagger, starting to lunge up at him.  Hadeon merely glared at him, sheathing his own dagger with a snap of his wrist and put his own foot in the stirrup of the man’s horse, swinging himself up into the saddle, a dark and dangerous scowl on his face, his cheek twitching with rage.  The man dropped his dagger, splaying his fingers, as if he had touch a hot iron.  He bowed his head under the fierce gaze of Hadeon, not wanting to challenge him any further, even by accident, or by showing him even a brief indignant expression.  Hadeon turned and in a gruff, commanding voice growled to the dog handler, asking him, “Are those three Cerbs well enough to still hunt, or do we need to put them down too?”

The hunter, holding the three remaining Cerberi by their leads through a collar ring, nodded and added, “Seem well enough, my Bruel.”  Hadeon nodded and muttered, “Then bring’em.  And follow.  I’ll have further use for them.”

Hadeon reigned the newly acquired horse to the side, deftly guiding the animal forward through the cluttered and bloodied roadway, beyond the debris field.  When he had ridden beyond it, he spurred the animal and struck its flanks with a quirt, causing the beast to lunge forward galloping downward towards the path the fugitive wagon and its company had taken.  The other six men watched their lead and knew there was nothing more to be said or done.  He expected them to follow, and follow is what they did.  The one whose horse had been taken had no choice but to follow on foot, knowing full well he would never catch up with his company.  The graded road was over three miles down to the lower shelf, and he would simply have to make out however he could.  Someone might eventually come along.  And it was a few hours later when someone finally did.  Two of his fellow Protectorate hunters, one of which was leading a team of riderless horses.  The other, caring the frail fugitive man that Hadeon had beaten back at the Innkeeper’s Inn before they burned it to the ground–It–and the insolent waif of a serving girl who thought she might catch his bruel, Hadeon, off-guard and run a small dirk dagger into him.  Little did she know, Hadeon had spied the blade barely hidden between two ale casks, his suspicious eyes naturally searching for anything that might be used against him.  And he had hoped she would try to use it on him.  So, he could rightly show her just how cruel he could be.  She’d been the first thing to burn, the rest sort of came about as the men kicked over benches and broke up furniture, scattering ashes and setting the place ablaze with reckless abandon and wild, savage delight.  Then they’d set the barn on fire, locking the animals into the stalls to teach that Inn keeper that they meant business and would not allow him to ever entertain the thought of returning to his country home and business.  No one got in the way of Xarmnian will.  No one defied The Protectorate.  No one was ever beyond the reach of the punishing fists of the Xarmnian Protectorate.  No one.

When Tizkon and Bayek saw the debris field of abandoned armaments and the dead hunters, bawling and wounded horses and shaggy mounds of fly-ridden Cerberi carcasses, they knew Hadeon’s effort to capture the fugitives had not gone well.  Black carrion birds had already started to circle in the sky above them.  Black crows had landed on some of the dead and had already tasted flesh, pecking at gashes and open wounds.

Bayek had difficulty getting the string of horses he led through the debris field, and around the carcasses.  The horses he led had ridden into battle before, and charged through much worse carnage, but their balked and snorted at the sights and smells, twisting away from the areas where the flies were beginning to swarm.  The sun overhead warmed the sky, but up on the high roadway there was an upward gust of breeze, that took the scent and carried it on the current, whipping them with watery eyes, and forcing them to cover their mouths and noses just to get past.

Thankfully, once beyond the roadway death scene, Bayek and Tizkon were relieved to find that the upward breeze lifted those ghastly smells away from them as they proceeded further down the grade.  No far below they spotted the lone man walking and recognized him by his gait, and garb.  He carried a sword and was waving it in the air, as if wanting to strike something.  When he heard Bayek and Tizkon coming he turned swiftly, sword arm raise and threatening, and then he smiled…and laughed, lowering the blade back down and then sheathing it at his side.

“What took you two fools so long?!  And where are the others?!”

“We might be asking you the same questions!” Tizkon barked back.

The man grinned, skinning back his bearded lips to reveal crooked, yellowing teeth.  “Bayek, give me one of those horses.  I lost mine.”

“How careless of you, Kathair,” Bayek quipped.  “What happened on the roadway back there?  Did your quarry get the better of you?”

Kathair, the walking hunter, spat and cursed. “Ambushed us!  That fake weapons convoy from the Iron Hills foundry!  Bah!”  He cursed again, grinding his fists, “Dumped their pieces all over the road when we were coming down the steepest grade.  We couldn’t stop and we ran into the scatter.  Horses lamed, riders thrown, all of us went down one after the other.  Some went over the edge.  We were coming too fast to stop and avoid all that.  Hadeon almost lost it too.  He took my horse.  His went down.  You know how he is.  He’s got a boiling mad on, and he’s bound to run them to ground. What about you?”

Tizkon looked at Bayek in dismay.  “We’ve not had much of a time either.”

Kathair noticed the gaunt man bundled and tied across the saddle of one of the horses.  He looked from the bound man and back up at Tizkon, “I thought Hadeon told you to kill this one?  What’s he doing here?!”

Tizkon huffed, “Hadeon said to kill him when you all caught those wagons.”

“So?” Kathair growled.

“Doesn’t look to me like you caught them.” Tizkon sniffed, “So, if Hadeon still needs this stickman for leverage, what good what it do to have killed him and left the birds to pick whatever’s left on his skinny bones?”

Kathair snorted, thoughtful. “Well, I guess that’s so.  Nuisance as he might be, he still might be worth something to some of them we’re after.  If not, Hadeon’ll use him as an object lesson.  Kill him when they can see it.  Think about it a little.”

The man bound to the saddle, sniffled, signifying that he’d heard the discussion about his life and future use as a brutal object lesson.  He whimpered but said nothing, dreading what might follow if he did and the Xarmnians considered him more of a nuisance than was worth keeping for Hadeon’s cruelty.

“What about you, Bayek?  Last I saw, there were six others with you?  What happened to them?  Careless?”

Bayek snorted, bristling at the return of his prior remark to Kathair back onto himself, “If they had been riding these horses, you might be continuing your trek down on foot.”

Kathair mounted one of the stallions and Bayek loosened it from the tie string.  As the rode on, toward the meeting rendezvous place, Hadeon had planned to meet before, Bayek filled Kathair in on what had transpired with the siren in the upper eastern forest trail of Rim Wood.  Hadeon would not be happy.  Especially with their own failure to capture either of the fleeing parties or their wagons.  He only hoped Aridam had fared better in their pursuit along the northwestern trail.  If not, Hadeon would be too dangerous to be near for the rest of the day.  If Hadeon ever had a bad day, it was certain that all who rode with him would have one too.

*Scene 06* – 19:07 (The Blind Spot)

Azragoth was buzzing with activity.  Lord Nem had gone with one of the Lehi scouts to survey the older outer wall, and when he and the man named Ryden returned there was a hastily gathered meeting called involving some of his principal builders and foremen.  Afterwards, city leaders and some of the heads of the various families dwelling in the secret city were called in.  It was clear that these meetings would occupy him for the rest of the day.  People came and went, hurrying in and out of the council meetings, clearly moving directly from the private meetings with intention and purpose that arose from what was privately discussed with them.

Our group was once again chaperoned by Morgrath, the surly sentinel who had first received us upon entering the city of Azragoth through the narrow sally-port entrance with Maeven, through the massive backwall of the city.  Reflecting on that initial entry, I remembered the uncertainty of it, and trepidation I felt knowing it had once been a city of death, having fallen under the scourge of a dreadful plague.  The place was even more mysterious than it had initially been on arrival with the present knowledge of all the factors leading to its miraculous rebirth; the respite it had grudgingly been given under years of Xarmnian quarantine; the incursion of the outgrowth of the woods surrounding it, serving to conceal it further from discovery; and its present state as a thriving refuge for the outcasts and hunted; and use as a lethal training ground of resistance forces, showing the hopeful promise of a formidable future of reclaiming its founding purpose of serving as a protector and defender of the oppressed townships and people of the region.

When we first arrived, our attention was held by our initial forward glimpse into the perimeter of the hidden city, seeing parts of the old, abandoned streets, debris-cluttered and moss-covered courtyards, framed by fire gutted structures and crumbling façades, overgrown with vines from our limited and brief vantage point atop the higher skirt wall.  Under a half-canopy of stone, on the parapet allure, the extended wall rose only so far up the cliff face, to be even with trees to cover its towering from below.  The protruding stones rising up to the parapet and extending up the higher edge of the backwall were rough cut and unfinished, matching the stone faces of the higher cliffs.  It occurred to me that this was clearly built to hide the narrow cut of the back forested ravine we had come down through, using the city, and mature trees as a blind. With the dense woods of Kilrane surrounding the hills and pressing close to the old outer city walls, anyone observing from the lower slopes would never see the remains of the old city unless they happened to stumble upon it climbing up through the woods until they were almost touching it.

I was amazed that the builders of that backwall had foreseen that one day the city would need to resort to a season of concealment from the outside lands of The Mid-World.  How could they have known that there would be such a reason for it, following a plague, giving the Xarmnians only a Pyrrhic victory over its demise, rather than an actual conquest?  It reminded me of the account of the Roman siege of Masada from 72 to 73 CE, at the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, in the Surface World.  Like Masada, only located in a sub-alpine climate, I realized that Azragoth was built on a geological shelf known as a horst which was bordered on either side by two forest covered declivities called grabens making it hard for enemies to attack with foot soldiers and a formidable citadel to boot in its proximal situation.  Perhaps, that was why the Azragothians, prior to the Xarmnian siege, felt themselves safe from any serious assault, despite the rumored ambitions of area kings and warlords rattling their sabers, proposing strategic trade alliances and, when rebuffed, issuing bold threats.  Threats that were then laughed at and not taken seriously by the former populace and leadership of this mysterious city, which further enraged those who secretly sought to bind, plunder and conquer it.

The city was indeed a fortress.  And even if the Xarmnians had known about the backway we had come through, they could do little to exploit it.  For the route took us along the edge of a narrow stream that fell from the high shelved cliff, crisscrossing over short bridges and around tree boles and under tall shadowy woods, they could never have utilized to launch an effective assault.  They still would come to the massive outer wall and need to find a better access point following alone the perimeter to finally get into the city.  The graben declivities offered only a narrow shelf along the outer wall, with no feasible way to build a siege ramp or construct a battering ram swing frame.  It seemed to me that Azragoth’s defensible position had been well thought through before even the first stones had been laid and the foundational shelf terraces excavated.

The stream we had rode along and crossed through the gorge descended until it ran along the edge of the outer wall skirt that rounded to the southeast of the forested citadel. The outer rockface butte blended in with the concave backwall with the hidden rift gorge choked with towering trees and babbling streams in between.  Travelers coming through that hidden back trail were forced to ride single file along snaking paths and there were no large areas wide enough for significant grouping.  If not for the rats and the overconfidence of the former Azragothians, this city might have successfully resisted the Xarmnian advances indefinitely, and still be thriving to this day, rather than experiencing a tragic humbling and a recent rebirth.

Everything about Azragoth, its founding, its people, its past, and its customs seemed to convey some hidden message, and provoke deep thoughts of personal introspection.  There was a sobering sadness about all it had endured, and a hopeful promise in all it had learned from its successive tragedies.

Corimanth stayed with us, as we were ushered once again to the Warrior’s Court, but I noticed that Begglar and Nell lingered, talking low with the friends they had introduced to us as Shimri and Aida.  They leaned in, huddled together, and I saw both Begglar and Shimri hug their wives close to them as they evidently shared some very bad news between them.  Nell sagged against Begglar and her hands went up to the sides of her face and she shook her head, as if she wanted to hear no more of what was being conveyed.  Aida put her hands over her face, and I could tell she was weeping too.  Begglar and Shimri, put their arms across, gripping each other’s shoulders, as if to strengthen each other in a shared grief.  The two women broke down and shifted towards each other, coming into each other’s arms in a comforting but mutually needed embrace, weeping into each other’s shoulders.  I knew no cause for the grief I was witnessing, but I surmised that Shimri and Aida had brought them news of a tragic nature.  For several minutes they stood there, leaning into each other, receiving and giving comfort, and just being there for each other in mutually shared sorrow.  Both Begglar and Shimri bowed their heads, feeling the weight of grief, yet finding support in the strength of their friendship.  As I watched, I could not help but envy them.  Not that I wanted to experience grief, but in the way that they were able to share their burdens in the communion of suffering.  A part of me felt a deep loneliness that I could not shake.  An ache that my mind and my heart were isolated from the others, and I felt that I could not trust someone with my own vulnerability if I was expected to lead this group.  Something within me seemed to twist in my gut, and I knew I had felt that same feeling somewhere before.  My mind seemed to cloud over, making that somewhere and sometime unclear and elusive.  My eyes watered, with a feeling of anguish that I felt I had no right to feel.  Their grief was personal.  It was not mine to carry.  I had enough of my own crushing weight to bear up under.  I could not take on their burdens, for there seemed to be no one who could share in mine.  Disgusted with myself for even thinking so selfishly, I turned away, seeking some other thing to fixate on.  When I did, I caught the furtive glances of the others of “my” crew.  Those who I had purported to lead on this quest.  Me and my big mouth! I thought, remembering my presumptive declarations to them on the beach as strangers.  Me, the traitor! I snorted, how dare I say that I will take responsibility for anyone else, when I can’t even seem to bear up under my own responsibility.  Stupid, stupid fool!  I admonished myself, I should’ve turned right back around and dove out into the water, fought the surf and swam out to the receding oculus portal, or drowned myself in the process.  I had no business being here.  My leadership is going to get someone killed.  Three had already fallen.  We had seen them chased on the hill in the distance, being pursued by Xarmnian thugs on horseback.  What am I even doing here? My head bowed in my own shame, and I had to step away, finding it harder and harder to breathe somehow.

Where is my empathy? My compassion? My self-remonstrations continued.  I had moved briskly into the fighting field, not knowing where I was going or what I intended to do.  Morgrath moved angling toward me, his brow knitting, and his grip on his staff tightening.  Corimanth moved forward to intercept him, carrying a staff of his own in a loose unthreatening way, but with a readiness to interpose himself between us, if necessary.

“What is wrong with you?!” Morgrath asked, more in a tone of challenge, rather than out of sincere concern.  His fist shifted on his staff, swinging the back end up into a double grip, with the potential to sweep it out to strike my legs and feet, should I try to evade his confrontation.  Corimanth stepped ahead of him and turned, raising one open hand to stay Morgrath’s approach. “Morgrath,” he interjected, “Let me handle this.”  It was a quiet command of authority, rather than a request.  Morgrath eyed Corimanth, and shifted his eyes toward me, casting me a warning glance, should Corimanth’s dealing with me prove unfruitful.  He sniffed, and lowered his head in a slight nod, giving a modicum of deference to Corimanth.  Morgrath shifted his staff and planted it into the ground, taking a sentinel’s triangular stance, moving one hand up to the upper part of the shaft, and gathering his other hand to it in a two-fisted hold.  He sniffed, and raised his chin, casting me one more glance, then cocked his head indicating that he would defer to Corimanth’s lead…at least, for now.

Corimanth sighed, and then turned to me, speaking in a lowered voice so that only I could hear.  “What is troubling you, O’Brian?  Can I help?”

I nodded beyond towards Morgrath who still stood at a distance.  “What is with him?”

Corimanth shook his head slightly.  “All of Azragoth seems to be on edge.  The soldiers here sense something in the air.  An instinct to discern imminent danger.  I cannot fault them for that.  They are trained to watch for erratic behavior, certain signs that something or someone is not as they seem.  Goes with the profession, I suppose.  Makes them stay alert, and ready to respond at a moment’s notice.  Azragoth has good reasons to be suspicious of outsiders.  Many of our fellow countrymen are not aligned with the work we are doing here, or the rebuilding efforts that Lord Nem has been leading.  You may have not met all of our leadership yet, but there are some very honorable men and women among them.  Lord Zerub was this region’s governor, before Nem came to us.  He and Ezra were both responsible for bringing back much of the stolen wealth that had been plundered from this city many years before.  One does not easily move through the lands of the Mid-World in a large caravan, carrying wealth without attracting attention.  There are others in the surrounding community who became particularly interested in our secret project here, purporting to be part of the secret resistance, whose eyes might be more interested in personal enrichment rather than in rebuilding.  There have been attempts to thwart our efforts.  Spies sent in under the guise of offers to help, but secretly undermining morale, and caught sending communications out to those who could expose us and bring great harm.  Some of our distant kin have sought to threaten us, requesting bribes from us to keep from alerting the area patrols loyal to the Overwatch.  So, you see, your group’s coming here is in times of threat and uncertainty.  Not all of those in the secret resistance against Xarmni, believe in the old stories as much as they used to.  They’ve seen the Stone Quest fail to deliver all it promised, and in its failure, the Xarmnians have taken liberties and become more emboldened to act in defiance against the past warnings of the Capitalian counterforces.  They’ve grown in strength, amassed more wealth and seized more resources that they did not have when they were defeated and routed in the battles of long ago.  They believe Capitalia has abandoned it claims to it former holding in the highlands.  Appeals to those distant leaders go unheeded, and were most likely intercepted, if they ever did make it through the far mountain passes of The Walls of Stone.”

I understood all that Corimanth was saying, but still his reference to the failure of the prior Stone Quest stung.  I wondered if he even knew that its failure was largely my fault.  I let out a deep breath, trying to get my bearings and steady myself.  Morgrath had every right to be suspicious of me.  And whatever had upset the city council that necessitated the urgent meetings, could not be so easily dismissed as being unrelated to our untimely presence here.  I sighed and bowed my head, finding it hard to look Corimanth in the eye.  Finally, I said, “Do you have any idea, what is troubling Begglar and Nell?  What news Shimri and Aida shared with them?  I know it is none of my business, but I would like to be of some help to them, if I can.  Begglar is one of the few friends I still have from the old days.  I don’t want to pry, and if you don’t know that is okay.  I just…”

Corimanth nodded, and sighed, seeming to release some tension he was carrying as well.  “I think it is related to what happened with Begglar and Nell’s Inn, after you left.  I don’t know exactly, but when Shimri and Aida came in, I talked to Ryden, Maeven’s Lehi.  I think Aida had a personal loss, someone that may have worked for Nell.  They did not share this with them right away, for they had newly arrived in Azragoth and were uncertain of how they would be received here.  Maeven and Begglar both vouched for them, so I think they felt a little more at ease.”

I hung my head in shame for where my own selfish thoughts had led me.  I knew I needed to speak to Nell privately.  I would give her some time to grieve, but I needed to understand more of what Begglar and others had said about her.  This way of seeing she had.  The ability to feel something much more powerful than empathy, and to learn to understand what caused her to be able to do what she did with me and the young boy named Will when he was in a panicked state.  If what we had to do ahead of us was as difficult as I imagined it to be, I would need to learn how to quit thinking of my own pain and my own past and learn to see and understand the others to better prepare them for the inevitable dangers soon to come.  Despite that, I could not shake the deep worry I felt about a dark curse spoken against me by a monster in the deep woods so long ago.  It haunted me, for I could not discredit its power over me, after experiencing it being cruelly carried out against my fellow compatriots in the first quest.  Those I counted as friends, those I loved with a brotherly affection, were now dead.  I could hear that curse even now, inside my head.  “Everything you love will be stripped from you. Your betrayal has given me the key…and the means…”

*Scene 07* – [Part 1] – 19:56 (The Seer’s Gifting – Part 1 of 3 “A Grief Observed”)

The rest of the day we spent continuing Ezra’s training drills in the Warriors’ Court.  Morgrath taking one group to the archery range and Corimanth taking others of the men in our group training us in the use and battle techniques of fighting with a halberd blade and pole-axe.  Our training continued until Ezra finally returned to the Warrior’s Court, having spent most of the day at Lord Nem’s meetings, and he gave the team a charge to get rest for the remainder of the day.  We were tired and sore from the rigors of fighting faux enemies that swung down from platforms, or spun upon a turnstile, bearing a battering plank we had to jump over or dodge as it pivoted on a swinging hinge that could strike chest high or low sweeping our feet.  We were sore and stiff and were advised to walk out the soreness by taking a late tour of the inner city or going down and browsing in the market square and then returning to the upper landing for some herbal broth, said to alleviate some of the day’s aches, and give us a restful sleep.  We were especially encouraged to take in the sight of the closing of the new market from the view of the upper terrace where the evening’s refreshments would be served near the warming fire pits.  It was indeed a sight to see.

The market was a colorful bazaar of tents and awnings positioned to keep off the sun at its midday apogee and prevent any sudden short rain shower influenced by the saturated sea clouds’ descent off the highland shelf from spoiling their assorted and displayed wares.  Among its regular storefronts, it featured several temporary stalls and booths that presented a patchwork of color and patterns.  These booths sold garden grown vegetables, cheeses sold in block and in sealed waxed wheel forms, dried and cured meats, mushrooms and edible leafy plants, fruits and berries.   There were colorful bolts of fabric and drapes, woven mats and baskets, leather crafted belts, cinches, saddles, harnesses, and shaped slippers and moccasins.  There were blade smiths with a variety of sharpened cutlery, eating utensils and cultivating tools.  There were smithies that sold shaped metal pieces that might be used for anything from plated armor to horseshoes, binding rings, nails, axes or hammers.  There were tailors and dress makers who sold varied outfits from tunics to jackets, dresses to pantaloons and britches, underclothes to long shirts and camisoles.  There were repair shops and craftsmen that created custom designs of molded and fired pottery, and silversmiths and goldsmiths that sold jewelry and polished stones in crafted settings.

As the day came to a close, I ascended to an upper courtyard where some of our team had gathered to watch as the merchant city began to pack and fold up the market stalls, merchant carts and load up wagons for the night.  The evening marketplace, situated in the city’s center, was a spectacle to see especially from the aspect of the upper terrace.  Even as the westering sun began to lower towards the distant peaks, specially situated brazier posts and lamps were lit, casting flickering pools of light and illuminating the colored canopies as the colorful tents spread, flecked and finally folded and packed away.  It was an efficient and fascinating operation that occurred under the mystique of twilight, looking like a well-coordinated dance of sellers and last-minute buyers, as the cobble-stoned courtyards slowly began to clear.

As I watched the movements below, temporarily mesmerized by the spectacle, I happened to notice Begglar and Nell and Corimanth at the railing just beyond me.  They stood together in the silvering moonlight, as the red sun’s last rays finally tucked themselves to sleep beyond the distant mountains, and a field of stars began to peak out from beyond the purpling sky.  They too had been looking down from the terrace, but their gaze was directed further into the older broken courtyards, where the main market area used to be–remembering.  The contrast between the newer market location and the dismal and shadowy grey location of the old seemed to hold them in a somber melancholic mood of sad memories.

I tentatively approached Begglar, respecting their silence.  Begglar noticed me and finally turned, whispering low to Nell.  I cleared my throat gently, feeling that my presence might be an intrusion, but Begglar nodded slowly, and invited me over.

“Is there something you wanted?”  Begglar asked.  Almost embarrassed to ask, I could not think of anything other than seeking to find some answers to a question that had been puzzling me, ever since I had learned a little more of Nell’s gifting.  Especially after seeing what she had been able to show me of the traumatized young man named Will, and what he had been experiencing when he overheard our fight with the Cerberi creatures before descending down the backtrails to Azragoth.

“Do you mind if I speak with Nell privately a moment?”

Both Begglar and Corimanth looked up.  They exchanged a wordless glance at one another and then nodded.

When they had withdrawn, leaving us to go to one of the courtyard firepits to warm up and take a cup of a drinkable broth said to ease sore muscles so that they could enjoy a restful night, I leaned against the railing next to Nell.

I could see she’d been crying, as she looked down upon the market plaza.  What may have seemed a colorful and pleasing spectacle for me had a very different disquieting and painful reminder to Nell.  She spoke up first.

“You know, every time I think of this place, I cannot help but dread its collection of memories.  Some of them used to be pleasant.  Trips our mother and father took us here to sell our family’s wares.  Little pots, plates and ceramics my mother has crafted with her own hands.  Dad with his metal instruments he’d hammered and shaped in his smithy forge.  I remember times with my mother in the fields and woods between here and there, collecting mushrooms, and herbs for cooking, and the wildflowers.” She half smiled at the thought, “We dried some of the flowers my mother and I had gathered and pressed them to keep their colors.  We found a way to seal and mold them into panes and melted sandglass around them that she and dad had then crafted and blown into decorative vases, and serving dishes.  We specialized in containers of all sorts: Pots, cast iron pans, dishware.  So pretty.  Reflecting on happier days for feasts and celebrations.  Community gatherings.”  She was quiet for a moment, remembering something else.  “Noadiah loved our crafts and bought many of our finest pieces which she used in her Inn and Tavern in Surrogate… uh… Sorrow’s Gate.  All such happy memories.  And good commerce too.  Profitable.  Pleased customers appreciating the quality, and us supporting ourselves and the community, with serviceable wares.”  She paused again, her brow furrowing, and she sighed.  “But then, the Xarmnians came…and the happy memories came less and less.”

She turned to me, her eyes brimmed with nascent unshed tears, “Xarmni changed everything.  They told us who we could sell to and we could not.  They demanded we lower our asking prices and produce more, or else suffer the consequences.  They took things we had intended to sell to others, saying they would pay us later, but they never seem to remember to.  They threaten to break things if we ever raised the issue of fair return and asked us what kind of return we thought we might get with repairing and selling the broken items?”

She huffed, “Each time they showed up to our shop they were there to collect.  And they grew tired of collecting our products.  They began to demand money, and coinages of precious metals that we had difficulty keeping.  Some of our customers paid us in services or produce, and no money was exchanged.  We bartered for some of what we needed, but no money changed hands.  But the Xarmnians increased their demand for it.  They thought we were holding out on them and making excuses.  They grew impatient.  They threatened us if we did not pay them in silver or gold for tribute to their king.  Threatened to take Corimanth from us, to incentivize us to find some silver for them.  Our local townships did very little commerce in metals, so Mom and Dad knew they had to make a trip to the larger towns to be able to get the money the Xarmnians were demanding of us.  Cori doesn’t know this.  You see, I have kept some secrets from him too.  And I am not sure why I revealed that to you now.  Please do not tell him that.  I shouldn’t have told you.  Cori has suffered enough without knowing the reason for the increase in our parents’ trips to this city.  That they were being extorted, essentially paying a ransom to keep the Xarmnians from taking Cori from us.  And, then considering ways to threaten them with things they might do to me.  This went on for months.  The Xarmnians increasing their demands.  Our family worked day and night to meet the increased production demands that had nothing to do with the natural markets and the people who could buy what we were producing.  My parents had to travel more, making their selling circuits wider and wider, until they could not both produce, travel and sell and still meet the Xarmnian demands, and get coinage to pay the ransoms for us.  Azragoth was the only city center in the area that had enough commerce and trade to still pay the area merchants in precious metals.  Metals that Xarmni was demanding more and more from all of the local producers.  The roads were becoming dangerous.  Travel to and from the area towns, especially for those transporting goods, were threatened and robbed by thugs, and desperate people trying anything they might to pay their tribute or suffer the wrath of ‘The Protectorate’ bands dispatched by the Xarmnian Overwatch magistrates that had installed themselves in each of the area towns to enfore Xarmnian edicts and laws.  Xarmni put its fat fingers on the scales and ruled the outer lands by what they perceived to be the way we tradespeople did business.  They had no understanding of us and our local customs or realities.  They saw everything only through the way they assumed it worked in the big cities.  They had town treasuries, so they assumed every township had a treasury where all its gold and silver were kept and regulated.  The Xarmnian magistrates set up collection houses in the towns and demanded a percentage of all of the town’s commerce be kept in those houses that they alone ran.  They forced Xarmnian customs on us that we had no history or knowledge of.  They held elections for show, but no one really knew the people that came to govern us.  They all came from the bigger cities, someone told us, so they knew how a pitiful town like ours should be run.  Times became hard.  Daily living was eked out, barely ahead of our Xarmnian creditors.  Mom and Dad took to leaving us with Noadiah to help her run her Inn.  It was one of the few businesses in town that was still operating at a profit, and she was glad of our help.  The roads were too dangerous for children, I was told.  Even for those traveling with their parents.  Children could be kidnapped and sold into slavery in some of the larger towns that belonged to Xarmni.  So, Cori and I went to work for Noadiah in the off times, when our parents traveled.  This continued until…,” she sniffed, “Mom and Dad came again to this place.  And they never… came back.  A part of me died that day when I heard what happened.  Noadiah refused to let Cori and I go by ourselves to Azragoth.  She kept promising that one day, she would gather some men, and she would personally take us to see what became of them.  To somehow find their graves, if there were any. But that day never came.  The Inn was always too busy with strangers coming in and out of our town.  Noadiah was getting up in years and becoming more and more wary of the travelers and guests coming and going.  She had this way about her.  She could sense when she was being lied to.  She somehow knew who she could and could not trust.  Many tried to cheat her, but they never could.  Some said she had this gift of knowing.  It was only a matter of time before she discovered that I had it too, but mine was still raw and undisciplined.  It came and went sporadically, and I had no way of knowing how to control it.  She claimed that I had been touched by The One, but I was too wrapped up in my own grief to acknowledge anything special about myself.  I, sort of, resented the fact that I had been given something I had not asked for, and the responsibility that went with it.  I needed no more things to worry about and I had had enough of my own pain in life to worry much more about the pains and past of others.  I wanted to be dull, numb to everything, so I wouldn’t have more that I could bear.  I was having trouble enough keeping tabs on Cori.  My plate was full, and I was too sick to take on another bite of anything.  We’d lost the business, when my parents died.  We’d found our home ransacked and pillaged.  Our supplies trashed and sold at a rigged town auction that barely settled my parents’ debts.  My hope and dreams died.  The proceeds of the auction gave Cori and I about a year’s space in time to cover our ransoms.  Cori and I could not run a family business on nothing, so we lost everything.  The Xarmnian demand for money is one of the many ways that kingdom controls us.  Thankfully, Noadiah took us in as her personal help.  Payment from our service to her was our only income and her Inn was the only place left we had to go.  Realizing that, another piece of my heart broke, and my hopes, all I believed I had left anyway, had died.  And ever since, death seems to pursue me.”

Nell gestured below with a sweep of her arm.  “This place, despite what it has become still represents death to me.  Begglar was the only thing good that came to me during our time in Sorrow’s Gate, when you and the others came through following Jeremiah.  Begglar and I found a new way to reach for hope again.  We left Sorrow’s Gate, after he returned from the coastlands as a fugitive.  We built a new life on that hill overlooking Crowe.  I felt safe there for a season.  I was tired of living in towns, much less the thought of ever living in one of the larger cities.”  She looked at me again with sad eyes, “I tell you truly, it was hard for me…coming here.  And now from Shimri and Aida, I learn that the place we called home… a retreat from all this…death, has been burned to the ground.  And we lost a dear friend in that fire.  One of our servants.  Perhaps, you remember her.  She was Aida’s sister.”  A tear spilled and ran down her cheek, “My son was born there on that hill outside of Crowe, in one of the lower rooms of our Inn.  That room was opened, and we extended it to form the lower dining hall and bar.” She sniffled as other tears spilled down her cheeks, “My friend, Aida’s sister, Atayma was brutally burned with it.  The cruelty of the Xarmnians seems to have no bottom to its depths.  I feel death has always been just a few steps behind me, and I have been running from it, avoiding it, hoping its reach withdraw would give me time to raise my son, and keep him safe.  But then you all arrived, and I knew my running was coming to an end.  It was time for us to turn and face it.  To take one final stand against it, come what may.  There was…is…no safe place.  I have been only fooling myself all these years.  I cannot run from it any longer.  It has at last brought me back here, to settle those things within me that must be settled.”

“We may have more in common than you know, Nell.  It seems to be after me too.  I have been met with too many failures to count, some of which led to the death of friends, others which turned my friends into enemies, who wanted nothing to do with me.  It is lonely realizing that.  Feeling lost, forsaken.  Despised.  Without meaning or purpose for my continued existence.  Just to live through another day, trying to meet the expectations of strangers who know very little about me.  Losing those you cared about.  I understand some of what you have said, though probably not as keenly as you do.”

*Scene 07* – [Part 2] – 17:34 (The Seer’s Gifting – Part 2 of 3 “Seeing Me”)

Nell stared out from the balcony, watching the firelights flicker and dance in the courtyards below. She sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.  She whispered, “I know a little of your story from Begglar.  Some of which you shared back in the hollow beneath the mound covering of The Marker Stone.  One’s sufferings do not necessarily mitigate another’s, but it does show we walk similar paths in life’s journey.  That is partly comforting, I suppose.  We can relate to a mutual acquaintance with pain and loss, suffering and the search for individual purpose.  To gain understanding around why somethings are given to us, and some things are taken away.” Another tear spilled down Nell’s cheek, as her brow furrowed in memory. “That girl, that stubborn girl!  Atayma, Aida’s sister who worked for us.  I am more grieved about her loss than I am about all the rest.  I told her not to stay when we left. To go on home and leave everything as it was.  But she insisted. She thought that she might be able to buy us some time on the road, if she were there when the Xarmnians came to tell them we had just gone out to market.  she assured me she would go at the first sign of trouble, but…” More tears fell, and I placed a tentative hand on her shoulder, until finally Nell let out a long sigh, wiping her eyes and giving me a short appreciative smile.

“I imagine The One who writes His Words into our Marker Stone knows the full story to the end, while we are given only the glimpse and shadows.  Perhaps, it is a blessing not to know.  To give us this moment to live in, without being crushed with the crowded knowledge of what will become of future moments.  To enjoy what we have now and find satisfaction there in being right where we are.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof*, as the sayin’ goes.” [*Matthew 6:34]

“I do know there are joys of special moments I’ve lived through.  I know the joy of holding my newborn baby.  A combination of both myself and my husband, and of watching him grow and discover new things, to taste and develop his own personhood.  What shadows may come, never can darken those moments for me.  I keep them in a place that is safe, if I lean into Who gave me such moments to enjoy.  Treasures no Xarmnian can ever take.  Nor no earthly tyrant can steal from the treasury within my heart.”  She sighed and seemed to release a weight off of herself in doing so.  She folded her hands into each other and asked, ” So what is it, Mister O’Brian,” she said with a slightly teasing tone, “that you wanted to speak to me about, that my brother and my husband couldn’t hear?  I am spoken for y’know?  And happily, at that.”

I cleared my throat, unsure of how to respond to the jest, but decided it was best to just come out with it.  “Well, I… hmm.  Well, Begglar mentioned that you could teach us to ‘See’.”

“Ahh, that,” Nell smirked a little.  “Yes. I knew it really must be that.  But a woman does enjoy a bit of self-flattery sometimes.  Yes.  What about it?”

“I…” I stammered, “I meant no disrespect, I…”

“Am not very good at being teased by overly emotional women,” Nell laughed, “I get it.”

“Um…yeah, I guess…” puzzled on what to say to redeem myself.

“Go ahead, Brian.  I am listening…at the moment.  Have out with it, before the moment changes,” she grinned.  “With as many women are in your little group of twenty or so, you’re going to have to get better at it, so you can safely practice here with me.  I won’t bite you.”  She snapped and chuckled to herself.

“A-After what I witnessed with Will,” I began again, “I could not help but wonder what that meant exactly.  Seeing, I mean.  How does it work?  Is the ability an acquired skill or a special gifting from The One, only?  I assume, from what you’ve said, it is not given to everyone.  Only those whom He intends to use it for some meaningful purpose.  But somehow you made me see and feel what you saw in Will?  How did you do that?”

Nell wiped a lingering, brimming tear from the corner of her eye, returning back from past memories, and her teasing to the sobering present, “I am not sure ‘See’ is the right word, but it serves, I guess.”

“Forgive me for asking this, I do not mean to trivialize your gift, in anyway. I ask only because I am in ignorance of it.  I hope you will forgive this, but what is so important about this way of seeing?  How will it serve us in this quest, specifically?  Do we all need to learn how to do it, or is it just for you and I to know of it?  How much should we reveal to the group about what you can do?  Does Will know what we saw inside of his past experience?  Would it embarrass him to know we looked and invaded his privacy?”

Nell was quiet a moment before answering, but then finally spoke up, “Mr. O’Brian, before I tell you more about my gifting, I need to ask you something first.  What is it that you plan to do here in our world?  What is the purpose your present quest here?”

She had caught me off guard, and I cleared my throat.

“Excuse me?”

“Why is it that you are leading this group of travelers, and why have you involved my husband and our family?  Why did you come to our Inn and seek Begglar out?”

I was puzzled, “Begglar was the only one of my former company that seemed to remain friendly to me.  The only one I felt I could still possibly trust to reveal my present calling to renew the stone quest after I failed the group in the first mission under Jeremiah.”

Nell nodded, “Yes, that is true.  He held no grudge against you.  Never did.  He seemed to understand what you might be going through after losing the faith of the group.”

“Yes.  I believed so too.  Begglar and I… There was some special bond there.  I knew he liked me somehow, even though he delights in teasing me.  Calling me by names that are not my given one, though it is close enough to it.”

Nell smiled, “That’s my Begglar.  That’s the so called, ‘Irish’ in him.  Keeps his mates guessing but loves big and deep.  He’s loyal almost to a fault, God luv him!”

“Yes.  And he was the only one I had the hope of gaining his trust and assistance.  I lost track of the others.  I knew I needed to get as far away from them as possible to keep them safe from the ‘Death’ that seemed to follow me.  But I never intended to bring trouble to your family or place an additional burden on you. That is why I eventually left those many years ago.  I did not expect him or you to join me this time.  We just need someplace to stay for the night and perhaps get a warm meal into those under my charge.  I had no plan to disrupt your lives. Remember, it was Begglar who told me you all would be joining us in this present Stone Quest.  I didn’t press him.  He insisted.”

“Begglar and I both knew you would return.  We just didn’t know when.”

“How could you know that?!” I asked, surprised.

“Because I am a Seer, remember?  I knew your story was not over, even when you were leaving us.  I touched you when you came by the Inn.  I saw your path.  I know more than you think I do.”

Shocked I stammered, “I-I-I don’t…  So, you can see what is ahead?  The future?”

Nell shook her head adamantly, “No. No, nothing like that.  What I see with my gift are seminal decision points.  Crisis points, you might say.  Places where a deep trauma was experienced that shaped the person and pointed them towards a decision.  A life-altering decision.  A path that they chose that shaped who they would become.  I do not see the final result.  Only The One can see the future.  My sight is limited to past events, so it cannot be used to divine an outcome.  You understand?”

“I am not sure,” I scratched my chin, “Then how is it you were certain I would come back?”

“Because of the crisis point in your life.  The drowning, and the result after.  Your story was not finished, even though you thought you had given up on it.  The image of the key that turned into a pen was still vivid in your mind.  Your decision to leave was made because you feared that the lies you were told might come true.  That everyone you loved or wanted to love would be destroyed.  The Pan told you that lie, and you believed it.  So, you doubted the power of The One who called you to the other stone quest, to protect you against The Pan’s curse.  You gave The Pan more power in your own mind, than he has the capability for.”

“And that made you believe I would come back here?” I asked, incredulously.

“You don’t understand,” Nell sighed, seeming to become exasperated with my thickheadedness.  “A lie only has the power that you give to it.  But The One has the command to make all things work toward your good.  To give you the opportunity to learn from your mistakes, and place that guilt back into His hands where it belongs and live according to the capacity He will reveal through your yieldedness to Him.  You are called to be something, you are not capable of being, but because He called you to it, He requires your surrender to equip you with the capability that He reserves for those He calls.  The quest you believed you walked away from is not over, simply because you took your hand off the proverbial plow.  You were not called to a mission that was under the limits of your power alone.  The One wants you to learn that. To trust Him and lean into Him to supply all you lack.  That is what we do.  We walk in a relationship that trusts His sight of the future, not our speculation of what it will turn out to be.  That is faith.  It requires no sight of your own.  It is a certainty in whom you place your trust.  A knowledge of Who you follow and walk with on this mission.”

“Aaah,” I sighed, trying to digest all of the depth and width and breadth of the words she was speaking to be.  They felt to be more than just words emerging from her own perception, but words that came through her from a source of wisdom, deeper than the deepest ocean.

I struggled to find words to adequately respond, but they failed me.  No response I could muster, would plumb the depth of this profound wisdom.  But my puzzlement still nagged me in the back of my mind.

“Is there…?” I hesitated, “Is there…anyway to know what past decision made, could lead to destruction?  I mean, some irreparable choice that locks in one’s slide towards their doom?”

Soberly, Nell nodded.  “There are some pivotal choices in a person’s past that seal their doom.  Many of those cruel characters I met in Noadiah’s Inn.  Ones I served meals or drinks too or brushed up against.  Those that grabbed and pawed at me, before Noadiah intervened and threatened to throw them out, or report their behavior to the magistrate, many of those had such darkness in them, that they had no further hope.  Reprobate minds.  Turned over to their savage natures, and willfulness that sealed their future fate.  They give off a dark aura when I see them the way I do.  I know even then that their future will be what their dark choices demand from the outcome.  Pride blinds them to it, but its nightmarish end will come to them eventually.”  There was a sadness in her voice, but it was an uncomfortable truth she had accepted as inevitable.

“And with me?” I asked, carefully hesitant to hear her reply.

“With you, there was still light in the aura halo surrounding you.  Even in its dimming, you cannot mistake the difference if you’ve seen the contrast between a condemned person, and one still on the gradient of hope.  You still had belief even though you could barely perceive it.  Hope lingered in you, though faint.  You saw the blue light before, and you could not erase it from your memory.  You knew and believed that The Praesporous Stone was still in the crown, and so you believed what you saw and experienced.  You know of the blue light that shines from the Walls of Stone in the west.  You knew Begglar could take you back to The Marker Stone to see it once more.  You needed to see it again, to assure yourself of some evidence that the Stone Quests could be completed, since that one is evidence of a successful mission.  Begglar knew why you were so intent on going back to that sight.  You needed to believe again.  To find Hope, after failing so badly.  But we both knew what had happened to the site after you left.  I knew how hard Begglar had taken it when he and others were forced to witness the atrocity done to it.  To take part in covering it up and entombing what mysteries it continually revealed about the events in your world on the Surface, and the implications that it has resonating her in our lands of The Mid-World, and the revealing of The World to Come, that we call Excavatia.  Our fates are joined.  What happens in the outworking of your world affects ours.  It has always been so, though some have tried to deny it.  Those most adamant against the return of Surface Worlders here are the ones most intent on insisting that our world has severed ties with yours.  Wishful thinking, but wishing does not make it true, for the mind has no capacity to create ex nihilo as The One does.  His Stone exists here in permanence.  It upholds our world and joins it from its past to its future.  We natural born here remember what words we were taught in our youth.  The truth from teachers who have lived both in your world and in ours for the remainder of their days.”

I slowly nodded.  Nell seemed to understand me, better than I understood myself.  My fears, my worries, my need for assurances and evidence that what I had been through was more than just a dream.  I needed some guardrails for my sanity’s sake.  To let me know that the tasks ahead that seem so impossible were to be taken one moment at a time, rather than anticipated as an avalanche burying me under the weight of this proposed and dangerous undertaking.  Fear made me feel so lonely and weak before the giants ahead, that I hesitated to even step onto that battlefield.  Ezra had advised me to know the ground upon which we were to make our stand.  To understand our footing, but to me, it all felt like the beginning of a seismic shift was about to occur and the ground would open up below my feet and swallow me, crushing me as it closed around and over me.  I trembled in spite of myself wanting to be brave in the face of being called to lead those who still knew very little about me and had no clear reason to trust any of what I told them.

Seeing Nell watch me, wondering if she perceived the emotional turmoil that was brewing within, I tried directing her thoughts away from my internal struggles.

*Scene 07* – [Part 3] – 00:00 (The Seer’s Gifting – Part 3 of 3 “The Decision to Join”)

“So, what made you and Begglar decide to come with us?  You could have turned back.  Maintained your life there.  Just send us on our way.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, “Don’t you remember what happened with the troll?”

“Um…,” I cocked my head, “Yeah.  We bagged it, and it caught fire when it tried to roll and hit one of our smoldering torches.  But what does that have to do with why you, Dominic and Begglar decided to come with us?” I continued, “Begglar told me the Inn was failing to make a profit, that it was serving more the needs of the invaders, rather than those of your communities and that your family were now in imminent danger.  He said Xarmni let you exist but not thrive, because they only wanted a place to quarter their leaders and hold meetings when they ran militia and Overwatch campaigns in the highlands.”

Nell waved my words away dismissively, “Those are just the average trials of our day-to-day life.  Uncomfortable, but not impossible to manage our way through.  The One has managed to put is within a blind spot of those that once hunted us as fugitives.  They gave up trying to find us and were so certain that if they could not trail us, that we must have been killed through some other misfortune.  They had no idea we were living and operating under their very nose, since no others in their mind would ever attempt such a thing.  They are a suspicious lot, but to confident in their own prowess, and too arrogant to believe they could be fooled or evaded for so long.  We lived under their suspicion and served what has been termed ‘The Resistance’ for years now. We seem to be helping the Xarmnians on the surface, but we are actively involved with gathering enough intelligence from them unwittingly that Maeven and her Lehi riders could stay a few steps ahead of them in their ambitions and schemes.  That Troll you discovered, was their silly attempt to keep tabs on us, making sure that we were serving the Xarmnian masters, instead of working to undermine them.”

“So, you knew that the…?” I began.

“That the troll was slinking around our fireplace, trying to hide from me?  Of course, I did!” she answered, “And why do you think we both weren’t aware of it?”

“What are you saying?”

“Much has changed since you and Begglar were first involved in the prior mission involving Surface Worlders.  There are not very differing factions within ‘The Resistance’.  The loyalists are split with regard to The Marker Stone, and the present dangers.  Azragoth, for the most part, takes the traditionalist view in reverencing The Sacred Stone, as do Begglar and I.  Maeven is now part of it.  We both have knew when Maeven first formulated her team of Lehi horsemen.  She and her men paid us a visit back in the early years, after we had set up the bakery just on the outskirts of Crowe.  We had just added the building that served as our Inn, when you mysteriously left the Mid-World.  We knew you were contemplating leaving, but did not know when you actually left.  We searched for you, but found your old shack abandoned.  Maeven has since been running forays against the Xarmnian guards.  She’s been very effective at it, and we have on more than one occasion provided them with emergency provisions and a fresh change of horses, while they were being pursued by the local Overwatch agents.  Only recently have the Xarmnians sent out The Protectorate Guards for them, because the Overwatch was being lured from the towns, and the people were taking advantage of their absence and distraction to take back from the storehouses so they could survive and fund the resistance effort.”

“So, you knew all along that there was a troll watching you when you were aiding that family?”

“Of course we did!” she laughed, “What do you take us for, fools?  The Xarmnians wanted us to give them a false sense of security and delay them until they could arrive.  The troll was sent to spy on us because the delay tactic we were supposed to employ often did not work and those we helped were able to get away before we could detain them further.  The troll was, in fact, leaving to report that the family had arrived, not that we planned to help them.  We acted like we did not know it was there, so it could feel confident of its hiding place and effectiveness at spying.  Did you not see me come to the hearth and stoke the fire as if I was oblivious to its presence?  Scattered some hot ash and coals on him as he was scrambling for the flue.”

This was all more of a revelation to me.

“I am not fooled by trolls any more than I am the other supernatural monsters your kind has too often led into our world.  Oh yes, I am aware that your beasties are here because of you Surface Worlders, as are these Azragothians.  It is why your kind are not allowed to intermarry with an Azragothian.”

“But you…?” I started, but she raised her hand stopping me before I could say anything more, “Be that as it may, and I say it without malice, for I love my husband dearly, though he came from your world, your being here is quite disconcerting in a time of gathering war.  The Half-men are here because of the ancient Surface Worlders that came with The Pan creature long ago.  Your modern creatures, possible that very thing that destroyed the granary, are here because of you.  So again, I say, what is it you are called to do by the One?”

I cleared my throat, feeling sheepishly like a scolded child.  My response, I felt was foolish and repetitive, and seemingly obvious.  I hesitated again, and Nell sighed.

“I need to hear you say it, Brian.  I need to hear why you are certain enough in your calling, that you would bring further risk to my family.  If you and your followers had left well enough alone and not interfered, then that troll would be on his merry little way, snorting back his report to those he serves, not smoldering in some bag, making the Xarmnians wonder what we may or may not have done to their squatty spy.  Trolls tend to travel in pairs or at most groups of three or four.  There would’ve been others out in the woods waiting on this one.  Either way, the Xarmnians knew something was amiss and that is why they would come themselves to our Inn and demand an account of us.  That is the danger you brought to us, whether you knew of it or not.  You upset their plans, and Xarmnians get very mean when their plans go awry.”

I shuddered, realizing that again, death had followed me, and I had let it right to the doorstep of Begglar’s Inn.  Nell saw the shock and clouds gathering on my countenance as that realization sunk in, but she raised her hand flat and shook her head.  “Stop!  Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself.  That is not what I am asking of you.  Quite piling the guilt on yourself for things you couldn’t have known until I told you.  Begglar and I knew that when you came back to the Mid-World, we would be joining you.  We were meant to help you and when I saw the little ones that came with you, I knew my mother’s heart could not just turn you all away.  Those little ones need special help to get through this.  Help which I am all to happy to provide.  Begglar has learned quite a bit over these years we’ve spent waiting for your return and a renewal of the Stone Quests.  They never end until they are complete you know.  Remember The One knows the future, and He knew what would come of those He called to undertake that responsibility.  Begglar was one of those called.  His duty to serve his own calling is not diminished, even though the timeline was interrupted.  Jeremiah knows it too, though we do not presently know where in the Mid-World he has gone.  His calling is not over, and he will eventually be drawn back to the task and mission he was given in the first place.  The One does not ask amiss.  His purposes will be served, one way or another, and Excavatia will be brought forward into this world and to yours as surely as the prophecies foretell.  You’ve only kept us waiting.  Twenty-one years, yes, but at last you are here.  So, I say again, tell me what it is that you plan by and are called to do.  Show some faith in it, for The One’s sake, and dispense with your limiting thoughts on what may or may not be possible.”

“I am called to lead a stone quest.  Call from my world into yours.  To fulfill the mission, I set out to complete, many years ago under Jeremiah’s leadership.” I said quietly.

Nell leveled her gaze at me, searching my eyes as she asked, “And how will you lead a group of people, you do not take the time to get to know, because you are too focused on yourself and your inadequacy?  How will you learn to put them first ahead of yourself, and do everything a good leader must do to ensure they can trust that you are following your own leadership?  Are you willing to become vulnerable to learn and understand what it is that they will need from you in the days and weeks to come?”

I bowed my head, ashamed of my own insensitivity.  “Of course.  You are right.  I have been so trapped by my own faults that I have not allowed myself to get to know them.  I do need help with that.  It does not come easily for me.”

Nell nodded, a smile beginning to crease the ends of her lips, as she added, “And that, Mister O’Brian, is why you need a ‘Seer’ such I on this mission.  I am here to help you become a leader who actually sees, hears and responds to the needs of those he serves in that capacity.  That is what I needed to hear from you.”  Her voice broke, “Your willingness to do what must be done, even if you do not yet know how it will come about.  The One will supply the rest.  You are like a book kept in a locked case, refusing to be open and read.  We are given a peek perhaps at what may be inside, but not much more, and that is what keeps them from fully trusting you.  Transparency.  Not just token glimpses.  You still have much to learn about empathy and sharing.  That’s what I believe I am called on this quest for.  To help you see, truly see those you lead, and to give them that same respect, to see you too.”

“The heart is the key, O’Brian. That’s why…the words of The Marker Stone–the Ancient Text tells us: No matter what wisdom you are given, no matter what abilities you are given, if you don’t operate out of a genuine heart of Love, it can come out …ill.”

“Not every gifting given is used by the recipient as it was intended by The Giver.  Unfortunately, I know that from painful personal experience.  Our shared origin and the gift of having a free will outlines this very dramatically.  Your history is replete with examples, as is ours. Man was given the ability to mine precious metals and ores to build beautiful adornments and reinforce structures, and yet he chose to forge and fashion weapons out of them to threaten, subjugate and rule over his fellowman. Gifts are beneficial tools, but the heart of mankind determines how those gifts will be employed for good or ill.  That is why the heart of man must be yielded under the righteous governance of The One. The Builder Stones should be indicative of that too.  Those stones were taken and used to build cities and walls.  Xarm built a massive stone city in the shadow of a great mountain, to make itself an imposing fortress where it could rule the surrounding lands from.  Capitalia built an impassable wall, sealing up the only major pass through the Stone Wall Mountain range, to keep their brothers from following and invading them on the rich and fertile steppes beyond.”

“To be able to ‘See’ in the way I do, you must first clarify your vision of who The One is and how He sees you.  Seeing Him clarifies your ability to ‘see’ for others.  It is as simple as that.  It’s an intense empathetic viewing, a brief visual glimpse into the heart of another being.  But it is not as one might think.  You must look with your mind focused on The One, understanding the manifestation of His attributes as they pertain to His view of you, to be able to see into another being.  Sometimes those visions are painful.  If you are not careful, sometimes the visions you witness can undo you if you are not first anchored in your beliefs about The One.  It is an internal connection that radiates through The One and remotely views into the experiences of another soul.  You have to look through your own personal connection to The One.  Once you learn to practice that insight, eventually your gifting will emerge and be as strong if not stronger than mine. But it is something you must deliberately choose to practice day by day.  The moment you lose sight of this knowing, your mind will begin to darken again, for our supernatural enemies are agents of The Shadow and its interference causes a temporary darkening.  It will continue to be this way until the day of our completion.  With the gift, you must see yourself first, before you attempt seeing another.  Otherwise, you will be deceived, for there is an invisible battle raging in the unseen realm.  That struggle between His light and the absence of it will continue to test and prove you into the strong, chiseled image of The Marker Stone that occupies your own central being.”

I nodded, but cautioned her by saying, “Some of your own would argue that the mission we Surface Worlders are called to, should not be a concern of Mid-Worlders.  That since we must leave this place at the end of the quest, we are only leaving your fellow countrymen to deal with the backlash of what is to come from it,” I added, “if we succeed, that is.”

“Do you not see what the Virtue Stones of the Stone Quest represent?  The Praesporous Stone represents Hope.  Everything worth doing begins with having a Hope to break free of those things which bind and entraps us.  The Cordis Stone represents the Heart, but also Love itself.  It is what you surrender your passions to.  The One first loved us, so we surrender to that Love, which gives us capacity to move towards the Hope we long for.  And the Fidelis Stone is the Faith stone.  It is where both Hope and Capacity combine to give us the steps to exercise what we believe in, to experience the capacity that Love gives us.  Faith is essential to bring the unseen into the realm of the seeing.  It must move from word and thought into deeds that demonstrate what we truly believe.  These are why the Stone Quests are given.  To work out and enjoin us in the process of realizing Excavatia in our own time and experience.  To let that Kingdom in, to dispossess the old kingdom rule.  To give us the Dominion back that was lost at our very beginnings. To take back that which was stolen from us.  These quests are not merely meaningless tasks, but a pursuit of a way to truly live.  To see the Hand of The One be given permission to be invited into this Mid-World and to the one you come from in the old Surface World.  That is why the Stone Quests are so important, and why those in The Resistance ranks who choose to ignore them are so misguided and foolish doing so.  And it is why Begglar and I are willing to risk our lives and that of our son to see this mission through to whatever end that may be.”

Her deep wisdom and insight astonished me, and I choked as I spoke the words, “Well, for my part, I am so very glad to have your company in this.  I needed this talk, more that you may ever know.”

“Well, then..,” she smiled, “perhaps we should go get some of that special broth, before the others drink it all up.  My bones and muscles ache from fighting and training all day.  But I must say, my spirit and heart are as light as a feather, and ready to do what we must.”

*Scene 01* – 09:35 (A Covenant Foundation)

Ezra led us up the stair to the terrace overlook where Nem, a man of brawn and strength, worked with attendants on a large miniature model of the city of Azragoth.  Ezra broke from our group ascended a higher terrace stair and spoke privately to Nem, who cast glances back at us and then finally nodded.  Ezra walked down from the overlook with Nem to meet us as we assembled along the outward balustrade of the lower terrace.

As Nem stepped down onto the lower deck our eyes met, and I saw recognition in his face.  We knew each other, but Ezra did not know this.

“O’Brian, I would like to present the governor of this region and the chief restorer of Azragoth.  This city stands as a testament to this man’s faithfulness and love for this city and his commitment to carry out the will of the One.  He will instruct you in the foundational ways and then bring you to me for the handling of your armaments.  He will answer the questions you have been seeking to understand.”

With that, Ezra stepped back and returned to the stairway leading down to the Warrior’s Court and Nem, arms clasped behind him, stepped forward taking in our measure with a keen eye.

“It has been a while,” Nem said, stating the obvious, giving no other indication to the others of our mutual past dealings.

“I am told you would know more of the Breathing Sword, but to understand it, you will need to know something of foundations.  That is where I come in.  For as you may see of our work here,” he said gesturing back to the scale modeled map of the city, “We are the rebuilders of Azragoth.”

“I am also told that you were brought in from the back wall of the city, so you have seen but a little of the work being done here.  As part of the cleansing, this last evening, you will be somewhat familiar with the streets of the interior by now, but there is something more you must see.  We do not often allow visitors to Azragoth, so, as travelers, you should know that you have been given a certain dispensational privilege by the city council.  Further, you are Surface Worlders, which is even more irregular.  We have Surface Worlders among our citizenry, but they are few and not permitted to hold leadership positions here or intermarry with any of our clerics.  To live among us, they are required to adopt our ways and customs, even to the point necessary for leaving their own.

As we are quarantined people, we, too, are a set apart, people.  These are the terms upon which you are permitted to reside within our city and learn of our methods and ways here.  As you may have surmised, we are a city rebuilding in secret.  Every lineage of every citizen is known here.  This city is mutually bound to one another and under covenant with each other.  Together, in the very heart of the city, we all pledged to this covenant, hand upon shoulder until the human chain reached the inner court with the central leaders placing their hands upon the honor sword of the city.  Without the mercy of The One, we knew that the moment would not have occurred.

The covenant is with The One, whose writings appear on The Marker Stone.  The One Whose Word stands forever.  That Honor Sword is a symbol of our covenant with The Word Maker, and it is the very one we collectively chose to return to The Sacred Grove of The Fountain.”

Here he faced me, fixing me with a solemn stare.  “It is the very one you have brought back to our city. You have been appointed for this, for no man could draw it forth from the grip of the Terebinth in The Sacred Grove,…unless The One allowed it to be used for His own purposes.  Purposes that may involve…say…one of The Marker’s Stone Quests.  If you carry our Sword, you too are bound to our city’s covenant to serve The One Who made The Sacred Stone.  If you carry this city’s sword, know that you carry a portion of our hopes with it as you journey to seek The Dominion Crown.”

I cleared my throat and spoke quietly, low enough so that only Nem could hear me.  “I’m not sure I understand.  Ezra told us you would explain to us about foundations.  That understanding foundations was essential to understanding the meaning of a breathing sword.  Is the city’s sword I found in the stream, a breathing sword?”

Nem sighed and reached out and gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look directly into his eyes.  “You have eyes, but you do not see.  Ears, but you do not hear.  You are locked into the carnal, but need to look with your inner spirit and hear deeper echoes from the place and realm you were sent here to seek.  What do the words of the Apostle Paul say to the Corinthians about the spiritual weapons of warfare?”

My mind shifted and pulled forth a verse from the Ancient Text.  Something within me awakened, suddenly seeing what both Nem and Ezra were alluding to.

Nem saw the realization coming into my mind as my eyes widened.

“Excavatia’s door is within The Called,” Nem said.  “We know this Mid-World is a place between two places.  It is characterized by aspects of both the beginning finite surface and the eternal dwelling.  No weapon has any power beyond that of the weilder, except a spiritual weapon empowered by The One.  Your foundation is key.  We are all born in death, unless the newness comes and indwells us.  His Presence is predicated upon the foundation of our personal covenant.  It is an individual agreement, sealed and certified by blood.  The Blood that kepts us from the emptiness.  You are the house that this Covenant secures.  If you are in Covenant, that is The Foundation, of all that follows.   A physical foundation can be compromised by physical forces.  I am a builder and I can assure you of that.  What is needed is a Foundation not subject to physical wear.  Once that is established the rest of what you are made to be and do can be built upon that security.  Evil cannot reach, what it cannot access.  Threats cannot compromise The One who Indwells the heart of a new-made warrior.  But you must allow The Resident to deal with the forces that arise against you, and yield to His authority.  This is not a passive relationship.  It is a readiness, and an active daily pursuit.  You must surrender to The Covenant Resident, and He will equip you to act as a Breathing Sword.”

I was stunned.  I had expected to hear him talk to us about strength, training and discipline as a foundation to warrior training, but not this.  We had undergone sparring drills, and weapons handling, when I had first come to The Mid-World, but this was taking an aspect of warefare in a new direction.  A mindset.  A posture of warfare.

Nem continued, “Man was created and became alive by The Breath of The One.  If you let Him breathe through you, you will be functioning as a Breathing Sword.  This is why Ezra’s teaching will be of no use without that understanding.  If you cannot perceive beyond what you can physically touch, taste, see or smell, you might as well abandon the stone quest.  What you will come against on these quests are not merely flesh and blood.”

“So the physical skill is not needed?”  I asked, incredulous.

“It is, but it is not the most important,” Nem pointed to and tapped my chest.  “Eternity is within you.  You must go through yourself to that inner part of your heartland to be equipped for the warefare ahead.  The Word is Living and sharp.  Connect to The Truth.  Any blade you carry will only cut and carve a physical form, but is ineffective against supernatural enemies that pursue you.  The Flame to imbue the Sword you weild with cutting fire capable of penetrating those enemies here that are more than mere flesh and blood, comes through your surrender to the Conqueror within you.”

*Scene 02* – 04:04 (Catching On)

Shelberd, Brem and Bray had not been waiting long before Grum-Blud returned to them, blood splattered and trembling with rage.  They stared wide-eyed as Grum came knuckle trotting along the tree line, muttering angrily to himself in a dangerous mood.  Spotting them huddling in the bushes, he spat, “Blasted longshanks killed Corg!”  Longshanks was a pejorative appellate trolls reserved for humankind that had not transitioned to their status.

“What’er we gonna do?” Shelberd ventured.

Grum knuckled up to them, sneering. “Saddle up these beasties and beat the bushes for The Pan.”

“Oh, Grum..!” Shelberd groaned.

“Shut it!” Grum-Blud threatened, snaking his blade out of his waistband.  The dark blade was still wet with blood and gore, but wickedly sharp, as the glinting daggers shining from Grum-Blud’s glaring eyes.

Brem and Bray whimpered, shrinking back.

“Saddle’em up,” Shelberd nodded, shuddering despite himself, as he turned to Brem, slinging the small saddle over its back, pawing blindly, frantically, for the cinch strap, while looking warily back at Grum’s threatening blade.

Satisfied, Grum, slowly hunched down gathering a sheaf of wild grass and ran his blade through it scraping away the gore and grime.  Shelberd scuttled quickly to the other side of Bray and slung the saddle over its haunches, catching the cinch belt and threading it through the rings tugging it snug.  “Watch it there, bub!” Bray snorted.  “My ribs abrade easily. If I’m gonna walk and carry, I gotta breathe.”

Grum growled something unintelligible, and Bray trembled saying no more.

Once mounted and loaded, Brem and Bray headed off in a trot, the trolls riding them through the brush, widely skirting the bordered property of the stone farmhouse and surrounding pasture.

“Grum, where are we going?” Shelberd groaned.

Grum-Blud scowled and gestured with a pudgy fist, towards a small shadowy path through the brush headed into the woods.  “Someone’s gone through here recently.  I saw this broken path while watching from the wall near the stone house.  Grass has been trampled.  Low limbs broken.  There are hoof prints of at least three horses and their dung droppings.  If there is a back path down into the valley and to the woods of Kilrane, why should we go by way of the open road, when we can find out where these lead and who made them.”

Shelberd’s eyes widened, his head bobbing up and down. “Perhaps we can follow those who killed Corg. It wouldn’t hurt having more information to give The Pan either.”

Grum-Blud grinned, “Now you’re catching on.”

Both Brem and Bray snorted their grudging approval.  Perhaps The Pan might have use for these ‘man-frogs’ afterall.  If these creatures did please him on this humiliating mission, that might grant them a little more favorability as well.

They plunged into the thick brush following as the shadowy path unfolded darkly under the leaf-filtered light.   The foliage pressed in tightly around them, but since prior travellers had made the initial passage the brush gave way more easily.  Eventually they came to a downsloping depression in the forest with tall uprooted trees crossing over the gulley standing on broken limbs with their exposed root ball descending into a darkened brow.

Brem and Bray sniffed the stale, fecund air and attempted to balk at going forward, but Grum-Blud would hear none of it.  Reluctantly they press on down into the gulley of softened earth.  Their animal senses heightened to the unmistakable scent of danger.

*Scene 03* – 07:00 (Interruption)

In the courtyard, where we had been speaking with Nem a short, bald headed, pudgy little man with wiry, white hair, ascended the steps below and was met by two imposing guards blocking his way.  The man’s shrill voice carried as he sputtered in a verbal altercation with the two guards, gesticulating wildly as he tried frantically to get past the two stawart soldiers.  Nem moved to the stone railing and peered downward, and the pudgy man, face reddened in exasperation pointed upward, calling out to be granted audience.

“There he is! There he is!  I must speak with you, Lord Nem!  It is a most urgent matter!  Called off your infernal sentries!  I must speak with you!”

The two guards on the lower platform, looked up, and Nem signalled to them with a wave of his hand to let the man approach.  The two stepped aside, allowing the insistent man to pass between them, but they followed close behind as he puffed and panted up the stone staircase to the courtyard above.

Nem turned to us and excused himself, and moved to meet the man at the top of the steps.  The chubby man leaned against the stone baluster, catching his breath, waving futilely at us to give them some privacy.

They conferred in low tones and the man urgently beckoned Nem to follow him.  None of us could make out what was said but we did catch an off-handed word, as the urgent man raised his voice in a pitch that carried.
Treasury.

Nem stepped back over to us, and one of his guards followed him, while the ansy little man huffed and paced impatiently, glancing back down the stair case to the lower walkway, and nervously wiped sweat from his reddened face, neck and forehead.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Nem said.  “It seems an urgent matter has come up that I will need to attend to.  My man Jorda will convey you back down to Ezra in the Warrior’s Court, and I will join you all later in the day for the midday meal.  I beg your leave,” he said with a slight bow, receiving our full consent, disarmingly surprised by his graciousness.

Once Nem returned to the waiting man, the man seemed to bounce impatiently, turning to descend the steps, urging Nem to make haste.

As our new escort turned to us, I heard Will snort with folded arms, “I wonder what that was all about.

Jorda stood with his pike staff held regimentally as he swept his arm ahead, once Nem and the urgent man had a good lead start back down the stairway.

“This way, if you please.”

“They are so polite here,” Cheryl observed.  “I wonder what’s got that little man so upset.”

Someone muttered, “What did he say?  Something about the treasury?”

“He looked like a chubby little clerk.  I’m sure its nothing more than some clerical concern,” one said dimissively.

“Yeah, but why would he urgently need the city architect for something like that?”

“It was kind of funny watching the chubby man bounce up the steps.  Looks like he was unused to doing much more that sitting behind a desk in a counting house.”

We decended the steps, dutifully following the guard Jorda, winding our way back down to the Warriors’ Court where we had first joined Ezra that morning.  The overhead sun was midway up in the sky, not directly overhead and feathery clouds drifted slowly, rising with the light winds skirting the edge of the towering cliffside that loomed over the backend of the city of Azragoth.  A low mist hung like a canopy along the edge, fed by the skirted streams that banked along an outer wall surrounding the city.

I knew it would not be long before we broke for a noon meal, but I could not help but wonder what might be going on the required Nem’s attention.  Whatever it might be, I was certain that it did not bode well for the city and its peoples, and I somehow wondered if our presence here might have something to do with it.

Beyond us, about three streets ahead, Nem strolled easily behind his corpulent escort.

“It’s been happening all morning,” Kallem, the chubby man continued, mopping his mouth and forehead, panting from the exertion he had expended frantically searching out the whereabouts of Lord Nem, finding few onlookers less than helpful as he had scurried about seeking direction.

“What has been happening?” Nem asked calmly striding forward, following the smaller man who was barely keeping ahead, turning frequently to ensure Nem and his other guard were still following.

“You’ve got to stop it.  There are cracks everywhere.  The printed coinage keeps falling through.  We will be ruined.  You’ve got to hurry.  Every few moments everything in the treasury vault rattles and topple to the floor and the fissures are widening.  My clerks and I have been raking the coinage back, but when the pulsing starts they seemed to be fixed to the floor.  More of it pours down below.  We can’t afford this kind of loss.  No one would believe it.  You must see it for yourself.”

“How long has this been happening?”

“Two days.  At first we did not know what to make of the noises.  We thought a rat or something had gotten in and knocked over some of the bagged coins, but it has been going on repeatedly and we have seen no evidence of rodents.  We noticed the levels beginning to sink and that is when we discovered the cracks in the flooring.  If there is any way to dig those fallen coins out, we must do it.  Something is affecting the precious metals.  Something that is pulling them down into the crevices.  We should never have quarried stone beneath the city. Never!”

Nem sighed, “There has been no quarry digs beneath the treasury.  There should only be solid rock.  We have avoided digs under any significant weight bearing structures.  We made contientious effort to keep the digs under the dead sectors of the old city, besides the grain holds under the old keep tower.”

“What about the old springs?  How far do the water courses go under the city?” Kallem huffed.

“The old springs were diverted.  That is why the upper fountains have dried up.”

“But in the council meeting this morning we were told there is something that has breached the underground.”

“We are looking into it.”

At that point, the two men reached a fortified door with a formidable stone edifice and iron barred portico.  Kallem pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and opened the iron barred gate.

“Well, you need to look into this,” he said opening the iron braced wooden door, and leading Nem into a torchlit hallway.

*Scene 04* – 03:44 (Fault in the Vault)

Kallem stood with his attendants and Lord Nem as a tremor rattled the floor.  Coins clinked, golden goblets wobbled, chains swished and tinkled, and a low clattering eminated from deep below.  A dark, jagged crack scarred the fitted stone floor, pitting and peaking as the grout sifted down into a deep abyssal hollow.  Mounds of coins, molded bars and ingots slinked towards the cavities created with a vibrating rattle.  Attendants scrambled trying to rake back the mounds from spilling into the widening crack, but they were dragged bodily by the inexorable metal wave slouching towards the ominous gash.

“What could be causing this?!” Kallem huffed, still mopping his forehead nervously with his sweaty hankerchief, a sheen of sweat glistening in the firelight over his bunched cheeks and bald widowspeak pate.  The floor gash was widening and somehow being wedged open from deep below.

Lord Nem knelt and raised a torch over the shadowy crack, attempt to peer downward as far as the light would allow.  “I don’t understand it.  This area has always been undergirded by thick layers of solid rock.  There is something down there that is cutting through the mantle.”

“Well, understand it or not, we are losing the city’s gold and silver.  Only the Ezra’s temple storage has the remainder of the gold and silver, but those are consecrated vessels.  We cannot melt or barter with those without causing a citywide scandal!  We need this money for daily operations with those still willing to trade with us for supplies.  These coins were imprinted and re-forged with Xarmnian crests to avoid suspicion.  Years of recasting work.  Outsiders are forbidden from accepting or hoarding any coinage that does not bear the Xarmnian mark.  Anyone found carrying non-authorized monies are to be brought before the Xarmnian tribunals, tortured for information and excuted publicly by The Protectorate, with all coinage confiscated and sent to the Xarmnian city.  You must send a search team down into the deep caverns to find out what is causing this.”

Nem rose to his feet as coins continued to spill over the edge of the widening crack and plink and ping off the stone edges of the gash down into the darkness below.  “I will attend to this personally.  Say nothing to no one for the time being.”

Kallem gaped in astonishment, a look of horror crossing his reddened face.  He stammered, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no!  No one can know.  We dare not mention a word of this to anyone!  No one would believe what we’ve seen, and they would string us up for sure.”

Deep below, water dripped from the fragmented ceiling, and from a deep gash, coins plinked downward in a darkling dance, landing on a broad surface like a formation of scales across the broad hide of a shadowy monster temporary cloaked in darkness.  An electric flash of luminescents scintillated across the webbing of coinage, as the beast sent another magnetic pulse upward through the crack it had bashed into the ceiling of its newly cored tunnel.  It could smell the metallic scents of gold and silver just as easily as it could smell the presence of living blood and perceive a gathering collection of heartbeats far above.

*Scene 05* – 13:01 (Stragglers)
[continuation of Chptr 17-Scene 5]

Back on the ridge of the valley leading down to the Xarmnian stables, Tizkon, the Xarmnian Protectorate guard assigned the duty of holding the outworld captive prisoner had waited for hours before taking the old man down from the ridge of the horse valley escarpment.  He had watched the lower road where Bayek and their Bruel Hadeon had pursued the fugitives and the dual wagon weapons convoy, purportedly coming from the Iron Hills foundry.  When none of his team re-emerged from the split routes they had taken in their pursuit, Tizkon sensed something must have gone terribly wrong.

Hadeon’s orders were: “Wait here with him for now, and watch.  Once we take his companions below, he may be of no further use to us.  Slit his throat and toss him out for the carrion birds.  Then you should be free to swiftly join us in the valley below.”  The problem was, there was no way to tell whether they had taken the man’s companions, so there was no way to be sure killing the man was still the best course of action.

Hadeon had assumed a successful capture as a given.  The Bruel was rarely wrong, and Tizkon longed to be rid of the spindly carcass and ride hard after his crew.  Nothing could be gained by delay.  He had no choice but to bring the old sack of flesh along giving it yet another day of sucking air.

The sun climbed high into the midday sky, its heat blistering and bleaching the sands on the broad descent road.

They rode along a shrub-lined gully near the main road’s juncture point, just over the brow of the descending hill.  From the cover they could see both of the side routes the fugitive wagons had taken: one in a darkening rim path that headed east into the Rimwood forests, and the other headed northwest into a skirting trail that seemed to wind back into the long valley where the Xarmnian stables were kept and their field stock were pastured.  A deepening spring fed river ran through that valley and cut downward as it passed into the westward woods, broadening out into a series of cataract falls coming down from the highland shelf.

Tizkon was on high alert, scanning for any movement from the encroaching woods that stood a few hundred yards shy of the road and circular clearing that wound down from the shelf of the highlands.

Suddenly he heard noises coming along the eastern trail.  He held his sword at the ready as Bayek came alone out of the shadows, leading a team of riderless horses.

He hailed him and Bayek paused, squinting and blinking uncertainly in the light of the midday sun, still allowing his eyes to adjust from the shadowy forest to the bright and open sky.

“What have you done with the others?!”

Bayek shaded his eyes as Tizkon rode up, his spindly prisoner riding behind, barely hanging on.

“I see you haven’t killed him yet,” Bayek commented dryly.  “Perhaps that is just as well.”

“Where are the others?” Tizkon huffed.

Bayek coughed, wiping his face.  “Ran into trouble with wood folk.  Bloody sirens.  Two of our Cerberi are missing.  The others must’ve circled back through the woods.  What of the other teams?  Have you seen any come back from the ridge run?”

“I’ve been watching for hours,” Tizkon replied shrugging.  “I don’t know what to expect.  Looked like Hadeon took the main road down.  No sign of them either.  What do you think we should do with this one.”  Tizkon inclined his head with a backward nod, indicating his prisoner.

Bayek scowled at the old man in disdain, clearly annoyed that his continued presence caused them an inconvenience.  “He is no good carrying around like that.  If we have to ride fast, he will flop around like a sack of potatoes.  Toss him down and let’s tie him over one of these saddle horses.  Have you had to feed it yet?”

“I fed it a bite or two while we were waiting on the ridge.  I think the begger wanted to spit it out, but was too famished to do so.  It doesn’t talk much.”

Tizkon unhooked the man’s bound wrists from around his waist and the saddle horn, slipping the hitch knot loose with a sharp tug.  The old man groaned as his wrists were further abraded by the rough rope that had bound him to his captive and the horse they both rode.  Tizkon’s mare snorted and rolled its neck, bobbing its head up and down.

The old, emaciated man slouched, weakened by lack of sleep, the dry and windy conditions, its sustained bruises and cuts from its interrogation, and its dread of what might follow.  He fell off the back of the horse onto a patch of scrub grass as Tizkon swung out of the saddle and Bayek dismounted as well.  They grabbed the man by his arms and legs and uncerimonoiusly pitched him across one of the saddles of the riderless mounts.

Tizkon continued talking, as he lashed the man to the horse with additional rope.  “Wood sirens, eh?  I’m told their quite the lookers, despite being deadly.  Did you talk with any of them?”

“It was mostly being talked at rather than with,” Bayek grunted.  “They gave me a message to give to the king.  That is the only reason I was left alive.”

Tizkon looked surprised.  “The king?!  What dealings would wood sirens have with the Son of Xarm?!”

“Dealing in gold…” Bayek muttered.  “Or something like it.”

“What was that?” Tizkon asked, turning.

“Rumors only.” Bayek grumbled.

“Rumors?” Tizkon arched an eyebrow, “What rumors?”

Bayek stared hard at the continuation of the main road and across the gap to the shadowy forest trail beyond.

“What rumors?” Tizkon persisted, when no answer came.

Finally Bayek turned to Tizkon giving him a stern look.  “You are still very young, Tizkon.  What was done was done before our present king took the throne.  It is rumored to be part of the reason he never leaves the Stone City.  If I tell you, never speak of it anywhere you might be heard.  If it were to come back to the ear of the king, you will not wake to see the morning, after retiring for the night.  The Son of Xarm will send a Silencer after you to forever still your loose tongue.”

Tizkon’s expression took on gravity, as Bayek’s ominous warning sank into his thoughts.  Silencers were the Son of Xarm’s elite group of assassins.  They worked in secrecy and always in darkness.  They were rarely identified, and wore coverings of all black living in the shadows.  Parents warned their misbehaving children, that if they did not obey, the king might send a Silencer after them to forever hush them in their sleep.  Rumor had it that Silencers had a key to every locked door in the city.  That they could somehow find their way into a room through the tiniest crack or crevice.  The very thought of Silencers gave even grown adults the tremors.  The spectre of their reputation even quelled most gossip through the town folk.  People were suspicious of each other and often did not trust others with information for fear that a neighbor might somehow get the Son of Xarm to send a Silencer after them.

Tizkon flinched at the thought and shuddered.  “Forget I asked.  I don’t want to know.  Tell me instead about the wagon you followed into the wood trail back there.  Where did it go?”

Bayek returned to his horse and swung back up into the saddle, checking to secure the rope line that he had led the remaining horses belonging to his fallen comrades.

“The wagon was rammed into the trees when the path became too narrow to forge ahead.  They smashed the spokes of the wheels and wedged it against us, barring further pusuit on horseback.  We had to follow on foot until we reached a dead end.”

“And that is where you encountered the wood sirens?”

Turning his horse torward Tizkon, who was also mounting up, he nodded.  “Siren.  There was only one that showed herself.  The others surprised us from overhead.  They are fast.  Unnaturally so.  We did not expect them in Rimwood.  It was agreed that The Pan and his kind would keep to their lands, if we would keep to ours.”

Astride his horse now, Tizkon huffed.  “Any agreement made with that dark creature is suspect.  I would not trust him or those we send to broker deals with him.  Trolls are entirely duplicitous.  Only good to be used as berzerkers when they are in their Grawplin phase.”

“Be that as it may, the Siren claimed that there was… ‘ a digger’ under the wood, on a destructive path heading down towards Kilrane forest.”

“A digger?” Tizkon smirked, “What kind of digger worries wood sirens?”

“A digger capable of tearing up the root system of the mature trees and tunneling close enough to the surface to weaken and collapse the forest floor.”

“What evidence do we have of that?”

“None yet.  But somehow I believe her to be telling the truth.  Seems to think that these outworlders are the cause of it.  Some creatures are more than just brute beasts.  Rumor had it that some were once used in the quarry caves for mining ores.  Diggers we built for hollowing out the ground and could draw precious metals from it, which they would shed and shake off later.  The metals were then collected and melted down in the forges.  Then hammered and poured into forms.  Rumor has it that The Pan himself was once a master metal worker, before it rebelled and took with it the Half-Men into the Moonlit Moors in the dark northlands.”

Tizkon pondered this a moment trying to remember some of the legends of the monsters of the dark lands.  “So what upsets these wood sirens?  That a few trees are falling down?  What connection is there with The Pan and these wood nymphs, and a digger?”

“I once heard that the matriarch of the sirens was both wife and sister of The Pan.  Her name was Naamah before she became what she is now.”

“His sister?!  He mated with his sister?!  Shouldn’t their offspring have deformities as a result?”

Bayek stared at Tizkon until he realized the absurdity of the question and blushed in embarrassment.

“Wouldn’t you say being born half vegetable and half human was kind of a persistent deformity?”

Tizkon nodded, pondering the implications.  “And The Pan, being half man and half ram would make him have desires to consume both meat and plant as well.”

“It’s an age-old story.  The Pan worshipped the power and strength of the ram’s horn.  His wife worshipped the power of the field, its beauty and its produce of food.  Seed worship.  Both seemed to have gotten what they wished.  They became the objects of their worship and declared themselves to be gods, while fighting the internal desires to consume each other.”

“Do they…?” Tizkon wondered.

“Do they what?” Bayek said directing his horse towards the switchback down road leading to the lowlands.

“Eat each other?” Tizkon spoke in nearly a whisper.

“I would not be surprised.” Bayek commented, kicking his horse into a trot.

As they ambled their horses down the shelf, Tizkon looked back to the other trail their other detachment had followed.  “I wonder what happened to the others along that rode heading to the falls?  How could Aridam and his group fail to capture that other wagon?  Should we wait for them?”

Bayek answered over his shoulder, “Hadeon said to meet him and the others down at the clearing near Kilrane.  We follow orders until we are given leave to do otherwise.  Wherever those riding the wagon we chased went, I expect we will somehow find them in the lower valley in Kilrane.  When we meet up with the others we may find Aridam and his team there too.  But even if not, I’ll need to get leave from Hadeon before I ride to deliver the siren’s message to the king.”

*Scene 06* – 15:41 (Corimanth’s Secret)

We spent the remainder of the morning doing grip drills with Ezra back in the Warriors’ Court.  He had us working at striking the pells-thick wooden columns with hack marks on them.  Getting us used to toughening our hold on the blades selected for us.  We worked until our hands were numb, and our fingers sore. It was grueling for a first day’s lesson and we had worked up a considerable sweat, striking the columns high, low and mid-level while he observed how we reacted to the shock of the blade’s stop at the end of a swing.  Eventually, as we tired and our minds buzzed with Ezra’s repetitive drill commands, we were all very glad to hear the tinny mid-day bell signalling a respite.  Weary but having worked up an appetite we filed into the corridor leading back to the commissary where we had breakfasted that morning.

True to his word, Nem rejoined us as we assembled once again in the large dining hall for the afternoon meal.  He took a seat across from Begglar and Nell and their friends from back in the village of Crowe, Shimri and Aida.  I was just down the table far enough to hear some of their conversation, though for some reason, Nem seemed to be avoiding eye contact with me.  We had all wondered what the man had wanted that called him away from us, but Nem gave no indication that he was disposed to tell us.  Since he made no further comment about it, we felt it might be a subject he was not at liberty to talk about.

Nem looked thoughtfully at Nell as he took his first few bites and finally spoke to her in a low voice.

“You are known to me, yet I do not remember from where.”

Nell wiped her mouth with a cloth napkin and raised her eyes to him, staring directly for a long moment, yet with no seeming pleasure in doing so.  Quietly she layed the napkin down, lowered her eyes and speared a morsel of meat on her plate, avoiding further eye contact as she spoke.  “We met in Sorrow’s Gate, many years ago when you and your company were traveling through.  I served you at the Inn where I worked with my brother Corimanth.”

“Ah, I remember,” said Nem, recognition widening his eyes and forming a half smile. “You were the Seer.  The one who could sense connections between tales told and the people whose stories were being told.  A prophetess among the women.  You exposed the lies of Noadiah when she tried to deceive us.”

“Yes,” Nell acknowledge, still focusing on her plate, adding with a bitter inflection, “And for that, you and The Eagle took my brother from me.”

Nem sat up straighter and took a deep breath.  “You have not heard of why we intervened on his behalf?”

“Intervened?!” Nell raised her eyes staring forward defiantly, openly glaring at Nem.  She set her jaw and tried to lower her voice to keep from drawing attention to their low conversation, but hissed through clenched teeth.  “My parents died in this place!  Corimanth was all I had left!  I gave you the truth, helped you… and you repaid me by enlisting my brother into your scheme. Not only that, you kept me in the darkness, grieving the loss of all I had that I could call my own.  What do you mean you intervened?!”

Begglar interrupted, “Nellus.  Let’s hear him out.  All might not be what it seems.”  So speaking, he attempted to put his arm around Nell, but she shrugged him off.

“Well?!” she hissed at Nem, “What do you have to say for yourself?!”

“Your brother and the others with him were caught stealing from our packs.  Ceremonial items we had hidden and were bringing back to Azragoth for use in the Temple.  He and the others had raked up quite a haul from some of the other merchants in Surrogate, and they made the mistake of raiding our travelling party as well.  We caught them with the items, and others they had stashed.  We could have made an example of them.  Turned them over to the city magistrate…  But, I didn’t… for your sake.”

“For my sake?!” Nell looked stricken.

“Yes,” Nem bowed looking down as he cut a portion of meat with his knife and fork, continuing, “They were soon to be discovered and would have been marked for death by the Overwatch.  The local merchants were tired of being robbed, and though they avoided enlisting the Overwatch in their internal affairs, they had finally made an appeal to them as payers of tribute to the Xarmnian crown.  They could not pay the Son of Xarm’s taxes, if they could not sell their wares.  The Xarmnians agreed.  They did not have a name, but they suspects and would have soon discovered him because of the people.”

“We were strangers in Surrogate.  Trying to keep a low profile while seeking craftsmen and stonemasons, and all who had some connection with Azragoth or desire to see it restored to its former glory.  Xarmnian involvement was the last thing we needed, and so we had a decision to make regarding the boys we had taken prisoner.  We needed information.  We needed those who might be able to blend into their surroundings and not raise alarm.  To be able to steal something more valuable to us than mere merchant treasures and food stocks.  We needed information, and we considered that those we had presently in our custody, might just be willing to trade their life of petty larceny to something more worthwhile using the same skills that had made them effective theives.”

“You made them spies?!”

“We offered them a deal.  Work as spies for us, or take their chances with the town magistrate and the Xarmnian Overwatch.”

Nell fiddled with her fork and the remaining food on her plate, her ire was deflating, and so was her appetite.  She had heard Corimanth’s apology and side of the story and had given him forgiveness for it, but somehow she was reluctant to offer the same to Nem.  She felt betrayed by him.  He had been a guest in their Inn.  Or perhaps, she should consider it Noadiah’s Inn, but it had become a home to her and her younger brother, so she could not help but to think of the place as partially their own.  Noadiah had offered her and Corimanth part of the ownership of that Inn, in exchange for their help in keeping it running.  She could not afford to hire extra help, but both Nell and Corimanth had needed a place to stay and something to keep them occupied and productive now that their parents had been lost in the fall of Azragoth.  When Noadiah disappeared, Nell had been left to run it until Noadiah’s return.  Only Noadiah did not return.  She left soon after Nem and his men arrived.  She suspected Noadiah had gone with them to find Azragoth, but she could not be too sure.  Noadiah had been secretive.  Strangely so, ever since she learned what Nem and his attendant crew were there for.

Nem continued, attempting to further convince Nell of his part in the enlistment of her brother.

“We needed some inside information from within the city of Xarm.  Our trip from Capitalia had come at a time when there was still breaks in the valley wall.  Emissaries had been sent to Capitalia, but by then the wall had made the only path to get there an attempted trek up over the mountains.  Few made it through, most were intercepted by Xarmnian patrols.  Of the ones who made it, few had knowledge of Azragoth, after the Xarmnian siege.  Capitalia was still then feared and grudgingly respected by the Xarmnians.  An edict born by the kings of Capitalia once commanded respect and caution not to interfere with Capitalian messengers, but the Xarmnians, we soon learned, were becoming more emboldened.  Your brother recognized that the Xarmnian’s maintained a wary distance from us when they learned we were from Capitalia.  When he came to us, he wanted to know why and if we were coming in response to the long-ignored pleas for assistance.  He and the others tried to distract us and made a clumsy attempt to steal the golden bound scrolls we carried with us.  This effort was easily put down, and we could have turned him and the others over to the Xarmnian Overwatch, but we thought to have mercy.  Your brother’s anger was one of desperation.  He hated the Xarmnians for the death of your parents.  He was helpless in dealing with that rage, so we offered them a bargain.  We enlisted their service and swore them to abide by our code, and we would spare them their lives, and in return, we would solicit aid from the Capitalians with whom we had grown in favor.”

“Then why does my brother wear a binding about his chest?  Where did he receive such injuries that he struggles to speak, and why is it that he has not communicated with me even once in these many years?”

Corimanth emerged from the end of the dining hall and walked forward to the gathering having overheard the question.

“I can answer that for you, Nellus.”

All eyes turned toward him.

“I trained here in Azragoth yet kept some semblance of my weight in check.  I assisted with the rebuilding and was given a place here, should my mission succeed, and I return from it.  My skill with a halberd developed and it became a weapon best suited for my size and stature.  I was taught how to control my aggression and channel it for constructive use.  The Azragothians reminded me of what honor is and what it meant to live with a noble purpose, the same as what our father taught us.”

“Once the timber had been brought in from the back forest an opportunity opened for me to blend in with a gathering of young men being conscripted and marched back to Xarmni to serve in their armed court.  Swordsmen and spear throwers and archers were the most needed in their marching armies, but for palace guard duty, they wanted stout fighters skilled with halberds to stand watch by their doorways and council halls.  My proficiency proved useful to them, so I was given a sentry post near the donjon.”

“I later learned that was where in they kept their sacred Builder Stone.  I had seen it through the doorway, a few times standing post.  We were given quarters in the wall units so that we could be close to hand at any alert sounded during the evening watch.  I served under a company of men, under the command of Captain Jahazah the Crusher.  He was a brutal and bloodthirsty man, known for mangling and crushing people through various means.  It was from him I received the wounds that require this present binding.  I had to fight him the night the Lehi came for my report.  Thankfully, they were not far when he confronted me from the shadows, brandishing my own halberd.  I was slashed in the ribs before I was able to get it free from him.  We grappled and fell down stone steps, but the prideful Captain would not call out for the other guards.  He was incensed by my treachery and wanted to kill me himself.  He broke four of my ribs in a crushing squeeze.  I heard them snap and the pain was intense, but I was able to get free by striking him in the throat.  The Lehi returned and bore me up and into the darkness.  The last sight I remember of the Captain, he was on his knees spitting up blood and coughing.  We were barely far enough away before he gained his voice enough to alert the other guards to pursue.  If it wasn’t for the Lehi, I would have been a dead man.  Travel was excruciating, but the Lehi were well-trained in field medicine, and when we were far enough away, they dressed my wounds, staunched my blood, set and bound my ribs with this truss and tied me to my mount.  I am told I passed out several times during the journey, that I suffered feverish rants, and a sort of delirium until they found some medicinal plants to ease my suffering.”

“So, it was Corimanth who delivered the intelligence of what is happening with the Builder Stones,” Begglar remarked.

Maeven stepped forward from the group and joined, “Yes.  I did not know he was Nell’s brother though, or I might have told you before.”

Nell shook her head in bewilderment, “Some seer I am.  All of this going on under my very nose, and I had no inkling of it.”

Begglar patted her affectionately, “Now don’t be too hard on yourself, Nellie dear.”

Nell carefully embraced her brother, tearful eyed, mindful of his wounding, “You’ve done me proud, Cori.  And no one can say less of it.  It was a brave thing you’ve done.  Foolish but brave, and just as courageous as father hoped you would ever be.  ‘Tis a shame they were not here to see it.”  More tears poured from her eyes as she held her brother, sniffling into his shoulder.  But then she pulled away and lightly cuffed him on the cheek, “But you could have told your sister something, stead of making me think as I was!”

Nem observed the exchange and then spoke to them, “Your brother now lives with honor.  He brought the secrets forth from the Xarmnian fortress.  He told us of the mysterious movements of the Builder Stones and what may come of it.  It is the reason we have sent The Eagle to the summit of Mount Zefat.  To study the terrain, to see the positioning and progress of the tribes as they are drawn out following their stones. To take a high vantage point to align their paths to see if what we all suspect is happening is true.  We hope to predict the convergent points at which the conflicts may erupt between them.  But we all have the same suspicion.  The Builder Stones are being drawn back to the one stone of most consequence–The Ancient Marker Stone where they first were found.”

*Scene 07* – 00:00 (The Black Tongue)

After the meal, I and the others of my group followed Nem to the outer courtyard, where I had previously spoken with Corimanth when we had first arrived.  Nem had his foreman show members of my group the areas of the city they were working on using the large city model map and the areas that could be overseen from the high terrace.  Quietly, he stepped away from the group and came over to speak privately to me as his lead man gave a comprehensive tour referencing the map and the reference points in the city below.

He leaned on the stone baluster and indicated the Warrior’s court below with a vague hand gesture.  “When Ezra began his training in the courtyard, he called you out as the leader.  You may not have known, but from this terrace, I could see you this morning in the Warrior’s courtyard,” he paused.

“Then you must’ve seen him knock me down on my butt,” I huffed.

Nem nodded, looking outward, but still not looking directly at me.

“And when he called you to stand and be armored for the demonstration, did you notice what was at your feet before he struck your leg, and you fell?”

I turned to him unsure of what he was telling me.

“I thought not,” he continued.  Quietly, he observed, “Ezra will often give you a clue as to what is about to happen if you are listening closely to what he tells you before. Ezra usually begins his lessons with proper footing and foundation.  The goal is to give a fighter an awareness of the ground upon which he will face an assault.  Often times a fight can be won of lost within the first few moments of combat, if one of the fighters loses their sense of their foundation and their footing.  The same is true as in all things.”

Here he glanced at me, “To begin anything… you need to fully understand and rely on where you are positioned.  You must have certainty about it–a degree of confidence–before you lift your eyes to build anything or face an enemy.  Right now, at this very moment, our city foundations are under assault.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I had a sense he, somehow, was holding me personally responsible for whatever foundational threat he was alluding to.  I could not imagine what I may have done to give him that impression, but he seemed hesitant to bring that charge directly against me.

“I am not sure you are ready for what soon must happen.  But foundations are something I am particularly concerned with, and you should be concerned with them as well when preparing for the warfare ahead.”

“Just as you must be aware of your own foundation, by the same token, you must also have a sense of where your enemy stands and assess the relative strength or weakness of their positioning.  The same is true with buildings and fortifications.  And it is true of relationships as well.  Even those we think we know, can fool us.  It often comes with too much familiarity to the point when, rather than listening and perceiving, we run ahead into interactions based on assumptions derived from what we anticipate.  How much of Ezra’s lesson do you recall?”

I thought back, remembering the words spoken over me as I lay prostrate in the dirt after he swept my footing out from under me.  “Yes.  Obviously, he said, we needed to be aware of the nature of the ground upon which we were standing before he abruptly sat me down on my pride.”

“And,” I added, “he said the blade is not the only weapon I bear.”

“He was correct,” Nem said, “He positioned you among anchor points, which you may not have noticed.  Pieces of wood staked into the ground which had you looked down you would have seen.  They are used for fighter’s foot placement.  A warrior stands with the lead foot against one anchor point, and his back foot against the other.  He noticed your focus was on him, so he used it as an illustration instead.”

“You’re saying he tricked me?”

“In a word, yes.  Had you positioned your steps accordingly, you would not have so easily fallen.  Had you kept a sense of the ground, even if you did not know the purpose of such staked blocks, you may have circled beyond them and retained your footing.”

“Also,” he said, “the blade is not your only weapon.  Your sense of purpose should also be part of your drive, your cognizance of the nature of the assault and the countenancing of your opposition should also be part of your arsenal.  You must know that you fight with your entire body, and not just your blade. And your mind should be as keen on what is going on, as well.  As you are the leader of this band, it is critical that you learn the first lessons so that you may lead in them by example.  The Xarmnians are flesh and blood the same as you and me, but the monsters here have abilities that you must be aware of and fight with both with your mind and your soul under the empowerment of The Word–The first sword made into flesh that lives and breathes and is breathing still through you.  As I said, it is you, who are a breathing sword.”

He let that sink in for a moment.

“Lord Nem, I know you are trying to help me, but I am struggling with the fact of my return here, and what The One wants me to do.  I am not sure I am the best choice for this mission.  I am not a natural leader.  In fact, if you were to speak to Jeremiah again, you’ll find that I was also not a very good follower.  I betrayed his leadership, and my only guess is that I was brought back here to correct what I got wrong.  To somehow recover The Cortis stone I let fall into the possession of The Pan.”

Nem was thoughtful and did not respond right away.

“I am told you are familiar with the Ancient Text, and that you can call it to mind as circumstances present themselves.  This ability is essential when fighting the creatures that stalk our lands.”

“Yes, but that was by accident.  I fell against The Marker Stone, and that ability was a byproduct of touching that sacred stone.  A result of my clumsiness more than anything.”

“Recite for me from the prophet Isaiah chapter 55 verse 8.”

My mind shifted and I quickly recited the passage: “For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.”

“Think carefully about those words.  What does that say about your reasoning as opposed to the perspective of The One?  You might be surprised how often what some believe to be a mistake is actually a benefit and a gift.  The One wastes nothing, even those things that seem to have come about by your own failings.  Because you have that ability, which you may believe was accidental, it serves in the providential plans The One has for you.  To face the particular form of creatures that will attempt to thwart you in your journey ahead.  You alone, and perhaps Begglar, have been preordained to fight those creatures that have come here from the void.  Be careful to not let novices, who have no understanding or familiarity with the Ancient Text, attempt to fight the monsters of this land, or you will guarantee their defeat.  Only the Ancient Text will cause them to succeed, but they must know it enough to handle it against the mind assaults of their adversary.  Flesh and blood may be defeated with practiced skill, but the weapons needed to defeat the creatures are not made of metal and steel alone.  Their arrows of the mind cannot be turned by armor plating, finely linked chain mail or the parry of a masterfully wielded blade.  Do you understand this?”

“I do.”

He sighed, clearly something was troubling him.  Some further uncertainty that I could not perceive in a man who otherwise seemed so confident and assured in his other decisions.   “There is something you are not telling me.  Something that troubles you more than my failing to understand the import of what we are here to do.  What is it?”

He was quiet for a long minute.  Finally, he spoke.  “As you know we are a city that survived and recovered from a terrible plague.  And now something has come to my attention that threatens to unleash that plague once more, despite our memorial efforts to ritualistically cleanse our city.   It could awaken the black tongue again.”

“Black tongue?”

Nem was quiet again for a moment and looked off into the distance.

“I will tell you of what ‘Black tongue’ means, but for now you need to know more of what the ritual we performed signifies, and how it fits in the future defense plans of this city.”

“I assumed it was to keep it clean against another plague. Was it not?” I asked.

“To defend it,” he reiterated pointedly.  “What you may not know about me is that I was born in this city, but was taken as a captive in my youth when the first caravans came through this area.  The caravan leaders then were the patriarchs of the two major warring human nations that now divide this country.  The nations that are now called Xarmni and Capitalia.  The patriarchs were relatives.  Cousins actually.  The regent Xarm and the regent who became king of Capitalia named Xerxes.  It was their custom for their successors to take their father’s first name, as a second name: a patronimic name, so called.  When the families eventually split and formed feuding factions, I was retained in service to Artemis Xerxes, the son and heir of Xerxes.  I came to be a trusted servant, such that I was given the responsibility of being the heir’s cup bearer, and was always present at the king’s table.  Artemis was in dread of spies from his uncle’s kingdom.  Both his father and his uncle were killed in the ensuing conflicts that arose from their feuding.  Most of Xarm’s sons were slain in the skirmishes and battles prior to his death, and Xarm was obsessed with retaining an heir to succeed him on Xarmni’s throne.  Before he died, he grudgingly conferred his legacy and rule on his bastard son, reportedly the child of one of his daughters.  The one who now calls himself by the title “Son of Xarm,” asserting his legitimacy.  From his death bed, Xarm charged him to exact eternal revenge on Capitalia, and his cousin, by conquering them and bringing them under subjection.  He was to subjugate and occupy any of the cities that remained friendly to Captialia or hoped for its aid, against the rising dominance of Xarmni beyond the mountain ranges and their wall.  Azragoth was one of those cities.”

“In the years that followed, Xarmni sent a sporatic succession of spies into Capitalia, on many failed assassination attempts to infiltrate the court, and take out the Capitalian monarch.  They succeeded once, taking out the father of the king I eventually was trained to serve.  He was poisoned, and I discovered the former cupbearer was paid handsomely to allow it to happen.  That man was then hung from the ramparts, and a vacancy opened up in the king’s service.  I volunteered and was given the position to serve the regent’s successor, with whom I had become friends while serving the royal family.

“As the king’s cupbearer, I was trained to detect the subtle presence of poisons that may be slipped into the king’s wine.  I became very skilled at detecting the trace differences in smell, color and taste.  Thus, I kept the new Capitalian king alive despite many further attempts to fell him.

“He came to trust me and value my judgment–My skill of detection, both in detecting poisons, but also in detecting artifice in those who served him.  The king confided in me, and I grew to respect and honor him, even though I was his conscripted servant.

“What I did not know through all of my captivity back then is that all my experiences were being used to prepare me for this work.  I learned from being a servant, what was most important for becoming a leader.  I learned from being in the king’s court what a hierarchial structure should look like and how the servants at court worked in concert to provide a support system for those in leadership.  I learned how the system relied on mutual trust, and how servant leadership changed the dynamic of a network of fear, to a organized system of mutual benefit, and shared vision.  Even in my role as cup bearer, I was given a vision of how to rebuild the city of Azragoth and establish a defense against overwhelming odds.  I gained not only insight, but the goodwill of allies and a king, willing to finance this rebuilding effort.  These experiences shaped the foundation of what we are doing in this city.  Even to the idea of cups.  Concentric cups, placed one within another, are indeed reflective of the design of this city.  The back of this city is under a cupola of the upper mesa.  Each ring extends in a semi-circle from the back of the overhanging cliff face.  The outer ring is in fact a poisoned cup, with series of underground vats holding the poisons and filth ritually and routinely purged from our city gutters, down the gullets into these holding tanks that are pitched and weighted against the downslope of the old front gates of the city.  We have effectively built a massive underground poisoned cup to be unleashed and spilled out into the old valley and fields below that once served as the attack grounds the Xarmnians used to lay siege to our city.

“The grounds of the old, weathered outer rings of this are set to collapse, thus pushing the lower vats to break the outer tubes forcing this poison to flood down into the valley below.  No standing army will survive a frontal assault of this city, upon the poisoned fields.  The black tongue will sweep them away, the same as it did the plague victims of this city, who in their sickness, suffered a swelling black tongue and constricted airways as they died in horrific spasms as the contagion spread through their bodies turning their veins black, webbing the appearance of their skin in a ghastly tangle of dark vines.

“My study of poisons providentially perpared me for effectively purging the plagued city of its former toxins.  I only learned this in hindsight.  The One truly moves in mysterious ways and wastes nothing of the experiences we go through to shape us for our roles in the future He had planned for our lives.  I know that now.  To become a leader, I first had to learn to see myself through the eyes of a servant.  All I had thought and reasoned to myself, was not according to the  mysterious ways of The One.  Only now, do I truly see.”

I pondered all that he had told me.  “The One wastes nothing,” I told myself.  Somehow those words comforted me, beckoning me out of the fog of my own self-doubts.  This insight from a man who was himself once a slave and was now the representative of the Capitalian monarch as governor of this region.  A profundity that had not escaped my notice.

Nem went on to tell me how the plague that had once destroyed Azragoth from within, would finally serve to destroy its enemies, and force any new attackers to contend with attempting to channel their forces through dense forests lines that flanked the wings of the city.  The trails through massive ancient boles of trees would hamper any dense attack and foil any attempt to build siege works or large trebuchet launchers to assault and breech the fortified sidewalls of the new city.  Only small hostile bands might enter the old city, but they would soon discover that the grounds of the outer dead rings had become an inner moat of seeping black death and filth, effectively killing any foolish combatant intent on reaching the heavily defended inner ring, that had been defensively coated with pitch and tar, only to be quelled by a cleansing offering of fire.

The prevailing winds that sweep downward from the uplands, just beyond the massive back walls of Azragoth, would drive the stench of the diseased spewing black sludge across the plain and would chase the armies off the open fields and drive out the ranks from approaching the old front of the ruined city gates.  Self-preservation and fear would consume the ranks and cause them to flee for their lives.  Any of the small bands foolhardy enough to touch or approach the pitched walls, would come away with tar smears that the army leaders would assume was plague contamination and the returning soldiers would be killed at a distance, rather than allowing them to rejoin their ranks for fear of carrying contagions.  The armies would unavoidably be divided and decimated, delivering Xarmni, once more, a humiliating defeat and granting Azragoth a few more years of unmolested quarantine.

It was a brilliant plan.  Filth and fire.  Sins of the city, purged and expunged by a following flush of fire, cauterizing old wounds.  The valley gate and the dung gate, had been enjoined together to form a cleansing gate that would outflow down into the Hinnon valley, where so much death had been buried in the old siege ditches dug by the former Xarmnian army that had invaded the city under plague long ago.

*Scene 01* – 4:13 (A Salted Ground)

The pit near Azragoth’s outer wall, filled with sucking mud, as the stream’s embankment crumbled into the hollowing that followed the beast’s descent beneath the massive wall.

The creature normally shunned water, but its objective lay deep within the underside of the walled acropolis.  Its outer skin smoked from the wet contact, but its movement through the rock strata and sediments soon dried its plated joints with anhydrous grit and gravel that sloughed away, as it clawed deeper into Azragoth’s underbelly towards the honeycombed voids it sought.

The newly clawed burrow filled with a mix of steam and scree, with large globs of mud expelled out through large bellowing gills, as the monster slither-clawed deeper and deeper into the underneath.

The buzzing in the creature’s head had increased, as if a tuning fork had been struck within its body, vibrating its armored plates, causing the thin lines around its scales to weep.  Its thoughts came rhythmically: Water burns… Salt stings… Earth fills… Blood spills… Rock sings… Darkness churns… Its effort to refocus grappling and trying to outpace its rising sense of alarm.

It knew.  The Eternal Stone knew… what the beast was seeking.  The vibration was a warning, which the monster sensed and remembered from long before. (Num. 16:31-32)  After the warning, came the fire, engulfing and sending the greed-driven beast into the void.  It’s punishment was just.  It had tasted blood and consumed flesh.  But its greed had lured, and its hunger had pushed it out of the old world into the spaces between.  And there it had waited…for centuries, to find a way into this ‘other realm.’  It knew.  This time, if it lost its way once more…  The fire would find it again, and its passage into the void would result in chains, bound into the eternal burning dark where time no longer had meaning.  But above…

It could smell living flesh.  Pumping hearts, oblivious to its presence.  A city of houses.  A hive of… morsels.

Its cold, blue eye blinked once, then twice, and its hunger became a voice. “If I am destined to eternally exist in unquenchable fire, I shall bring down the house with me.”  A defiant voice of thunderous declaration: “FOR I AM THE UNDYING WORM!  A LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD!!  KEEPER OF THE GRAVES OF THE DEAD!!!  I AM SHEOL!!!!”

The roaring boast of ‘The Beast’ rumbled and echoed through tunnels and caves piercing the hollows with spears of sharpened sound.  Above, in the ghost city, the sound rolled like distant thunder, beneath the din and chatter of an active and vibrant village.

Once inside the cavern system, the monster entered a large chamber.  It cast an echo bounce, sonically exploring the measure and depth of the chamber.

This would do.  But first it must consume… a foundation,…before it could raise an army.

*Scene 02* – 17:50 (Cleaning The Baby)

In upper Azragoth, a gray-bearded man stepped up on a raised dais in the center of the courtyard and raised his arms for attention.

The crowds around us began to quiet down as all attention focused upon him.

“This evening we have guests in our midst who are unfamiliar with our customs here.  They are here on trial and tonight they will be tested as they join us in this evening’s duty to our citizenry.  You all are familiar with this practice, but for the benefit of these newcomers, I will explain it only briefly before we begin.”

Here he looked down among the crowd and Corimanth pointed me out in the congregation to him.

“You there!” he said gesturing to me, “I am told you are called O’Brian.”

“Thanks,” I muttered under my breath to Begglar.

To which he almost cheerily responded, “Don’t mention it.”

In a louder voice, I answered the gray-bearded man, “I am.”

“Do you vouch for these others you are traveling with?  And are you prepared to be held personally responsible for their actions in our city, as the one who leads them?”

The eyes of those traveling with me on our shared quest turned to me expectantly.

The pressure was on, and they and the townsfolk and the leaders all awaited my answer.

Never let it be said that leadership is an enviable role when the weight of its implied responsibility is laid heavily and squarely upon one’s shoulders.  What the man was asking of me, was a tall order, and would be even for a captain who had led seasoned soldiers into battle whom he knew by experience could be trusted.  Those I led in the fellowship were largely unknown to me.  I only knew them to be a part of the willing, some of which had already questioned my methods and judgment and had no knowledge of what I was capable of, or where exactly I was leading them.  Only four had entrusted me with their names.  Five, if you counted Laura, who had left our company to return to the Surface World.  One, the young man called Will, had given me his name grudgingly.   Lindsey had volunteered her name in trust while we waited in the dried creekbed for Begglar to administer the Shibboleth test, before I was able to take up the Honor Sword–what Begglar saw as a signet of my calling to lead the present Stone Quest.

Three of our company had deserted and turned back, two of these were slain by the Protectorate guards, as we had together witnessed, and the other was presumed dead as well.  Only Miray and later Christie had without hesitation given me their names, though with Christie my actions in our confrontation with the Troll had not warranted her trust.  It was a hard thing, being asked of me, but one I knew I must be willing to take if I was to lead them any further.  I once asked myself if I would be willing to die to protect them.  If that is the ultimate stand for leadership, this act of vouching for them was a call to bravery, and a test of my own mettle and my will to commit to what needed to be done.

As I looked from each of their expectant faces, at once nervous, and tense, I then turned to the elder and clearly gave my answer.

“I will.”

It was time that I put some faith in them if I expected them to put any trust in me or the calling to which I strove to fulfill.

“So be it!” the elder answered after a pause.

“You are all witnesses,” he spoke to the citizenry of Azragoth within hearing of his voice.

“Tonight and every night at the close of a week since that terrible sickness that took many from us, years ago, we perform this service to our city and for our posterity, a cleansing of the vile filth that runs beneath us.  You among us, unfamiliar with this will learn and participate with us in this cleansing.  We have over time come to refer to this process as ‘Cleaning the baby’.”

Citizens around us chuckled as we newcomers looked from one to the other in puzzlement.

“Like any helpless child, an infant naturally soils itself during the course of a day.  Some children, more than most.”

Laughter broke out and the crowd seemed to be enjoying their shared joke.

“Corimanth was to have told you how our city came to have been ravaged by a plague of disease-carrying rats.  That these vile creatures came upon us from the gullets and gutters of this town.  So each night at the close of a week, we observe the following practice before retiring for the evening.”

The man nodded to those carrying the poles with half-moon blades and they fanned out into the crowd coming to stand before each of our party, holding the vile-smelling instruments.

“These men and women who stand before you now, bearing the rakes,” he continued, “will direct you by example to perform the ritual with us down each of the main streets of our city.  Watch what they do, and prepare yourselves to take over their duty, alternating upon each street until we come to the walls of the inner curtain.  There the gullets deepen and expand below the killing fields and there our evening duties will end in the dead sectors of the city.  No one is to go beyond the inner curtain wall.  Citizens of Azragoth, you each have your duties.  Assist these newcomers as need be, but do not perform the task for them, when it is their turn.  You have your orders.”

And then, in a louder voice, he gave the charge to all, “Now.  Let them be opened!”

The sudden cacophonous sound of metal striking thousands of stones echoed around us, and the sound cascaded through the streets of the city, startling us as we witnessed the use to which the citizens were putting their long metal hooks.  Paver stones lining the gutters were being wedged and levered upward as the flat-bladed of each metal hook was driven into the grooved edge between the mortared and cobbled stones of the street and gutter.  A vile, putrescence smell arose from the overturned and exposed gutter running beneath the upended stones.

I winced as I overheard one of my travelers quietly whisper to another, “Oh joy! They’re gonna let us clean their toilets.  What a fun and happening place, this is gonna be!  So, when are we leaving?”

Before I could turn and respond to the insensitive rudeness, each of our Azragothian guides called us to attention, to watch what they would do next.

The gray-bearded fellow, who had spoken to us from the central dais, descended carrying his own pole with that vile blackened half-moon blade drifting downward as he approached.

“Follow me,” he said, as he neared me, and I made my way after him, as he approached the tapering end opening to the vile-smelling trench.  A stream of greenish water ran from a recessed pipeline made of puddled barrel tiling and a sluicing levered gate controlled the flow of water fed into the vile underground trench.  The water from the sluice was fairly clear, but as it progressed down the slanted trench the more clouded and greenish it became.

The elder man pivoted and dipped the curved end of his blade into the water so that the edges of the blades fit within the curved bottom of the trench.  He shifted the pole in his hands and worked his following-hand further back to grip nearer the end of the pole.  He turned to me and with his free hand extended, he formally introduced himself.

“I am called Ezra.  I am the head of the council of Azragoth, and also the leader here and mayor of the city.  I have a singular philosophy of leadership, not shared by most men and women in places of prominence, and it is simply this:  A leader is the first in line willing to do what he expects others to learn by his example.  And so I have done, for over fifty-seven years of my life.  I have been where I have asked others to go.  I have done, what I have asked others to do.  These are the things that have brought me success as a leader, and the respect required to maintain it.  These are lessons you would be wise to learn if those sojourning with you are to follow you in trust.  If you do not first commit to them, why should you expect them to commit to you and entrust their safety to you?”

Time for me to take some of my own medicine, I thought.  But there was wisdom in the man’s words, so I took his hand in a clasp of trusting goodwill.  There was much I needed to learn, and I was pleased and astounded, that the one teaching me to lead was also the one teaching me humility by his very example.

“Now watch closely.”

He began to scrape the bottom gently, causing the blackened and green sludge to rise and cloud the trench water, as he moved the pole down the gullet way.  Water sluiced past and began to carry the vile sludge forward, and the citizens on either side of us flipped and set back each paving stone into place as we passed them, and I learned the skillfully demonstrated technique.

Together we worked the trenches, shoveling and pushing muck further down the gullets, me working the moon-toothed pole and blade he called a ‘Monk’s spade’, and alternating with him when I became fatigued.  The knotted and corded muscles in his arms, as he worked the blade through the sludge and muck, sluicing the day’s accumulation down ahead of us, belied his age.  This man was not only a leader, but a laborer and potentially a warrior in his own right, so very different from politicians I was familiar with in the Surface World.  A doer, not just a talking point.  Pavers were turned and then resealed, some individually, some cleverly pivoting upon a hinge and winch system of ropes and wooden pulleys, exposing larger sections of the gullet trench, thereby speeding our progress.

I wondered how the others were faring with their leads.  Over the course of our labor, I learned that this duty was performed once per week and that each of the others leading the effort was elders of the city council.  I was asked many questions, as I am sure the others were as well, and it seemed to me that this was both a disarming and clever way to both test and discover our commitment, intentions and our individual character in short order.  The council could have just as easily, brought us before them and listened to our designated spokesperson, but they would never truly know us until they worked alongside us and made a direct observation on what was an unseemly and very humbling duty.

I better understood the playful metaphor the elder had made about ‘Cleaning the Baby’.  This job was a labor of love, just like any mother’s or father’s task would be in cleaning their soiled infant.  It wasn’t pleasant, it smelled horrid, and the best thing to do was just to get in there and get it done, but be thorough about it, all the while knowing that the precious child wiggling and squirming about, has no idea what this unpleasantness must be done for them.  It is a thankless duty, but a nurturing, loving parent does it in spite of how tired they may feel or repulsed by the extent of it.  They may be finely dressed for an evening out, or attired in sweats and a badly faded T-Shirt, they still perform it because their child has a need for it.  So too, the city of Azragoth was a town that suffered greatly, but its community of suffering brought its people together in a way nothing else could.  Its long-dead former leadership had neglected the upkeep of the city and sought only to become a great commercial center for the area.  It welcomed all but forgot that it was regarded as the city on a hill performing an over-watch for the smaller towns below.

When our duties finally led us to the inner walls of the city, we closed up the last paver-stone over the deeper gullet way, and Ezra, the city elder turned to me.

“The Monk’s spade,” he said, lifting the blackened blade from the ground, “serves both as a tool and a weapon.”

He turned the blade slowly as he lifted and pivoted the pole, letting water drain off of its slick black surface.  The edge of the blade shown silver despite the darkening twilight, its scraped surface sharpened against the bottom of the gullet pipeline we had followed through our course through the city streets.

“Any weapon you take up, you must learn its duality and how to use it to serve both purposes with equal skill.”

The moon-shaped arcs at either side of the blade hissed as he swung the pole in a slashing arc, then caught the pole in a sweeping motion, it blade gleaming in the lowering sun.

“This blade is now one of the seven deadliest blades in the city.  Your people followed the other elders who carried the remaining six.”

He fixed his gaze on me evenly.

“This blade is not deadly because of its present handler, nor because of my skill in its use as a fighting weapon.  It is deadly because its blade has been through the sickness and sins of this city.  A mere scratch from this blade will kill a man because it is a vile weapon used for the purposes we have served here.”

“Consider well the weapons that may be used against you and your company.  Do not rely on your own ability or become complacent in the lack of ability of another.  It is the nature of a weapon employed against you that should cause awareness and your plan of countering it or evading it.  Many skilled and practiced warriors have been felled by novice opponents.  You and your travelers must learn to counter many different types and ways of attacking.  So whatever weapon you choose, you must learn the method for which you will counter and turn the danger of another.”

Ezra executed a posture of assault and then defense, spinning the deadly blade this way and that, deftly handling the pole both mid and end ranged along the shaft.

“But most importantly,” he added, with a flourish and then a slash that landed and sliced in the ground mere inches from his own feet, “be wary that your own blade, does not fell you.”

He stepped away from the blade and the pole, now swaying with the force of the impact, its blade drove deep between the stones of the cobbled street.

An attendant came forward and struggled to remove the blade from between the stones, and with some effort was eventually successful.

Ezra extended his arm and guided me in walking with him as we returned to the market courtyard.

“That is enough for the evening.  Let us retire.  Apartments have been prepared for you and your travelers.  Tomorrow, you and your company will learn of the Breathing Sword.  Now, it is time, my friend, that we all had a bath and a good night’s rest.  There will be much to do in the morning.  My captain of the army, whom we call The Eagle is expected to return any day now.  He will guide you through to the Lake Country and around the movements of the gathering armies.  In the meantime, you and your company will need to learn to see, and I believe you have a highly qualified person skilled in that very thing traveling with you.”

I had heard Begglar speak of this, but now it was coming around from a surprising direction.

“Nell?”

“She is well known in the surrounding parts, even though it has been extremely long since she last visited us here in Azragoth.”

“What does that mean exactly?  Learning to ‘see’?”

He smiled and patted my back indulgent, yet not patronizing.

“At the risk of sounding redundant, my boy.  You will see.”

*Scene 03* – 09:52 (Fault Lines)

In the early morning hours of the next day, a man of some authority and prominence in the hidden city of Azragoth, rode a donkey along the perimeter of the town’s radiating streets observing the work progress and rebuilding effort of the prior day.

His attendant followed him, carrying a scroll, making notes of his master’s observations and taking dictation for the guidance to be given to those with direct supervison over the specific repairs and rebuilding efforts.

“This wall is off plumb.  Whose residence is near this construction?”

“That would be the House of Tekoites, your lordship.”

“Was a foundation dug for the base support here?”

“Yes. Chetsrown and his team assisted in setting the footings all along here running to the northern gate.  The existing wall goes down six cubits or more below ground.  Height is approximately eighteen cubits but its breadth is ten so the base fill is offset.”

“The weight of the wall must be crushing the lower stones.  See that this gets fortified and add a buttress to the balance along here.”  He paused, studying the deviating wall, considering what more might be done to shore it up.

“Tell Yadown, we need to quarry more stone for the eastern wall.  I could not even ride Yaktan through that area, it was so bad.  I believe the Xarmnian’s focused their catapults in the assault there.  The area is all in rubble.”

“So noted,” the attendant said, scribbling something on the parchment roll, he balanced on a slate.

“I heard there was some serious damage done along the Fountain Gate near the King’s Pool.  That area was supposed to have been repaired a month ago.  Now I can’t even take a pack mule down there.  What has been going on?  I am seeing more and more of this poor workmanship of late.  Are the men staying vigilant?  Their homes are not far from these constructions.  One would think they might do more to protect their families.”

The attendant seemed puzzled.  “They seemed to be enthusiastic.  I am not sure what might have changed in their efforts.”

“Have Ezra ride the perimeter and periodically visit the work crews unannounced.  He has a good sense about people, and a sharp eye.  He will know if there are dissemblers.  Not much gets by him.”

“I will speak with Erza personally, my Lord Nem,” the attendant responded.

“No,” the man called ‘Lord Nem’, responded dismissing his attendant’s offer.  “I will speak to Ezra.  I want to personally get his take.  We cannot waste anymore time, with the troop movements to the southeast, and Capitalian armies coming down from the northwest.  There are even stealthy sightings from The Pan and his abominations.  There is a convergent coming and rumors and shrouds of the forests of Kilrane will not hide us forever.  We must rebuild this city strong enough to stand against its discovery.  Xarmni will not set by and allow us to be reborn.”

Just then a rider came down one of the city streets along the barrier wall near the repair scaffolds and hailed the two,  “My Lord Nem!”

The two halted, awaiting the approach of the coming rider.

The man reigned his horse turning it to approach the two men with a sidewise step.  “My Lord, more guests from the highland have just arrived.  One of The Lehi is with them.  You know him well.  He begs an audience with you as soon as may be.”

“Another Lehi brings us ‘more company’,” Lord Nem sniffed, disapprovingly.  “What part of hidden city, do they not understand?!  We are in the midst of a secret rebuild, and all Maeven and her Lehi can think of it to invite outsiders?”

“Which of the Lehi seeks the audience?  I would have him answer a few questions of my own!”

“The one called Ryden, my Lord.”

“And what is his message and excuse?!” Nem demanded.

“He would not say.  He said he could only speak to you, my Lord.”

“Does he not understand how busy we are while he and The Storm Hawk go galavanting about the countryside stirring up trouble?!  We could use their help here!”

The newcomer bowed, unsure of how to answer or assuage Nem’s concerns.

“Seems like we’ve had nothing but distractions since the outworlders arrived.  First the trouble with the lazy nobles of the Tekoites failing to assist the supervisors.  Now more ‘guests’ to contend with and charge to secrecy.  It is time these interlopers were routed out and disciplined.”

Here he turned to his attendant, “Make a note.  I will require the Tekoites to perform double duty on the broken section across from the great tower and keep that juts out, as far as the wall of Ophel.  Since their nobles cannot stoop to assist their family, their family will bear a greater burden because of it.  And pray that I don’t assign them the repair of the Dung Gate as well, helping Malchijah son of Rechab.  One word of complaint from them, and their residences will be forcibly relocated there…permanently!  It is enough bearing the mockery of our rebuilding efforts that we have endured from Tobias and Sanballat in the resistence, but they have no claims here.  I suspect they are playing both sides and enriching themselves in the bargain.  Laziness and shoddy workmanship will not be tolerated further.  I’m seeing foundational cracks, and fault lines appearing through the city worksites.  I want to see these issues addressed.  This work is dedicated to The One.  I want to see workmen who take this responsibility seriously.”

Presently, a rider came down the corridor along the inner wall.  The former messenger turned and quickly identified the approaching man.  “Here he comes.  It is the Lehi named Ryden, I spoke of.”

Nem looked hard at Ryden as he approached quickly.

“Lord Nem!” he called.

“Lehi Ryden,” Nem acknowledged.  “Come to bring more outsiders into our secreted city?”

Ryden blinked, puzzled by the cool reception, and then swung down out of his saddle to stand before Nem.  “I apologize for the interruption, my Lord.  But I must speak with you in private.  There is a very urgent matter, that involves your work here.”

Nem sighed and dismounted, and his attendant did as well, holding the reins of the two animals leading them back a ways, giving the men a chance to speak discreetly.

“Now, what is this urgency all about.  What have you come back to the city?  Were you followed?”

Ryden’s expression was grave.  “Preceded is more likely.  We have taken in two of the locals from the hamlet of Crowe.  Shimri and his wife Aida.  They are part of the resistence working in the highlands.  There is a little known and rarely used wooded trail decending from Rim Wood down along the edge of the highland ridge into Kilrane, joining with the hidden backtrail to Azragoth.  It is overgrown and there are very few who would even know it was ever there.  We Lehi have used it a time or two when there was no way down from the uplands to the main road descent, and we had to skirt the townships to avoid being seen.”

“You mentioned the word ‘preceded’…” Nem reminded him, hinting that he should get to the point.  “…by Xarmnians?”

Ryden huffed, shaking his head.  “If only it were that…  Those could be dealt with in the backwood trails by the tree scouts.  Jeremiah trained a few of those personally.”

Nem crossed his arms, “Then what is it?”

“Coming along that trail, the three of us witnessed a depression in the woods.  At first I thought it was a small ravine, but the trees within and on either side had been displaced.  Their roots sheared away, their trunks canted inward and outward, and the surface vegetation had wilted.  Something was coming from under the forest.  Something large enough to cause the surface damage to Rim Wood, and to burrow through its underground.”

“Why wasn’t this news brought to me sooner?  Crowe is but a half day’s ride from here, and if you were coming by way of this shorter route, you should have been here sooner.”

Ryden shook his head, “The trench was unstable.  We couldn’t cross over it without risking falling through into whatever tunnel was below.  We had to ride far enough along the ditches until the burrowing creature descended deep enough to leave the ground above unaffected.  We had a tough time getting down the trail avoiding the damage path that wound up and down, but soon it became very clear.”

Nem waited and Ryden finished, “The digger was headed directly for Azragoth.  It may be under the city even as we speak.  We discovered a ragged hole emerging out of the highland ridge, that had collapsed part of the upper rock shelf.  Bridges were crushed below, and trees were abraded.”

Nem stiffened, his brow furrowing and his jaw tightening, upon hearing Ryden’s words.

“The creature must’ve entered under the backwall somewhere near The Fountain Gate near the King’s Pool.  I am assuming you have already seen the damage done there.”

Nem squeezed Ryden’s arm and said, “Come with me.  The council will need to know of this at once.  We must address this before further damage can be done.”

*Scene 04* – 13:35 (Morning Reflections)

The evening before had been a humbling and learning experience for most of us, but for some, it had been angering and humiliating.  I had heard more than a few muttered complaints from my fellow travelers and a couple of barely veiled threats from two, whom I could not yet tell if their words were seriously meant of in groused jest.  One had lost their shoes, in the cleansing exercise.  Angry, vigorous use of the Monk’s spade had caused the muck to slosh out of the trench and spattered their footwear.  Because of the smell of the vile, putrefying filth, the person’s shoes had to be removed and burned.  They were given replacement footwear that was actually better than the shoes they had surrendered to the fire.  The person was humbled, apologetic and grateful for the gracious treatment they were given by the elder and Azragothian citizens who witnessed their ordeal and did not remark upon the person’s barely disguised frustration at being asked to perform the cleansing with them.  I was told that the elder herself, knelt down and helped them remove their contaminated footwear, and a basin was brought, and to the traveler’s surprise, the elder washed and cleansed their feet, despite their protest.  The person was so moved by the gesture, that for the remaining journey through the streets they worked diligently and respectfully alongside the elder and pondered what the work here signified. 

After a night spent in reflection, the person, a man in his mid-thirties, came to me at breakfast and introduced himself to me and told me of his experience.

“Mr. O’Brian,” he said, “I want you to know that I am with you in what you are doing here.  I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am.  There is something about this journey, this quest that I need to be part of, to learn more about.  These people here are unlike most of the people I encounter in my waking life in the Surface World.  If what you are doing can save some of them, they need to be given that chance.  So, I want you to give you my name.”

“Are you certain?” I asked, “What we are involved in will not be well received here.  We will be looked upon as interlopers…troublemakers…pot stirrers.”

“I am.  I made my decision last night, only I could not find you after the crowds left and they took us to our quarters.  I’m James”, he said, extending his hand, “and I wanted you to know you can count on me.”

I was moved and touched, and could not speak for a moment, but took his hand and clasped it in grateful friendship.

“Thank you,” I managed to say, and he nodded his understanding, perhaps seeing in my eyes the more heartfelt, articulate words I wanted to say but left unspoken.

As he turned to go join the others in the breakfast line, I pondered what the Azragothians had shown us as well, something that had a more meaningful dimension to it.

My conclusion was this:
Underneath the surface of each of our lives, buried in hidden tunnels beneath the streets of our daily experience, there is a stream of vile filth that ebbs and flows in the human heart.  Many move through life unaware of it, taking no notice until the detritus in the tunnel builds and leaks out unleashing a plague of devouring rats into our lives that wreak havoc and misery.  Our illusions of our surface-self break down until we are forced to confront the source of the plague, and deal with it in some fashion, or succumb to its deadly consequences due to our neglect.  To deal with it alone makes us susceptible to disease which will ultimately take our lives and destroy us in the process.   We require something more than our own efforts.  Something that will protect us from the certain contagion.  It must be dealt with if we are to survive it.  There is no moving away from it, for the outside world has quarantined us, and someone is bound to eventually recognize us if we try to leave it behind.  We cannot hope to survive if we do not recognize its danger to our own life as well as to the lives of those around us.  Here in Azragoth, the city came together to address their filth problem.  They each took part in it, whether high or low.  They treated it with sobriety of what their actions were preventing.

My ruminations were suddenly interrupted by several of my traveling companions who joined me at a table.

“We have a few questions for you, Mister O’Brian.”

I sighed, bracing myself for what might follow.

“We don’t know what is going on here.  If what we did last night once caused a plague outbreak, none of us want to get sick here.  These people are nice and everything, but they are strange.  They are polite, but somehow we get the feeling they want us to be gone soon,” Cheryl said.

“Yeah, and any mention of a stone quest makes some of them really nervous.  Why is that?” Lindsey asked. “Corimanth hinted at something the other day that you haven’t told us about.  We want to know, where are these stones we are supposed to get, and why so far we haven’t found one yet.”

I swallowed and gestured for them to sit and they gathered around on the benches near me.

“First off, I need to do some apologizing of my own.” I cleared my throat.

“Mid-Worlders can see something about us that we cannot see for ourselves.  There is no fooling them who we are or where we come from.  Residents of this place have adapted to a visual spectrum we cannot see with our eyes aclimated to the Surface World.  Our vision is dulled to it.  Being a Surtface Worlder myself, I can only attest to this from second hand accounts.  Begglar is the only one I know of that has been given that adaptation to see as they do, though, not having grown into it from birth, his clarity is limited.”

“So they see us differently?” Christie asked.

“Yeah. We are foreigners to them.  No matter where we go.  And Azragoth has suffered greatly because of ‘foreigners’.  Some of our former group were hunted here.  Whenever we arrive, in their minds, we seem to bring trouble with us.”

“So that is why they are anxious for us to leave,” Lindsey said, her hand gripping the open palm of her other.

“That is part of it,” I answered, “but the other is that we represent the Stone Quests.”

“How is that a problem?” Christie asked.

“It is a problem for those of the resistence, who no longer believe in the Stone Quests.  There are two factions resisting the Xarmnian advance, three if you count the zealots, but they are barely held together in a weaking coalition between them: those who still have faith in the old ways and in the mystery of The Marker Stone, and those who merely want to shun the past and thwart the Xarmnians by weakening them and appearing to get along with them until the opportunity comes to undermine them.  We represent the old way, and it upsets the tenuous balance between them and their willingness to cooperate with each other.  They each know that they need unity to take the stand against their oppressors, but passions are raw and sometimes they cause schisms.”

“So where do the Azragothians stand in all this?”  Lindsey probed.

“It has been a long time for me.  I would think that the Azragothians lean towards the older ways, but that may have changed.  Ezra, whom I met last night, seems to be of the older way faction, sympathetic to the prospect of the Stone Quests.  He and perhaps Corimanth, may be the reasons we were not immediately turned away from the city and sent packing.  We are short on finding allies here.  Tolerance may be only what we can expect.”

“Well at least they are feeding us, even if we did have to clean their mucked up gutters.” Will interjected.

James spoke up for the first time since joining our table. “We are disarmed.  Not much we can do, among so many.  Others seem to have ready access to weaponry, but all our gear and supplies are elsewhere.  These people seem to be tolerating us well, but I would agree, we are not entirely safe among them.”

Others concurred, and Will spoke up again.  “If we are now part of the Stone Quest, shouldn’t we know where these stones are?  Where we need to go to get them?”

I cleared my throat again.  “I do remember speaking about that.  By what you are not understanding is the nature of the virtue stones.  They are each unique.  They embody a concept and a nature.  They can be very dangerous in some respects, and very comforting in others.”

“You’re getting cryptic again,” Cheryl lamented.  “This place is strange yet familiar.  I don’t know why that is.  Can’t wrap my head around it.  Girls who aren’t little girls.  Some squat thuggish being who purports to be a troll that can see into our fears.  I don’t know whether we are in Narnia or Mordor?”

I laughed, unable to restrain the chuckle, not wishing to diminish the seriousness of her complaint.  “It is perhaps a bit of both, in some ways.”

The group was quiet, reflective.

“When I can seem to grasp something, sometimes I need to take hold of it another way.”

“How do you mean?” asked Lindsey.

“We often come at concepts in the frame of our own experience.  But…  What if…”  I twisted my fingers together, signify a complex concept.  “What if… we are not meant to rely on our own frame alone, but allow another perspective to guide us…?”

I let the question linger.

“What if there is a higher way of looking at our experience…through the lens of a codex?”

“The words on The Marker Stone?” Christie offered.

“Exactly,” I nodded.  “There is a verse that comes to mind:

“For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:9

“For all of my experience here, that codex is the key to understanding.  This Mid-World is the imprint of The One, so there will be things we understand here, only in light of what the codex (The Ancient Text) reveals.  We have to adapt to a new frame of reference, beyond our personal experience to find out what we can about this place and the things in it.  You will find familiar things, but you will also find unfamiliar aspects as well.  The Stones follow their nature and we will experience them according to their nature, not our own.  That is how we will find them.  They will be sort of “looking for” us.  Not us looking for them.”

Christie waved a hand over her head, as if directing a blowing wind through her hair.  “Whoosh!  Did anyone get that?”

Lindsey leaned in, “I the previous quest, when you found the Cord…  The other stone.  What was it called?”

“The Cordis Stone.  We found it only when we came to a point where we were surrounded by enemies.  Jeremiah was in a fight on a cliffside.  He had to put himself at risk…for an enemy.  Unknown to us at the time, that was at the heart of The Cordis Stone’s nature–To love an enemy.”

The others fell back in shock. “Whoah!”

“He saved the man who had fallen down a way and was clinging to a ledge.  Jeremiah gripped a rock ledge and hung down, extending an arm to the Xarmnian, and pulled him up.  The man would’ve died there if Jeremiah hadn’t done what he did, and none of us would have regretted it.  When Jeremiah came back down from the mountain, he was holding The Cordis Stone.  It glowed a ruby red with an inner fire in it.”

“And you say this creature, a half-man, half-beast has this Cordis Stone now?!” one of the others, yet unknown to me asked.  “You must be out of your mind!”

At that moment, I saw inner conflicts arising on each of faces who had so far given me their names.  And I understood exactly what they were feeling.  All too well.

Begglar and Nell arrived at our table about that time and Begglar was smiling, and had another couple in their company.

“O’Brian.  I’d like you to meet Shimri and Aida, my neighbors from Crowe.  They have just arrived and we have some catching up to do.”

Then he noticed the stricken look on the faces of the others seated with me at the table and said, “What’s wrong?”

*Scene 05* – 10:44 (Significance of The Sword)

Word came to the Azragothian council that an emergency secret conclave was being called.  Ezra, Maeven and others were not present at the morning breakfast in the large hall.  Instead they met in a private chamber in the governor’s residence and were met with grave looks as they entered.  Maeven came in with Ezra bearing an oblong, wrapped package enshrouded in a cloak.

When the sentries closed the double doors and stepped back into the hallway, Nem and one of Maeven’s Lehi stood at the head of the table.  Maeven smiled recognizing Ryden.

Nem gestured for the gathered to be seated, but he remained standing, his fingers splayed and pressed at the edge of the long table.

“I received distressing news this morning from one of our Lehi Scouts that there is something threatening our beloved city.  Ryden, will you tell them what you told me.”

Here Nem took his seat and gestured for Ryden to take the floor.

Ryden recounted what he and his two charges had witnessed coming up the secret path from Crowe to join the back route to Azragoth.  He told of the wooded depressions, the uprooted trees, the wilted undergrowth foliage showing that the subterranean destruction was recently done.  He told of the collapsed upper shelf of rock and the debris field showing something very large and destructive was tracking and trampling through the forest on a direct path towards the hidden city.

Here Nem stood up, allowing Ryden to once again take a seat.

“There is evidence of this creature doing similar damage beneath our city.  I’ve had the outer wall along the backwoods examined, and we believe this creature is now somewhere in the quarry caverns below, undermining the substructure that holds our town above the ancient diggings.”

“We should never have allowed those passages to be quarried,” one of the council women groused.  “We have done this to ourselves.  Rebuilding Azragoth in a clandestine fashion was foolish.”

Ezra came to Lord Nem’s defense.  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten how the region now fares under Xarmni’s fists,” he observed mildly.  “How there are others who do not wish to see Azragoth rebuild, no matter how much they hate the Xarmnians.  It is probable that they might even alert Xarmni to stop it.  Some have even profited having done so.  Selling out their own.”

Another answered, “No one need remind us of the mockery we’ve suffered from our ‘brothers-in-arms’.”  He said, adding a mocking tone and snarl in stating the latter term.

“They are not a part of us,” Nem spoke up.  “I have often warned about letting outsiders in.  The present company included.”

Maeven cleared her throat, “Outsiders would include me and our lauded general ‘The Eagle’, in case anyone here has forgotten.”

Nem looked directly at her.  “One must question when of late the Lehi that follow you are bringing in strangers.”

“Have I not shown you my loyalties?  Have I not served to keep Xarmni and its thugs at bay, chasing us all over the Mid-World highlands, while you and your teams focus on the rebuilding efforts?!”

“It is not your loyalty we question, Maeven Storm Hawk, but your vetting process and acting upon your own volition to bring in these others.” Nem countered evenly.

“It is ironic to have my judgement so censured when I risk my life personally every time I leave this sacred city in its defense.”

“My question is,” one of the other counsel members asked, “what makes you so certain of the intentions of these outworlders who you’ve brought into our midst?”

Ezra broke in, “Let’s table that question for a moment and,” he turned to Maeven raising a placating hand, “…rest assured we will come back to that.  What I wish to know is, what you all observed last evening when we took these newcomers into our ritual cleansing.  How did they respond?”

The table took turns speaking about their observance of the reactions and participation of the outworlders.  Some expressed that their charges were negative and indignant, reluctant to take the Monk Spades and rakes.  Some grudgingly acquieced, but there was a tension in how they gripped the instruments, signifying their frustration.  Others were more complimentary of their charges, seeing that these guiding them were not just the street sweepers of the city, but members of the upper council, humbling administering the task and not shirking their own participation in it.  The questions came around to Ezra and his experience with the so-called leader of this outworld group.

“I was pleasantly surprised, by this O’Brian.  He seemed genuine in his efforts, careful to follow the guidance.  He was perceptive and thoughtful.  Humble and unassuming.  He listened to every word and did not evade my questions, even when he knew to what they turned.  I believe he lacks confidence.  He is hesistant and fearful, and that concerns me as much as if he were self-assured and over confident.  He does not know this, but he presents a danger, both to himself and others, if he does not come to terms with embracing his own need for dependancy.”

“An astute observation,” Nem commented dryly.  “On balance, what would you say of these outworlders.  Should we put them out, or let them stay a while longer?”

Ezra straightened and looked directly at Nem.  “I think this present danger beneath our city is connected with these outworlders.”

A murmur of alarm arose at his words, but Ezra raised his hand.  “Let me finish.  While I do believe our present danger is connected to these outworlders, I do not think we will save ourselves by putting them out of Azragoth.  I think whatever is happening below will continue until this hunting creature is dealt with.  If the beast is drawn towards the old gates in the dead sector, which it most assurdly would be, it will breach the underground vats of the sewage we purge from our city and expose us to the outside world before we are ready.  The Black Tongue is a fail safe measure for desparate defense, not a first line.  If the creature breaches that resevoir, the underground quarries will be flooded.  The grain silos will be spoiled.  The rebuilding efforts will be halted and we are done.  We will sink into our own defilement.  The secret routes of passage will have to be closed.  We will be dealing ourselves our own deathblow.”

Nem nodded gravely.  “What you say is true.  Sending them out now serves no purpose.  What do you propose we do?”

“Have you considered the story of the prophet Jonah?”

Nem’s eyes widened.  “I think I know what you are proposing, but lets discuss this later.  Jonah was directed.  What do we know of this O’Brian?  Is he capable of seeing what needs to be done.  Of surrendering himself to Providence?  How do we know he is the one called to serve?”

Maeven rose and pulled the package she had carried in to the conference chamber.  “I think this might answer that question for you, Lord Nem.  You may not recognize this man now, but you knew him once before.  He was a capable warrior once.  Yet he has aged since we last saw him.  Imagine what he must’ve looked like twenty-one years ago.”

Maevan unwrapped the package and revealed it’s contents.

It was a sword.  And not just any sword.

“I believe you may recognize this,” she said, looking meaningfully at Nem.

Upon seeing the weapon, Nem raised up and moved in for a closer look.

“Where did you get this?!”  Nem’s eyes turned to Maeven, a stunned look n his face.

“O’Brian had it in his possession.  You know exactly what it means.  He is the one who was chosen to resume the Stone Quest and he carried with him Azragoth’s Honor Sword.  The very one you brought back from Capitalia from the court of the Capitalian King Artemis Xerxes.  Cousin to the former king of Xarmni.  You were King Xerxes’ cup bearer, were you not, before getting the king’s commission to rebuild Azragoth.  You bear the signet of the Capitalian king to become the regional governor, once Azragoth is rebuilt.  You know the this Sword has a history and is the signet of a Stone Quest as well.”

Nem’s breathe released through his teeth and then he straightened.  “You are correct.  No one could lift this sword from the grip of the Terebinth.  Only the one called to carry it again.  You have acted properly.  If this man is to do what needs to be done, and if The One has chosen him to bear our city’s sword, then he will be protected by The One in doing so.”

Here he turned to Ezra.  “Ezra, assemble this company of outsiders in The Warrior’s Court.  We will see what mettle of men and women we are dealing with.  Let them think this is an additional test.  I will take into consideration what must be done about their leader concerning the ‘Jonah’ solution.  I still have the scabbard for this sword in my chamber.  Let our sword be polished and sharpened.  Honed and tempered.  We will join the scabbard to it, so that it may be more properly borne.  This O’Brian will have need of it very soon.  Let us hope he remembers the skill he needs to wield it.”

*Scene 06* – 17:02 (The Warrior’s Court)

After we had finished our breakfast in the dining hall, we were called to assemble in an area known as The Warrior’s Court to stand before the council and hear their verdict decided upon from our actions the previous evening.

Ezra and the six other council members and Corimanth had led us into the Warrior’s Court for yet one more test.

It was to be a test of our mettle and raw, untrained skill.  And I was worried.

The Warrior’s Court was itself a kind of field of battle surrounded by high stone walls, and mock structures for simulating in-city combat and elusion techniques.  A jousting run served as a half arc track of grass, mud, mound, and stone alternatively, to increase a mounted warrior’s difficulty in riding a galloping stead across uneven and varying surfaces while bearing the weight of a lance or spear, striking interspersed quintain target arms along the run.  These formidable target posts were arrayed in torn and ripped clothing, stuffed with straw and bags of gravel and spoiled grain, with a counterweighted swivel post bearing a weighted sack that would spin around at the mounted rider, and strike and unseat him, if the rider’s aim was not true, or they did not move swiftly enough beyond the strike.  At times these striking bags could be spiked or hung in chain mail, making the failure of a tilting aspirant rider, that more deadly.

Younger, beginner riders were relegated to the inner ring running in a parallel concentric arc path, under crossbeam arches among a series of dangling metal rings that swung back and forth across the rider’s path at various heights.  These were to be collected by the rider along the shaft of their tilted spear or lance but did not pose the threat that the spinning quintains did.  The only wounding the novice warrior would receive along the ring path would be to their pride if they failed to collect enough rings on their spears by the end of the run.

Throughout the yard, large wooden striking posts driven into the ground called pells were arrayed across the combat field, allowing young swordsmen to slash and hack at the posts with their blades until their grips and arms could withstand the shock and toughen their hands enough to bear their blades into the melee of a pitched battle.  These posts bore myriad gouges and cuts and splinters, signifying that the fighting warriors training within the hidden city of Azragoth had spent many long hours building up forearm and grip-strength at these fighting posts.

Away from the jousting run arc, long narrow channels like grassland hallways, open to the sky above, extended outward, in adjacent channels point outward from the inner exercise fields.  Wooden steps and platforms fronted these open halls, and racks of archer equipment lay in brace racks upon these variously heightened and staggered platforms.  Within forms of target dummies, also stuffed with sacks of sand and spoiled grain were affixed to moving levered posts to challenge the skills of the novice would-be archers.  Some of these bristled with arrows, some were unfazed by the bow and quiver.  From the varying platforms, the archery trainees would learn to launch their assault from varying angles, both above and up from trenched furrow pits at both moving and stationary targets.

To the far right of the field, one of these hall chutes bore a wooden target shield, which battlers learning the arm of both knife and ax throwing, attempted to launch their blades accurately enough to cleave into the coveted inner rings.

Before us was a series of five large sparing rings, each with its own set of challenges to develop techniques appropriate for each ring.  One sparing ring was graded in the form of a large central mound, outlines by a circlet border of embedded stones.  The combatants were expected to fight both around and over the raised dome of the mound each seeking their own particular assault advantage over their opponent.  Another rock-lined ring surrounded a depressed bowl, developing combat techniques unique to the terrain in reverse of the mound ring.  Another was tilted, with one side raised and slanted and the opposite side depressed.  The one immediately before us was a seemingly simple flat ringed surface though I noticed it contained radial cross-section panels of stone, grass, gravel, and sand.  The central ring joining the five circles together as a hub was a standard training circle with a raised post in its center and staked lines of rope connecting at various points along the outer ring, lashed securely.  The trainer ring was entirely paved with large, flat slate-stone covered in etched lines and grooves and rings with symbols and points upon the lines that ran radially from the central post.  Between each of these central circles were large interwoven paths to allow observers to witness the successive sparing taking place within each challenge ring.  It was upon these walkways that we were led towards the center of the exercise field within the Warriors’ Court.  Ezra stopped and turned towards us after mounting a low rise, raising his hands in a beckoning motion that signified that we should all gather around.

A table, covered by a large cloth was spread out before us, with a large array of weapons laid across its surface.  Many of the weapons we had collected from the granary storehouse were there, as well as the packs and rolls we had brought and secured to our horses upon arrival.  We had been treated fairly yet warily, as any citizenry living in secrecy might, but we were in no wise ready for gladiatorial sparring, as yet.

What the men and women of Azragoth, did not know, was that in our younger days, both Begglar and I knew far more about warfare than we were telling.

With some reluctance, I had taken the honor sword from the grove, but my hand was not unfamiliar with the feel and heft of a sword.  At one time, I had almost vowed never to pick up one again, but that would have been a fool’s promise.  I knew that I must, and the days had come again where such timing was ripe for it.

I had seen Ezra deftly handle the Monk Blade the prior night, so I was not in the least surprised when I saw Ezra personally take charge of our training assessment.

Ezra called us to attention, speaking loud enough so we all could hear.  “Every warrior who faces an enemy must first learn how to stand.  And in doing so, they must be aware of the nature of the ground upon which they are positioned.”

Ezra, the head of the council and the mayor of the city, served more than a ceremonial role in Azragoth’s reason for existence.  Azragoth was now more than ever, the chief training grounds for people willing to join the resistance against Xarmnia.  It maintained fighting schools and was home to many fine instructors in the art of martial warfare.  Azragoth was a veritable hornet’s nest of lethal warriors preparing for the call to arms that they knew must one day come.

I listened more carefully as Ezra continued to speak.

“If you have the ability to choose the ground upon which you must fight, do so wisely.  Choose ground even and level, or if only a graded slope is present, choose the higher ground.”

As he spoke he approached the table of weaponry.

“Choose a weapon suited best to your ability, that mitigates your weaknesses.  If you are a strong fighter, choose a blade according to the reach of your arm, yet do not select one that is overlong that will fatigue you bearing it forth.”

He hefted a long-bladed rapier

“No sword is more valuable than the hand that wields it.  Therefore you must consider the strength and grip and protection you have for your lead hand.  Feel the heft of the blade.  Get a sense of its balance.  It should become an extension of your arm.  Consider how your hand fits around the grip.  Does the pommel extend too far, such that it binds as you rotate your wrist and the blade?” he said, demonstrating with a slashing motion.

“A rapier is held at length,” he said, extending his arm wrist upward,“Like so.”

“Legs extended,” he leaned backward, bending his front leg at the knee, extending his back leg,“ balancing your weight off-center, with your foreleg taking more load than the back, bracing your stance.”

“Always keep your legs no closer than two feet apart, hip-distance wide, so that you may pivot or cast your weight into the thrust and slash of your attacking blows.  Your feet only come together at the recovery or briefly in a pass or gather step.”

He demonstrated the move, shifting the sword into a strike and then an aerial parry while keeping his fore-weight shifted ahead and rounding fluidly with the blade tilted, dipping and sweeping in an upward arc.

“You will want to keep your back foot angled perpendicular to the knee of your front lead leg, maintaining a straight line with your torso and your back leg for stability as much as possible.  Your front knee is your direction of travel.  Your weight should rest on the balls of your feet, rolling heel to toe with each forward lunge.”

“Precision and positioning are built upon practice and persistence. Every fighter must quickly assess their opponent.”

Then, without warning, or pause he swept a long sword from the table of weapons and threw it hilt first at me.

I reacted on instinct, rather than thought and caught the handle in my right hand, raising the tip of the blade, spinning the hilt so that the crossguard aligned parallel to my thumb, my left hand joining the grip near the pommel.

Ezra noted the fluidity of the catch and addressed me before the group.

“Mr. O’Brian, you have handled a blade before, I see.”

I made eye contact, but only slightly nodded.

“As I have stated before, you have accepted the responsibility as the designated leader of this party.  It is by your example, that these who follow you shall be trained.  Kindly join me.”

In a side glance, I happened to catch Begglar, grinning from ear to ear as I walked forward from the group.  I think he was enjoying this a bit too much.

Armorers came to either side of me, pulling a shirt of mail over my head, snapping and locking rerebrace plates over my upper arms and shoulders and slipping a large brigandine cover over it to hold the pieces in place.  I was given gauntlets, with thick leather armguards which I quickly donned and reestablished my grip on the sword I had been given.  Ready or not, I was about to demonstrate the further extent of my knowledge and experience, or else be reminded of the limits of my abilities and shown the folly of not keeping in practice.

Ezra, took up the rapier again, and I stood before him bearing the long sword.

“Duel fighting and melee combat techniques differ.  The enemies you will face will most likely be in the latter, so you must learn to move in a coordinated fashion, striking for a quick kill, without striking down those who are fighting with you.  You will not often fight an armored opponent for most of the armies consist of conscripted warriors, and the steel used for their war equipment is used more in the weaponry rather than in protective vestments.  An attack may come upon you at any moment, so you must be ready for it.”

Suddenly, before I could raise my sword and parry the blow, Erza’s rapier slashed out and rang with a metallic snap against my armored epaulet.  Instinctively I crouched, but Ezra moved in and turned my bent knee with a swift kick of his foot and I reeled and fell face forward onto the ground, stunned.

“The blade is not the only weapon you bear.  Keep that in mind.”

He offered his hand and helped me up again.

“You fight making use of your whole body for combat.  Look for a weakened structure.  Kick at a knee, punch at and unguarded stomach, catch an elbow and shove upward to throw your opponent off balance.  Look for any opportunity to cause your opponent to trip, hyper-extend or lose footing.  Few enemies are able to fight from the ground up, so press your advantage if you can gain it.  If you cannot pierce the body, or slash at the head of your opponent, let your blade slide the length of your enemy’s blade and attack the off-hand.  Work to disable your attacker, and then press your advantages for the quick kill.  To longer the fight, the sooner you will fatigue and succumb in the next bout of protracted fighting.  Be aware of each other, come to each other’s aid and provide relief when possible.  Close ranks and expand ranks around the fatigued or fallen so that they may rest, recover or rise to rejoin the fight.  And in battle, you must never fight under your own name.”

That last statement took everyone by surprise.

“What do you mean by that?” the one who had identified himself as Will asked.

“Your names give you presence here in these lands, but there is but one name that gives you power here.  And under that name, you will be called sons and daughters, and in connection with that you will be covered by the Authority of the One name that is above every name given.”  (* – Psalms 118:10-11)

“You seem to speak in riddles, sir,” added Will, “We do not follow your meaning.”

Ezra looked from me to Will and then to the group gathered, “Perhaps, combat training is secondary and premature.  If you and these others do not first understand what it means to live, then how is it that you plan to place yourselves in harm’s way and hope to survive?  Have you no knowledge of the Breathing Sword?”

“You’ve spoken of this before.  Tell us plainly what you mean by it.”

Ezra looked to me and asked, “You have not spoken to them of the Ancient Text?”

“I have,” I answered, “but being as we are Surface Worlders, it is difficult convincing the modern mind that the key to their survival lies with the Ancients.  We all struggle with the idea that we have progressed and have a greater understanding than our forebearers.  Our cultural paradigm is breaking with respect for elders and passed on traditions.  We are being uprooted and carried by the winds of change, and our kind withers and dies as a result.  Family structures are being broken down.  Fathers abdicate their responsibilities to their children.  Our world is suffering under a pandemic of moral decay.  It is difficult to speak of values that sustain a culture when their frame of reference is being broken down.  To teach a truth that is other than their own experience.  Our world has begun to make concessions for this diabolical phenomenon.  When there are differences, rather than seek understanding and resolution, we agree to disagree.  We fracture our communities along ideology.  We suspect, accuse, justify and cover.  We feel the need for civility, yet we build no foundation for it.”

“If that is the case, then no amount of skill will prepare these for the monsters here.  They may fight the Xarmnians, but the monsters will subdue them.  Those creatures fight the mind and strike at the heart as well as the body.  There is no parrying the invisible blades that will cut them down.  They need to build up an arsenal of truth.”

Ezra lowered his sword and placed it back upon the weapon table.

“It is time you met Nem our city builder.  Before we can build up warrior skill we need to have a foundation upon which to build.  He will conduct your training until you are ready for mine.”

“But what is the Breathing Sword?”

“It is not a what.  It is a Who.”

*Scene 07* – 02:53 (Digging in The Dungeon)

Deep below the city, the monstrous behemoth lumbered through the honeycombed darkness scraping the walls of the tunnels, loosening lodged stone and weakening the substrate.  Mounds and furrows of debris trailed the beast as well as a vicuous slime that webbed the surfaces, almost as if the beast were some kind of massive worm, leaving wet trails in its burrowing wake.

Its jaws huffed dust and crunched rock expelling the debris in a sandblast from armored gills.  It musclular scales pulsed and heaved, their tight grooves excreting the mucus-like oil over which it slithered from side to side like a serpent, ramming its hooked jaw into the forefront rock like a chisel, then gobbling up the resulting debris, pulverizing and jettisoning it through its gills like an efficient deep-earth boring machine.

Portions of the underground network of caverns dripped with seeping moisture, others streamed with a shallow running river, over half tubes of flowstone mixed with lime.   Some caverns contained rippling pools that oscillated in the darkness, responding to the ponderous movements of the invading beast.

Anger drove the beast.  Anger and frustration.  The inner cells of the caverns contained something that was affecting its ability to clearly see into the darkness and destroy what pillars and rock pillings it needed to collapse the upper levels above.  Something that resonated with the same sort of harmonics being given off by that formidible Marker Stone which had proved inpenetrable to its efforts.  There were hollows within.  Old places.  Places haunted by The Marker Stone, even at so great a distance from the mound itself.

There was only one direction it could approach the inner hollow, for three directions were protected like sharp spines that drove its probing back.  As it circled the inner well, it found the break in the probing wall, and saw a brief fissure into the inner chamber.  Within was the chamber giving it such difficulty.  A fiery red light came from the crack, singing the beast’s peering eyes as if it had looked into a furnace.  A shadow of a crudely constructed altar, drenched in blood-red light.  Something from atop the altar was emanating both visible and invisible flashes of light, and two shapes surrounded it reflected and carried the light sweeping across the sanctum walls in a radial fashion.

*Scene 01* 08:34 (Loose Ends)

Just below the stone wall, next to a now cold and dried firepit, Grum-Blud watched the guard standing post at the old shed, as he leaned against the cross-beamed corner of the structure, through a crenellated groove in the stone.  He grinned as he watched the ‘guard’ turn his head this way and that, and then nod forward, jerking his head upright and blinking rapidly, realizing that the erstwhile sentry was growing weary in his present duty.  If there was someone supposed to relieve the man, they were late in coming.  This one would succumb soon, and Grum-Blud would be all too pleased to see that he never woke up again.

Finally, the man leaned forward on his bowstaff, and slunk down to a seated position against the interlocking saddle-notch corner, with the intention of being able to see along both walls of the structure, but his wearied body, feeling the ease of the new position, lured him into a comforting lull.  In a few moments, the man was snoring, oblivious to the new and present danger posed by the squat, apish creature, that slunk over the stone wall, with a melon-sized rock in its knobby and callused hand, barely able to contain a fiendish chuckle from escaping its large, jaundiced teeth, and crooked smile.

A brutish thunk sound preceded the skulking figure’s waddling step-hop, as the creature made its way from one victim to its intended, with a snuffling hoggish grunt.

A makeshift patch of hewn wood and stone blocked and covered a torn and splintered opening in the planked wall of the holding shed, with staked branches.  The shed was comprised of a combination of stone and cross-notched logs forming the walls on three sides, with the longer plankwall being the last installation. The patch was not designed to improve the aesthetic look of the shed, by any stretch, but served more as a functional impediment to forestall whatever might be contained within its shored-up wall from getting out.  On closer inspection, the brutish intruder, realized that what was now serving as an enclosed shed, had once served as a small stable, with the plank wall covering the elongated opening were cows or horses might have come for milking or to feed at a manger trough along the back, log-and-stone wall.  The side door was cut and installed in the structure’s short side, later for human-sized ingress and egress.

Grum-Blud chuffed a misty smoke from his rubbery lips into the cool morning air as, with his large muscular arms, elongated and corded, he tore away the braces, stones and planks, covering the erstwhile animals’ opening.  He relished the anticipated look of surprise that might be on Corg’s face, when he saw whom it was that had come to ‘rescue’ him.

“Who’s there?!” a gruff voice of alarm came from within.

Grum-Blud hesitated, as he reached for the last board covering the splintered hole in the wall of the shed.  The voice did not sound like it belonged to Corg.  Growling low, with a snort, his callused paw ripped away the plank and cast it behind him.  He mounted the fallen pile of stones that he had broken through holding the base of the braces and ‘patch’, his shadowy form silhoetted against the misty morning dawn.

A man’s form lay huddled in a corner, laying on a small mound of straw, arms bandaged, but not tied.  Grum-Blud sniffed the musty air inside, as the figure tried to rise to a full seated position.

“Where is Corg?!” Grum-Blud growled, threatening.

“Corg?” the man in the corner blinked, rocking himself forward, attempting to rise.  “Corg!” Grum-Blud moved into the shed, partially blocking the dim light filtering around his squat body, arms hanging to the floor, his knuckles pressing down hard on the floorboards.

“Y-your a troll,” the man’s voice croaked.  “Another one.”

With a swift move forward, swinging its short thick legs, kicking over its fists, Grum-Blud landed in front of the rising man with a hard stomping thud, coughing his demanded interrogative. “Corg!”

“Dead.  Burned.” the quavering man answered, cowering backward.

“How?!” Grum-Blud demanded, raising a fist at the shrinking man.

“Stabbed,” the man replied, adding a lie. “They did it.”

Grum-Blud grabbed the man’s arm and said, “Come with me!”  Before the man knew it, he was jerked off his feet, dragged behind the troll, through the rough opening in the wall and out into the morning twilight, raked across the jumbled patchwork pile and flung into the dirt yard.

In the outer light, Grum-Blud’s eyes narrowed into a scowl as he sniffed and examined the man in the misty light.

“You are Xarmnian!” Grum-Blud stated, brooking no contradiction.  “A scout, from the look of you.”  He sniffed again, growling low and grunting pig-like.

“There is troll blood on you,” his thick brows furrowed.  “Smells familiar, I think!”  The man flinched guility, and Grum-Blud moved toward where the Xarmnian had fallen, suspicion darkening his countenance.

“Th-They stabbed him when they captured him.  He and I were their prisoners.  Both of us were held in that shed together.  He bled all over me, before he succumbed to his injuries.”

Grum-Blud’s arms bulged and his knobby knuckles flexed and fisted, weighing the man’s words, measuring them against his own rising suspicions.  A sneer dropped half of his lips into a crooked smile as he moved closer to the cowering man, a wicked gleam shining in his eyes.  “If that is true, you will have no qualms with me looking into your dark, lying soul.”

The Xarmnian gasped, quickly averting his face, scrabbling to get away from the troll as fast as he could.  Clawing to his feet, but wincing as he flexed his wounded arm.

Suddenly, he was slammed to the ground, the surprising weight of the troll pressed his face hard into the mud.  The troll grabbed a fist full of the Xarmnian’s hard and yanked him up into a back arch, the feel of a cold steel blade pressed sharply under his exposed throat.  The smell of dried blood, and the stench of cloying sweat, and foul breath caused the Xarmnian to gasp, as Grum-Blud growled into the man’s ear.  “Lie to me…and you will bleed for it!” the troll huffed, “I need only release your hairy mop, and this blade at your scrawny neck will eternally stop your ability to answer.  Understand?!”

The Xarmian mewled, pleading as he had never before.  Finally comprehending how dangerous one of these trolls could be.  Grum-Blud could feel the man’s surrender and despair, as the taut, fear-fed resistance slackened.  Carefully, but deliberately, the blade’s iced razor kiss lowered, with only a lipstick blush, beaded along its edge.  The man felt the troll’s weight shift off of his back, but his hair was still in the tight grasp of the creature, twisting him over to stare up into the glowering face.  The last reflection the Xarmnian had in his cruel, miserable, but shortened life was of a set of piercing black troll’s eyes floating above him, pushing him back into a recent memory he desperately did not wish to reveal.

*Scene 02* 7:00 (Across The Inter-Land)

The Hill of Skulls stood ominously atop a winded slope, looming stoically against a grey morning sky.  Hanokh, The Walker, stood before it, his head bowed, listening.

He appeared to be having a silent conversation with himself, only his focus was directly aimed at the mount itself.  He was within the outer thorn hedge and stood before the large stone assemblage that encircled the mound with the footpath bordering it.  He had seen evidence of wagon tracks, and the prints of many horses that had pocked and dug divots in the outer perimeter.  Others had visited recently, but many of the tracks had been washed over or pitted with the evidence of recent rains.

Slowly, reverently, he moved along the footpath heading to the westward facing side of the mound, scanning its rising surface.  As he circled had stopped up short when he saw it.

A gentle beam of blue light pierced the distant cloud cover and shone on a portion of the elevated surface, where dirt and stone had been sloughed away leaving an exposed pit that was widening.  From the lower angle, it was difficult to see, but he could just make out that there was writing on the inner surface that appeared in an ancient script.  Hieroglyphic in nature, with pictorial representations of phonetic sounds.  A proto-script he immediately recognized as one he himself had devised long ago.

“Names,” he muttered to himself, as a knowing smile crept into his solemn countenance.  He nodded appreciatively, and then with a turn towards the northwest, he vanished from sight, already certain of where he would need to go next…to be sure.

∞

Hanokh appeared in a grove that extended perpendicular to a rising rocky escarpment.  The grove was a ranking assortment of various trees aligned along a flowing stream of clear water, which emerged out of the side of the rising escarpment, cascading down into a catcher pool and then flowing along a channeled gully into the stream.

Hanokh knew for certain that this very stream had once been a dried riverbed, full of fallen leaves. But now it ran cool and clear, feeding the roots of the trees that edged its riverbanks.

 Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.  [Rev 22:1-2 NLT]

The Ancient Text verse sprang to his mind.

O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who turn away from you will be disgraced. They will be buried in the dust of the earth, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.  [Jer 17:13 NLT]

Another more in-depth passage lingered from the account of the prophet Ezekiel.

1 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple and there was water flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple faced east. The water was coming down from under the south side of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. 2 Next he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate that faced east; there the water was trickling from the south side. 3 As the man went out east with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my ankles. 4 Then he measured off a third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my knees. He measured off another third of a mile and led me through the water. It came up to my waist. 5 Again he measured off a third of a mile, and it was a river that I could not cross on foot. For the water had risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed on foot. 6 He asked me, “Do you see this, son of man? ” Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I had returned, I saw a very large number of trees along both sides of the riverbank. 8 He said to me, “This water flows out to the eastern region and goes down to the Arabah. When it enters the sea, the sea of foul water, the water of the sea becomes fresh. 9 “Every kind of living creature that swarms will live wherever the river flows, and there will be a huge number of fish because this water goes there. Since the water will become fresh, there will be life everywhere the river goes. 10 “Fishermen will stand beside it from En-gedi to En-eglaim. These will become places where nets are spread out to dry. Their fish will consist of many different kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11 “Yet its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be left for salt. 12 “All kinds of trees providing food will grow along both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fresh fruit because the water comes from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be used for eating and their leaves for healing.”  [Eze 47:1-12 CSB]

Hanokh hurried down along the ranks of trees towards the crossing juncture, where the branches of the stream ran out in opposite directions.  “The Sword,” he muttered.  “I shall know for sure when I see where ‘the sword’ was driven into the root.”

Yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”  [Luk 2:35 HNV]

Through the trees, he finally saw the place he was earnestly seeking.

He sighed in satisfaction, clapping his large hands together.  “At last!” he chuckled, filled with delight.  “The sword has been lifted.  The quests have begun again!”

*Scene 03* 18:12 (Scents of Direction)

As we rode deeper into the cut-out, descending, half-pipe ledges in the narrow canyon under massive crags of rock, we could still hear the noise from the dogs in the distance.

Will stiffened at each far away echoing but still rode onward, following the others.

I rode within a few paces from Maeven, keeping my voice low I tried to make conversation.

“Did we fool them?” I asked quietly.

“Too soon to tell,” Maeven responded.

“I mean the dogs.”

“Same answer,” she rejoined.

“How long would our scent linger?”

“Depends,” answered Maeven, “It rained, and much of the pursuit occured at nighttime, so the scent lingers in the dampness of this morning air.  The Protectorate may try to puzzle out what happened at the roadside where the wagon went into the mud, but the dogs will almost lose the scent of those who climbed into the wagon.  It depends upon the particular scents they are following.  Cerberi have the three heads, so each of those will remember a unique scent.”

“Wow.  I didn’t even think about that.” I pondered a moment.  “But would our scents be strong enough for those creatures to get a strong enough reading, just by our passing?”

“I assume you all stayed and slept at the Inn, so there are plenty of scents to choose from:  Sheets, towels, a change of clothes, cloth breakfast napkins.  Then, of course, there are the horses.  Scent tends to linger in damp cool places.  After a rain, that pretty much covers everything.”

“How long does a scent linger?” Christie, who had been riding just to the right of us, asked.

“Idiots will tell you months, but that isn’t so.  The longest time on record was approximately 13 days.  The bodies of some hikers were tracked and found in Western Oregon in a wet dense forest…much like this one.”

“What will we do once the dogs regain the scent?” Begglar asked, speaking up for the first time since leaving the dropped ledge.  Nell had reached over and squeezed his hand and something silent had passed between them, but I had pretended not to notice.

“There are three trails to follow, so the Cerberi will respond to the runners first, before defaulting back to sniffing for scent.  By that time, those monster dogs will be split up along with their Protectorate handlers.  One of the Lehi team’s have your wagon, Begglar.  So there will be a lingering scent from each of you there.  The other wagon have supplies that many of you loaded, rode on, and help us offload.  Getting the picture now?”

“Your wagons were Iron Hills wagons.  That scent is strong enough to over power any one of our individual scents.  I can’t imagine those monsters would be able to distinguish us in such a melange.”

“Yeah, and there is one other factor, in that up trail, I have not yet mentioned.”

She beamed and winked, “A secondary measure, but not the primary one.”

“How do you mean?”

“Along the trail, about seventy feet from the platform, there is a particular family of black and white animals that live in a hollow log near the trail.”

“How does that help?”

“Sensory overload.  Those animals are nocturnal, and a pack of dogs coming through the forest, so close to their nest will definitely get them in a defensive posture.”

“What is she talking about?” Dominic asked.

“Skunks.  There is a family of skunks that will give those dogs all the scent they can want and more.”

For the first time, that whole evening, we all laughed together.

The dawn was beginning to break as we rode steadily onward, hoofs clacking gently over planked bridges and click on stone and softened earth from time to time.  An ambient glow filtered through and lit our way as we continued the hidden journey to Azragoth.  Presently out of imminent danger, I saw Christie and Maeven riding side by side talking quietly.  At one point Christie turned and looked over her shoulder back at me and laughed.  I don’t know why.  Must be some private joke they shared.

Oh, yeah.  They were going to be fast friends by the time they reached Azragoth if they weren’t friends already.

Presently the discussion took a more serious turn.  I could see Christie leaned over listening to Maeven, nodding.  Others were drawing closer too.  Not one to be left out, I guided my horse to within hearing as well.  Maeven was telling a story.

“Yes, but I remember it all,” Maeven said quietly.

“You were there?” Christie asked, stunned at this quiet revelation.

Maeven nodded but looked directly at me, “You will find Azragoth much changed in the twenty years since.”

Then she again addressed the others, “We survived its terrors and a few other families with us.  Most of the people we knew we had to bury or burn.  But it did achieve one good thing that we could not have achieved otherwise.”

The traveler named Will spoke up for the first time in a while, “And what was that?”

Maeven looked over at him measuredly, her calmness disquieting him in some barely perceptible way.  She was reading something in his eyes and demeanor that he did not wish to be known.

“It rid us of the Xarmnian thugs and gave us a chance to live unmolested by them for many years.  Azragoth became a place of refuge: A lost island of safety in a rising sea of war.”

“But what about the plague and isolation from the other villages, the end of trade and all of the sickness that killed everyone else?  How did you survive all that?”

Maeven shrugged, “There is no logical explanation for the how, if one has no belief in something other than alchemy and science alone.”

The friend of Will, someone whom I had never heard speak directly to me, seemed stricken and nervous, but suddenly joined the discussion.  “Are you suggesting some miracle protected you?”

Maeven, unwavering answered him without flinching at the barely veiled insinuation, “What I am saying is what I believe to be true, and being a person of science in the Surface World, I do understand the implications of what I am saying to you now.  Our choice to believe, despite all odds, is the reason why I am not dead to this world, and why the few of us who remain and survived that terrible night still live to tell the tale of it.”

“Tell us,” I encouraged Maeven, “I believe we all would benefit from hearing it.”

Our party had left the carved cliff passage near the river and were now riding together under a forested canopy filtered with dawn’s early light.

“Those days, as O’Brian says, were terrible, brutal and cruel.  Men met with brutality, but women received that and physical shame as well.  We hid with the other children from the soldiers when they first entered the gates and watched from the shadows as they arrogantly rode in and took over our town.”

Maeven, the warrior known as Storm Hawk, seemed to shrink a bit, as part of her relieved the experience in her mind as she unfolded the story to us.

“I had never seen people die in such brutal ways until that day.  Seeing such things one can never quite get them out of their mind.  It began with thuggery and bravado in the market center.  The soldiers dismounted and took whatever they wanted from the vendor carts and tables, then overturned those tables in front of the tradesmen, daring them to show some sign of protest or defiance.”

Maeven tried to calm her shallow breathing as memories arose in her mind that she knew she must not share and dared not speak of.

“Eventually, it did come.  O’Brian mentioned the man torn apart by horses.  That is enough for you to know.  And that was only the beginning…” she swallowed, “and it went on for weeks until the rats ended it.”

A shudder passed through her as she tried to continue, “The soldiers…the soldiers would not let us take the ‘examples’ they made for us from the streets.  They lay there, night after night and through the long days gathering flies, maggots, and beetles until naturally…they attracted the sewer rats.”

Maeven looked at me with pleading eyes and asked, “What part of this is necessary and what is not?  You know more of the story when I told you years ago, but the nightmare lives on in memory, beyond what I shared even then.”

I nodded, “There is no need for the gruesome details.  Tell them what you found in that dark place.”

Maeven bowed her head for a moment, gathering strength from the memory I had directed her to, and the point of my having her recount any of her experience at all.  To everyone’s surprise, she began to quote a verse from the Ancient Text:

“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth [shall be thy] shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; [nor] for the arrow [that] flieth by day; [Nor] for the pestilence [that] walketh in darkness; [nor] for the destruction [that] wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; [but] it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because thou hast made the LORD, [which is] my refuge, [even] the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in [their] hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” [Psalm 91:4-12 KJV]

Maeven closed her eyes as she quoted the verse of comfort, seeming to feel its healing effect even now, covering those painful memories over again with feathered tenderness.

When she finally opened her eyes again that fierce light had come back into them, and her stature visibly grew strong once more.

“You asked me, how we survived,” she addressed Will, but also everyone else within hearing.

“We held to the hope in those words and believe in their promise.  When no man or woman could save us, and we only had The One left to trust in…we chose to believe His words.  And they came true for all of us who chose to and dared to believe them.”

Maeven let that implication lie with them a moment and then continued.

“We survived those terrors and were never found again by the soldiers, never touched by the disease, and sickness never came into the inner courtyards where our homes were.  Once the soldiers fled, we eventually came out to bury our city’s dead.  We never contracted the illness though by all counts and rights we should have.  There was a power in the words we read and claimed belief in.  Eventually, we cleared the streets of death and the vile rotting bodies of those soldiers that had oppressed and terrorized us.  The soldiers and outside army fled before us and struck down their own soldiers whom they had sent to occupy the city once they had initially breached our gates.”

Maeven actually smiled over the next memory, before she continued.

“The very trenches and siegeworks that the Xarmnian army had dug and built to surround and invade, we used to bury and burn the dead.  When the army had retreated to the road, some far distance and turned to observe our burial preparations, we decided to return some of their dead back to them.”

Here she paused and seemed to blush a bit.

“They had built a large Trebuchet catapult, with a large boom and counterweight.  We used it to launch the rotted armored bodies of the soldiers back at them, and the army fled the simple aerial assault.  After that, we never heard directly from Xarmni again other than the threats they posed to all of our neighboring towns.  An edict had gone out in every town and village, advising them to avoid the quarantined town of Azragoth.  That we had been overtaken by a disease that wasted away the body within days of contraction.  Our livestock, if found was to be burned immediately.  No crops or tradesmen were to approach the area surrounding Azragoth, nor deal with any of its survivors who might bear the contagion.  As such, we were exempted from all dealings with the outside world, Xarmni included, and all debts owed by us were expunged or considered forfeit.  No further tribute was required or sought from Azragoth and it was assumed the town would die as a result.  But that was not what happened.”

“We thrived.  Our smaller herds survived the plague and grew resistant to it and became a heartier stock, because of it.  True we, like every other township, had some stock which free ranged the hills, so we had branded them and sorted them each year from a central place before the foaling and calving seasons.  The edict was taken seriously and those caught buying, selling or having an Azragothian branded stock animal in their possession would be punished by the Protectorate patrols which surveyed the townships. But we worked out a clever way to cover the old brand and align it to that of the townships who secretly wanted to risk continued business with us, after being assured that the illness had passed.  Our stock was clearly superior to theirs so eventually, self-interest and good business sense won out.  Azragoth’s outer courts, it is true, have been left to decay and ruin, to maintain the appearances that it is now only a place where the dead linger.  The two lost travelers never made it past the outer buildings and were sufficiently terrified when they made their hasty exit the next day.  Those two unfortunates carry forward experiences and tales which will continue to make others avoid this place.”

Here Maeven actually smiled, “In the end, for those of us who survived, Azragoth has become the heart and the symbol of the resistance.  Fear once used against us has turned upon those who sought to instill it in others.  Our home is now protected, because of a belief in a promise given by the Ancient Text, in our more dire point of need.  If you knew the language and text of my homeland in the Surface World you could read the reference of that very passage of promise engraved and etched into the steel of the sword, I carry with me always.  Like O’Brian holds there, it too is an Honor Sword, and symbolizes my belief that there is a purpose in the midst of great tragedy, though we may not see it at the time.  If you are open to belief, you will one day see it too.”

A few hundred feet ahead the shade began to thicken into deep shadow.  Beyond was a deepening that we could not yet see through, but even from the distance, we could feel the looming weight of it, as something towered over the forest canopy.  Within a few more moments we could see a great wall built of mortared stone.

“We have arrived,” Maeven said as she coaxed her horse towards the front of the group.

“Welcome to Azragoth.”

*Scene 04* – 3:53 (The Digger)

A rift parted the ground foliage, folding and creasing the earth down into itself, as trees swayed and rustled above, branches breakign with a snap and crack, as the towering stanchions of the forest leaned forward, their hoary crowns peering downward into the subducting cleft.  A distant, cavernous roar belched from the rift below.  The fissure deltaed and fanned downward into a funnel, as the edge of the highland fractured and fell forward, collapsing and crashing down the edge of the upland rim into the dense forest below.  Clouds of dust, and jagged rock burst outward from the wounded side of the cliff face, raining downward, under a rising plume of dust.

Under the billows, something slammed downward into the forest below, toppling trees, bursting through sheered branches, cleaving its way down through the brush cover.  Silver flashes of light came through the dust strobing the wooded darkness, as a throaty roar shook the ground, rattling the leaves in the surround trees.

When the dust began to settle, a gaping hole was revealed in the ridge-face, its black cavenous pupil unblinking and fierce.  Traces of a viscuous ooze, gleamed wetly on the lower rim of the hole, scintillating with a pearlescent light in the wake of the destructive creature that had passed through the rupture, and was now making its way downward into the deep woods below, splashing through fissure streams and fracturing, and smashing through the man-made bridges that wove from side to side over the deeper plunging rivulets.

In the forest below, beyond the streams, the monstrous creature creating the destruction pursued the scents of a troop of horses, bearing human riders.  Sun rays piercing the overhead canopy failed to illuminate the dappled hide of the large creature, parting the trees, as it made its way forward into the wood, yet bristling spines seemingly edged with a metallic luster, flashed through the overhead evidences of daylight, like a talon raked across stone.

In the gloomy darkness of the wood, an obsidian eye perceived a large stacked stone wall ahead of its current trajectory.  Its other blue-iced orb roved from its towering parapet, down its steeply sloped stone-face seeking fissures and weakness in its mortared and grooved joints, finally finding what it sought in a low gurgling pool that appeared to terminate at the walls base and swirl downward into a lower grate.  The massive construction had been erected to protect a perimeter against the dangers of the backwoods.  Fortified to withstand a rock slide or something…far worse.

The shadow-shrouded creature blinked and then blinked again, confirming what it perceived.  Beneath the wall, about fifty feet in, there was a void…underground.  The water in the gurgling pool channeled underneath the wall and then cascaded into that deepening void.  And something else was there.  Something old and mysterious.  Something hidden within, that the beast felt casting tremors within its monstrous heart, creating a buzzing within its jaws, and infuriating cloud storming within its under-mind, and a tugging within the thick muscle of its own tongue.  Something dangerous and powerful, waiting for the right time…to be found.

*Scene 05* – 17:32 (The Sally Port)

Coming closer now, we saw that the great city, at least the back way to it, was formidable enough that it would outlast a lifetime of legends and more.  Nature would be forced to swallow a mountain if it ever were to reclaim the city of Azragoth.

We all dismounted our horses, following Maeven’s lead.

“Stay here,” she directed, “I will have to announce you.  Our leader has gone up to the Eyrie above The Stone Pass.  He and the others are observing troop movements.  Xarmni and Capitalia are mobilizing their armies.”

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“None that I cannot work through,” she replied mysteriously.

“When our leadership is absent, the guardianship falls to others who are overly cautious.  This is a good thing…and bad depending on which side of the curtain wall you are standing.”

“What does that mean?” asked Begglar, “Who is leading you?”

Maeven motioned us to stay there while she walked a few paces down a small footpath to the edge of the wall.  Over her shoulder, she answered Begglar’s question, while walking away.  “We call him ‘The Eagle’.”

Begglar turned to me and we exchanged a knowing look, realizing that there was more to the brief revelation. A connection yet to be made, but not now.

We waited near the horses, with Maeven’s Lehi riders for nearly an hour, before we heard Maeven returning.  She had a look of consternation on her face that was not there before, and rather than address us, she spoke quietly to her Lehi captain before she turned to us.

“I’m to take you all in by the sally port.  The Lehi will take the horses around through the wicket gate to be stabled and unloaded.  You are to surrender your weapons until they can be returned to you.”

Begglar and Dominic started to protest, but I waved it away.

“We will do as you say.”

Others began to protest, but I assured them all would be well and set the example by handing forth the honor sword.  Maeven’s eyes met mine.  She had avoided eye contact with me since returning, but now she stared at me, her eyes searching for what I did not know.

“It is no simple thing you do, to surrender an honor sword.  I will remember this,” and here she leaned in and whispered quietly to me alone, “I know this one in particular.  I’ve seen it before.  And you have my word that it will be returned to you.”

Collecting weapons required several of the Lehi to bear them forth.  The other Lehi ran a lead line through the bridles of our horses and led them away as directed, packs and supplies and all.  We were now without defense, trusting only to the honor of a friendship we, Begglar and I alone, bore with Maeven, The Storm Hawk.  A friendship left unattended for many years.

We were led to the sally port, a very narrow iron doorway in the massive stone wall.  Only one person at a time could fit through that small aperture, and inside was a steep stairway leading upward.  Glowing brazier pans filled with hot oil and lit afire swung from chains overhead, and it was clear the threat they posed to each of us as we cautiously and in single file ascended the narrow stairwell.  A series of released counterweights closed and sealed the sally port door behind us.  The stone pebbled walls smelled of lime and soot, blackening our hands as we braced against the walls in our climb.  If a sally port were ever breached in Azragoth, it would be fairly simple to make the invader regret it.  To further ensure such an invader would not survive the attempt, murder holes were cut into the walls, so that archers could shoot arrows into the well, and pierce anyone daring to try it.  That was not to say that this sally port could not be put to positive use, for it also provided a secret way for individuals to leave the city in times of a prolonged siege.  The formidable back wall so closely met the dense woods that a company could not move in force behind it.  Rocky outcroppings and ledges made traversing the narrows between the curtain wall and the shoulders of Azragoth, a fool’s parade, easily put down by men atop the battlements.  Clearly, Maeven was correct.  Azragoth was much changed.  It’s about-face bearing and aspect much fiercer than I had remembered it.

At last, we reached the top of the stairway and crowded onto a small landing chamber before a think iron-bound door.  Maeven squeezed in between us and rapped loudly on the door with a series of knocks in succession that led me to believe that it was a prearranged code.

Presently we heard a series of bolts being pulled back and chains loosened and at last, a sort of gray light crept around the edge of the door as it swung outward, almost pushing us back into the stairwell.

We entered an overlook along the edge of the parapet onto the rampart.  Stone and tile rooftops spread out below us on multiple levels.  Verdant treetops made the distant land’s horizon green under a gray clouded sky.  Moss and lichen grew in patches, here and there between the grooves of slate, stone and red terracotta tiles aged and discolored by the heat of the sun and the frosts of the winters.

Just behind the opened door to our right, stood a formidable-looking man, armored and accompanied by three other fighting men staggered just behind in a small diagonal phalanx formation.  Their swords were drawn, and they appeared tense.  The slightest wrong move and this could go very badly for us.  Maeven emerged and stood before the armored leader of this escort.

“Stand down, Morgrath.  These are not our enemies.”

The one called Morgrath, apparently a warrior of some rank among the Azragothians, looked from us back to Maeven before answering.

“That remains to be seen.  They are to be brought before the council.  Their fate will be decided there.”

With that, the other warriors moved to the solid wall, indicating that we should pass them, near the open railing overlooking the stone courtyards far below.  We did as we were bidden to do, and Maeven, pursed her lips heroically keeping herself from saying something scathing to the man, and led us past the naked steel blades of the warriors to a small stone passageway that continued on along the rampart allure.  The warriors closed in behind us as soon as the last of our party had exited the stairwell down to the sally port.  The heavily studded iron-plated door was once again bolted shut.

For better or for worse we were in Azragoth now, and relying heavily upon Maeven to make our intentions clear before a council who were predisposed to be suspicious of us for mysterious reasons of their own.

Azragoth was what is known as a fortified city or citadel, which should not be mistaken as being the same as a mere castle which houses a royal residence.  There were elements that were similar, and from what I can remember, it had a central keep, watchtowers, battlements, a few baileys, which were essentially open courtyards, both broad and narrow cobblestone streets branching and sloping upward in circular arcs connecting the baileys and terraced homes built of various materials, some of which had thick thatched roofs, some slate, and others of the more affluent merchants occupied homes with much more solid construction with terracotta barrel tile, as I mentioned before.  From the curtain wall to the inner main wall was a cleared area known simply as the killing field.  Its purpose was a place to repel an external attack should the outer curtain wall ever be breached.  A space of land in which the inner archers and others, would rain down arrows and hot coals and ash, or vats of boiling oil, to pierce, burn or scald the successful attackers from attempting a further breach of the inner walls.  Since Azragoth sat at the base of granite cliffs upon a forested shelf just below the foot of the highland descent into the valley below, it was not easily approached from its heavily wooded back but was more easily accessed by the front slopes from which the Xarmnian army had attacked.  Azragoth was once a wealthy prize to be won indeed, which was why Xarmni ruling houses so coveted its takeover.  At the head of the highlands, it was accessible from the main road by a relatively short distance, and from it, highland merchants would supply the trade routes passing near, before they began their trek into the lower valley and from there through the lake country to the foothills of the mountains beyond.  More than fifty major rivers flowed from the highlands to the lower basins of the valley and formed large reservoirs of water that were perhaps larger than any of the smaller bodies of water commonly thought of as “lakes” in the Surface World.  Azragothians benefited from their proximity to both trade routes and rivers, and such was their confidence back in those days of the certainty of their fortunate and happy placement, that they rarely closed their gates to anyone.  The defenses of the city, they believed, were sound and they assumed that they would recognize when and if there arose a time in which they would need to close the gates of the Barbican against such a threat.  So confident had they become, that when the Xarmnian army showed up in the far fields, just below the city’s walls, the people of Azragoth took no notice of the amassed army there setting up war machines and digging trenches.  They had seen military exercises before.  The militia used the plain because it was one of the few leveled-out open areas on the trek from the lower valley basin to the highlands where they could rest their troops and bivouac them before continuing their marched climb up the graded road.

When the threatening party rode up to Azragoth, they found the town wide-open.  The gates were tied back and almost rusted open, from having been rarely closed.  That is also why the Azragothians did not know they were under attack until the soldiers rode brazenly into the marketplace and began violently overturning vendor carts.

From the walls downward, we could see overgrown courtyards and open ward areas choked with weeds, vines, and broken stone.  The place looked like it had been left derelict and no human foot had walked its paths in years.  Yet something moved among the grasses.  It moved casually in an unhurried manner taking its time to be revealed.  I lingered momentarily to see what might emerge from the grass but felt the chill of cold steel on my exposed arm.  The soldier bearing the blade reminded me that this was not a walk down memory lane.  We were being led to a waiting council who would decide our occupancy here within the walls of Azragoth.

I raised my eyes from the lower ward to see a goat emerge from the broken doorway of one of the abandoned houses and chew casually on the badly gnawed frame of the doorway.  It bleated plaintively and then continued chewing.  Grey, rotted shutters hung askance from windows that had been shattered.  A faded placard hung above the doorway creaking and swaying under rusty chains.  The man with the sword cleared his throat, and I found that the blade had progressed from my arm to just below my chin.  Message received.  I moved onward.

We descended more steps and passed under an archway, to another wall that bore a double door, with blackened wood saturated with some oily sticky substance.  The ground below our feet was hard-packed, but smooth stone, and perhaps had seen more foot traffic than the other areas we had passed over.  From the street level, it seemed as if a thousand pairs of eyes watched us from the shadowy recesses of the darkened rooms and abandoned apartments.  Morgrath bore a key to the door that blocked our path, and pushed forward into our group, inserted it and turned the mechanism until it clacked with the sound of metal gears releasing bolts.  The gated door swung inward from its solid post and lintel frame.  We were not prepared for what lay on the other side.

It was as if the one part of the city had been left to the ravages of time and this inner court still bustled with life and activity like it occupied a separate time and reality all its own.

Two sentries stepped from either side of the doorway, wicked-looking curved blades jutted from the ends of the halberds they bore reminding us, lest we forget, that our welcome here was not yet settled.

Beyond the guards was a flourishing and lively medieval town, active and thriving.  Children danced and laughed in mock swordplay, bearing crude wooden representations of the real things drawn and pointed at our backs.  The irony was so thick….well, I won’t say it.  I could not imagine what the others were feeling, but my sense of regret at surrendering our weapons was beginning to claw at my gut, as being colossally naïve, in spite of everything we had endured thus far.  The term “friend” was becoming murkier with each step further into this place of strange dichotomies.

The place was indeed haunted.  The death of one side residing parallel and unseen along the living and vibrant side of the other.  A central well stood in the courtyard, no doubt fed by the underground stream far below the city.  Water would be crucial to the survival of a walled city.  Especially one besieged and with good reason to conceal its persistent struggle to survive surrounded by lands and peoples who believed them to be long dead.

We were led further into the ward yard, and people began to pause from their activity and watch us as we were escorted into the very pumping heart of the city.  The tall façade of a grand hall with ornately engraved broad oak doors no less than sixteen feet high awaited us from across the courtyard.  Armored sentries attending the doors stood resolutely guarding the entrance with wickedly curve-bladed halberds.  They moved in mirrored unison to stand in front of the doors as the one called Morgrath approached.

I overheard him say, “Tell Corimanth that we’ve arrived.”

The sentry, so addressed with the charge, pivoted into the doorway, having barely opened it to allow his own frame to fit through.

Moments later, the broad doors were opened, and we were led inside a tall banquet hall with high beamed ceilings and broad candlelit chandeliers on round wheels suspended by a rope, pulley, and winch system from the high ceiling approximately twenty-five feet overhead.  The hall was lit with sconces from the support columns, added to the four sets of chandeliers burning with three tiers of concentric flaming wheels.  Suddenly something registered in my memory.

“Wheels within wheels,” I muttered, gazing upward, then realized we were being beckoned forward.

Maeven took the foreground and spoke to what I understood to be the interim chieftain of the town of Azragoth while the one they called “The Eagle” was away.

Begglar sighed heavily and stood next to me, “This is not good.”

Nell, looking up, saw who it was that would be receiving us, and suddenly her ire came up, and Begglar had to move fast to restrain her.  “Corimanth!” she exclaimed, “Saints preserve us!  What are you doing in Azragoth!?  How is it that you are sitting there, sending these men to fetch us like we were common thieves, and giving yourself the air of a high and mighty!  Whatever is it that you think you’re a-doin’?”

*Scene 06* – 19:45 (Long Lost)

The one called Corimanth, speaking in low tones to Maeven, before taking direct notice of our company looked startled.

“Nellus?” he flushed visibly, then reddened, “Is that you?”

Corimanth was a corpulent follow, with a bulbous nose, jowly cheeks and a shock of red hair about a balding head.  He wore a leather corset to make himself appear thinner than he was, but it could not hide his heft, without constricting his ability to breathe, so that his words tended to come out of him in a sort of breathy huff.

“Are you sayin’ you don’t recognize your own sister, now?!” she stood, hands fisted at her hips, “Or is it that you’re ashamed to look at me now after I publicly boxed your ears when last I laid eyes on ye?!”

Corimanth’s face went from reddening to ashen once more, as he fluttered his hands to somehow beg her to keep her voice down.  Nell was having none of it, and it was now apparent that Corimanth had caused her some sort of vexation in the past that had caused them to part ways and had strained the family ties between them.

“Nellus, would you please calm down,” Corimanth spoke in a more measured and controlled tone, “All will be explained to you.  I just need you to hear me out.”

Nell folded her arms, but it was evident that it took some doing to hold her temper, and hurt.

Maeven came to Nell’s side and put her arm around her, to give her strength and comfort.  She knew what Corimanth was about to say would come as a shock to her in particular.

The banquet hall was lined with long oak tables, benches, and chairs.  In better times past, it was a place of great feasting and city-wide celebration.

“Perhaps it would be better if we all sat down,” Corimanth said as more attendants and persons not in armed roles moved towards them from the recessed aisles along the nave.  Corimanth and his attendants directed us to the tables.

Once seated, Corimanth adjusted the outer broadcloth cloak he wore on his shoulder and offered his outstretched hands to Nell.  When she did not take them he quietly eased them to his side and began.

“I owe you a sincere and humble apology, my dear sister.  You have every right not to trust or forgive me for what I have seemed to have done to you and our family.  But perhaps if you will hear me out, you will, in the end, think better of me, and know why I had to do it.  I have both looked forward to and dreaded this day at the same time.  It was terrible the way we parted, but so very important that it be done.”

Here he took a breath, the corset seeming more restrictive and tightening than before, such that he took in several short breaths as well wincing in a slight grimace with each.

“Many years ago, before you met Begglar,” and turning to us, he addressed our gathering as a whole, “and before the terrible days following the decline and plagues of Azragoth, my sister and I lived in a small town just south of here called Sorrows Gate.  It wasn’t always called that, though it is a very fitting name for what it has become.  Sorrows Gate was once, very long ago, before the Xarmnian invasion, called Surrogate.  It was a town that stood directly in the gap between two stone ridges before descending into the lower valley and the lake country.  Azragoth was always the fortified city on the hill and a place where all of the smaller townsfolk knew they could flee to, should ever trouble come to ours and the other villages.  Azragoth was the guardian town.  Ours was more common and rural, but an important township in our own right.  Nellus and I used to travel with our parents to Azragoth in more pleasant times to see the delights of the city and to trade and buy and sell in the marketplace here.  Our peoples are from a much older group of travelers who came to these lands long before the families that broke apart and became what is now the Xarmnians and the Capitalians.  There are subdivisions of those groups which have their own people, but by and large, it is a division of philosophical orders rather than ethnic or racial divide.  Twelve brothers, each head of their families, patriarchs, with one family split between two sons, half-tribes they were called.  Be that as it may, our families and towns were friendly and receptive to those travelers when they first passed through and many years afterward when those groups made annual pilgrimages up from the valley to the Ancient Marker.  We bought and traded with them, and they with us.  Some of our families intermarried with them, and jointly we assumed we would one day become one people.  But it was not to be.”

A flagon was brought to the table and a poured glass set before Corimanth and he took it and drank briefly before continuing.  Quietly and without a word, the attendants began setting similar placements on the table before us, being careful not to distract, but clearly preparing us for a meal soon to be served.

“Xarmnian aggression soon began, after a fall-out between the families, and our towns sort of got swept up into it.  Capitalia built a wall to curb the aggression and incursions being made into it.  Frustrated, the Xarmnians began to tear across the land, laying siege to communities and taking over towns, imposing their rule and might against us.  Where once they were peaceable neighbors, they were now cruel oppressors, demand tribute, seizing our lands and goods when we refused to pay.  We were told that the Capitalians were our enemies, and we were severely warned not to trade with them, and to alert the Xarmnians if ever a Capitalian was discovered or caught on this side of their wall.”

Here pewter plates and wooden bowls were being set before us, along with wooden spoons and metal two-tined forks and cutlery.

Corimanth continued.

“We wanted nothing to do with the feuding of the two family groups, but several of us had already married into the conflict, and there was no separating us from the growing threat.  With Capitalia so far distant on the other side of their wall and the mountain pass, we had no choice but to try to appease the Xarmnians.  We tried to placate them, but they demanded so much more.  They suspected everyone who did not embrace their philosophies, so they demanded that we prove our loyalty.  They conscripted our young men for their armies.  They took our children hostage.  They infiltrated our learning centers and brought strange ideas to our families and demanded our children be subjected to their ideas daily.  Anyone refusing to surrender their child to the learning center each day would be marked and watched, and eventually, their child would be taken from them.  We were in a giant crucible, being grilled over harsh fires.  Food and property began to be rationed, overtaken and then parceled out again, apportioned to the more loyal families.  When Azragoth was taken and afterward when the plague broke out, our parents had gone into the city to trade because it was the only place yet to be conquered by the Xarmnians.  Our parents were not loyalists.  In fact, they were quite the opposite.  The Xarmnians were resentful and attempting to starve us out.  As long as Azragoth remained independent and neutral, we always could get food and have what little we had to sell, get a fair price enough to sustain us.  Mother always did try to feed me extra.  She reasoned that if I were fat, the Xarmnians would not be interested in taking me to their army.  She thought she was protecting me.  On that fateful night, when Xarmni invaded, the lower fields were swarming with soldiers.  No one was allowed in or out.  For days afterward, when they did not return, Nellus and I feared and then grieved and then tried to make do, resigned to the fact that they were never coming home.  We were not allowed to go to Azragoth, even after the armies left the area.  Azragoth was quarantined.  Azragoth was dead.  We had no hope of it ever being a haven for the surrounding villages again.  Only the dead resided there.”

Pewter cups were filled from the flagons placed throughout the long table and set before each of us.  Steaming bowls of pottage, a sort of brothy cabbage soup with barley added, was set before us and we began to eat and drink, as Corimanth went on.

“Nellus is only two years older than I am.  But she became both mother and father to me as best as she could.  We only had each other, and I gave her the worst of it, it grieves me to say.  I was a mother’s child.  A brat and I had been pampered and protected from hard work and fattened up, more than I ever should.  I had a taste for sweets and a way to get them, that I am ashamed of.  A few of the other boys in town and I were ne’re-do-wells.  We learned the art of sleight of hand.  To palm fruit and sweets from shops and market carts, mostly without being caught in the act.  I became exceptionally good at stealing.  And I rationalized it as being able to survive.  It was the source of many of our conflicts growing up.  Nell could not abide stealing, and I would not own up to it or call it that.  Nell was right.  I was wrong.  We had lost our parents and I was always angry about it and took my frustration out on my poor sister and everyone else who had something I wanted.  Nell said it many times, that it was a mercy that our parents weren’t there to see what I had become.  I acted like I didn’t care then, but I did.  I was angry at myself mostly, but it came out badly because I bottled it all up inside.  Anger taken in is like giving a guest room to a conqueror.  Its nature is to take over, and it will dominate and harm all of the other guests before all is said and done.”

Nell had unfolded her arms at this point and was thoughtfully stirring her pottage, not yet having found the stomach to eat it, but attentively listening to the words of her brother.  Tears were forming in her eyes, though, and Begglar squeezed her free hand reassuringly.

Here Corimanth stopped and turned to his sister.  When she raised her eyes to him, he spoke directly to her.

“I was ashamed of what I had become.  How I treated you, the things I made you suffer and for bringing shame to the memory of our parents lost in the tragedy of Azragoth.  I am not making excuses for it.  I am only telling you what I should have told you long ago,” he cleared his throat, “before The Eagle approached me and the others.”

Nell, closed her eyes shaking her head slightly.  This was too much.  All of the anger, resentment, self-doubt because she had so failed to control her own brother, the pain from having it go so wrong at the end and the terrible things she said to him before they parted ways, rushing back to her now.  Tears poured from the corner of her eyes as she dared once again to hope, she was mistaken about her brother.

Corimanth gave her a moment, tears beginning to well up in his own eyes.  Tears that she could not see while looking away from him, into her own pain.  From the folds of her dress, in a hidden pocket, she pulled a small kerchief with which she brushed tears from her cheek.

“You were a seer,” Corimanth almost choked on the words, the pools of tears beginning to escape from his eyes and course down his cheek and beard.

“If I could not fool you, there would be no way, I would fool the Xarmnians.  It was my chance to do something worthwhile.  For you and for everyone in Sorrows Gate and for those friends lost in Azragoth.”

Nell opened her eyes and turned to Corimanth once again, “What are you telling me?”

Corimanth swallowed hard and looked directly at his sister, tears wetting his reddened cheeks.

“I was asked to be a spy for those resisting Xarmnian rule.”

Nell’s eyes widened and she flushed, heat rising, shock registering on her face, “You were asked to be what?!”

Corimanth nodded and shrugged slightly.

“Improbable I know,” he bowed his head slightly, turning his eyes to his hands, which Nell noticed were scarred on the backs of meaty knuckles.

“But that is what the Eagle said made it useful.  No one would suspect a coward and a hot-headed thief to do anything so…,” he trailed off but Nell finished the thought for him.

“Selfless,” she said quietly, only now taking his hand, a gesture of newfound trust forming between them again.

“I knew you would never agree to it.  And you would never believe my sincere desire to do it.  We had to make it look like you and I…”

Tears formed new again, from the well-spring of Corimanth’s long-hidden grief.

Nell nodded understanding.  Words were not necessary the painful memory of their public parting so clear in both of their minds.  Xarmnian spies in the town would have seen and heard of it too.  The Eagle and those joining the resistance were counting on it.

“I stole from those I thought had turned traitor.  After all, the only vendors, merchants, and tradesmen which had food or goods to sell were the ones who had shown some appearance of loyalty to the Xarmnian Overwatch.  I wouldn’t listen or believe Nell when she told me that they were still our neighbors and friends, only that they were too scared to defy the Xarmnians.  They feared for their families so they capitulated and cowed.  Many had so much to lose that they could see no other way to survive.  Whereas we had practically lost everything.  There was little more than the Xarmnians could take from us, except our lives, and feeling as I did, I figured I had little left to live for.  Only my Nellus, and she was known as a woman who had strong opinions and fierce courage.  Just like father did.”

Here he looked up and around the room.

“I am sorry, you were not received in a better fashion, but there is, in this city still great fear offset by courage.  Azragoth is very wary and cautious of strangers.  Those from the Surface World, especially so.”

The woman in our group, who had rallied the others, in my own season of self-doubt, asked, “And why is that?”

Corimanth, leaned over and spoke briefly to Maeven, and she gestured towards, me, which caused him to look my way.

“O’Brian, is it?”

I glanced at Begglar who grinned, but did not look directly at me, so very interested he seemed to be just now in quickly consuming his pottage soup.

“Yes,” I answered, to my persistently “given” name.

“I am told you are leading this party,” Corimanth continued, “Have you not told them why?”

I cleared my throat, and sudden interest in my pottage soup beckoned me to attend to it before it became cold.

“I was building up to it,” I answered evasively.

“Building up to it,” Corimanth seemed to mull that over thoughtfully a moment.

“Well then,” he decided, “I’ll leave that tale to your own sense of timing.  You know your people better than I.  But, they will eventually need to know why we, who live here, have a very natural caution when dealing with your kind.  We’ll leave it at that for now.”

Grateful, I nodded, though the others in our company cast suspicious and impatient glances at me.

Dinner was at last served.  A wooden platter of steaming vegetables was brought in with a whole spit-roasted suckling pig and rolled meat pieces called brawn, which I knew, but decided it best not to tell the others what it consisted of.  Let’s just say, it was better than what was processed, pressed and shaped into the Surface World’s meat called baloney.

For a city in seclusion, the fare served here was far better than I had expected it to be.

*Scene 07* – 16:11 (Detritus and Scree)

When we finished our meal and the tables were cleared away, Corimanth let us out of the refectory up steps and onto a balcony just barely extending over the tree line.  He broke away from the group, as they milled about and came over to me.

“I understand, you are the one who was chosen to lead this group.  The one Begglar and Nell have decided to join.  A stone quest, is it?”

I sighed, and nodded, looking off to the far hills and the blue sillhouetted mountains beyond them.

“Having a hard time with it?”

“Yeah.  I am,” I confessed.  “I don’t feel up to it.  I feel broken and ashamed of my past.  I feel like I abandoned the quest long ago, and am now uncertain, why I was brought back here.  I’ve made a mess of it all.”

“You’re broken.” Corimanth sighed, leaning on the stone banister, next to me, looking out into the nearby hills and mountain range.

He gestured to the northwest, where we could see a large peak rising from among the edge of a short plain.

“Can you see the lower portion of that mountain there?  Where the rock tailings come down to a fanning out?”

I answered in the affirmative, and he continued.  “Have you ever noticed that at the base of a powerfully, towering, granite mountain there are crumbling and broken pieces of rock and gravel?”

“Yeah,” I answered quietly.

“And the hills below.  Have you ever imagined that the rounded, gradually rising foothills that lead up to the massive mountain you see in the distance, might have been the covered-over layers of such broken rock and gravel?  Broken pieces laid down, layer upon layer, year after year, packed with sediment, and washed with rain and dew, until a carpet of green cover it, and trees found their way up through the captured soil to sprout and aspire to heights in the shadow of the great mountain?  Those trees have a root system that grapples with the buried rock that once was the brokenness of the mountain we see today.  Mountain folk call it scree.”

I pondered quietly, not sure where he was going with this.

“Begglar.  He was a sea faring man.  There is a similar principle applied to the banks and shores of watercourses.  When things wash up on the shore of a beachhead, or lake, the term used by folks in the sea or lake country is detritus.  Detritus and scree are similar in some respects.”

“How so?”

He continued, “With enough detritus, year after year, as sand and waves push over and upon it, an island can form where once there was only a submerged reef or rocky shoal.  Both scree and detritus are the leavings of something that once occupied another time and space.  So, too, life is much like that.  We must become broken to allow a mountain to rise from the flat land and an island to arise from the sea.”

I looked at the scene of mountains in the distance, rising on the other side of the large valley below beyond the great lake reservoirs.  On the edge of the lake, we could see the small tree line of a chain of islands just off the distant shore.  Seeing those things in the context of my own misgivings, I knew Corimanth was making a meaningful connection for me.

He turned to me and looked directly at me.  “O’Brian, I know what its like to be broken.  Not just in this truss, with broken ribs to show, but to be crushed in spirit, feeling the weight of a succession of poor and selfish decisions.  I promise you, you will continue to be crushed by those feelings until you learn to surrender them over to One equipped to bear them.  The brokeness, the crushing serves a higher purpose.  To get you to stop trying to save yourself.”

“I have much to answer for,” I added quietly, “A considerable amount of blood on my hands.”

“Interesting,” he commented quietly, off to my right, gazing out into the distance, “You may find much in common with The Eagle if you have the chance to meet him.”

“How do you mean?”  I asked, truly interested in what he was thinking.

He gestured away from the fore view to extending walls of Azragoth, which from this balcony, we could see were much broader, taller and thicker along the backwoods section of the city than in the front area near the Barbican.

“Notice the broad walls there, and the wide allure way on top of the rampart.  Those walls were newly fortified, just a year before the Xarmnians took the city.  Do you know why?”

I shook my head, “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

He gestured upward, towards the cliff-side towering massively above the back way, its jagged stone faces catching the dim light forming almost an angry scowl down upon the city of Azragoth.

“What you said earlier.  Scree.  There is a fault line running up the side of the mountain ledge’s face.  The area is broken, and parts of the massive rock have slid partway down the mountain.  Eventually, that weight will break and crush the stone below it.  Water pools behind the slabs with each rain, and it trapped there.  Winters freeze it, and the forming ice further fissures the rock as the melting and freezing cycle drives water deeper into the jagged cracks in the rocks below.  Azragoth was a prospering city, growing faster than was ever planned for when the land was first cleared.  It was built, perhaps too close to the mountain edge and cliff-side.  One evening the original wall was smashed open when a heavy rain loosed a great slab that slid and tumbled down the mountain, breaching the wall and killing the people that lived in the apartments just below it.  They had believed they were in the safest place in the city, far from the main gates, and the postern gates.  Yet they died in a sudden tragic moment because of…scree.”

I pondered that a moment.  Such a terrible image of the wall crashing down through wooden beamed ceilings, burying those people in the rubble and rock.  Azragoth had had more than its fair share of tragedy.

“Yet out of that tragedy, the back wall was rebuilt and fortified, thicker and taller than it had ever been before.  You might say the backend of the city is far stronger than any other place within these walls.  It is where Maeven and some of the other children hid with the cleric and his family so long ago.  Ironically, sheltering in the very shadow of prior deaths.  You didn’t know that, did you?”

I shook my head, “No I did not.”

“And as to detritus,” he continued after a reflective pause,” there is a custom here observed by every one of adult age who stays here in our fair city.  It is one, which might cause the people you lead to protest having ever come here.  It is not one we particularly enjoy, but it serves its purpose to remind us of what lead to the plague that killed most of our citizens as well as the occupiers.  Maeven may already have told you of the time and dispensation we received from that tragedy.  We are now into our twentieth season.  A costly dispensation purchased in blood but began as a foolish oversight.  Our city is served by a series of cisterns in the public square.  These are fed by the rivers flowing from the highland, down through the forests and breaks and into the lower valley basin below.  Our town, like any other town, faced the problem of removing waste from the village streets without spoiling the freshwater of the spring-fed wells we all drank from.  Long ago a series of trenches were dug under the street pavements, and gutters were created to wash out refuse beneath the city.  Every street in the city has a small canal of wastewater running beneath flat paver stones on the lower edge of the street.  Mortared barrel tiles form their lining.  We call these waterway trenches ‘gullets’.”

He braced himself against the balcony balustrade, looking down into the city streets below.

“Early designers of the city of Azragoth diverted veins from the river Trathorn forming a small branched canal that feeds water to the closed city for this very purpose.  Over time, these gullets were taken for granted.  Water made its way in, under the city walls, and ran down into the sewage gullets and its flow pushed wastewater underneath and out of the other side of the city and down the valley.    The cesspits from the garderobes also flow down into the gullet canals so you can imagine the vile filth that builds up down there.  Left to neglect, detritus had built up in the gullets over time, greatly restricting the amount of water that flowed through them.  As the raw sewage built up in the gullets it attracted the woodland rats, which entered the city through these gullet canals.  These rodents lived and bred by the thousands in the sewage, stealing out in the evenings to forage for whatever rubbish and refuse spilled from the market carts or collected in the rubbish bins behind homes and tavern halls which did not make it down into the sewers.”

Here he turned and looked at me.

“Detritus does not just wash up on a beach or riverbank, you know.  It can be anything, from loose rock to limbs flowing down a river…or canals servicing the rubbish-drains beneath a city.”

He paused.

“This is where our custom comes in.  It is a service we all perform in remembrance of those who passed.  Something I was told to bring you and your people to, before meeting with the council.  Every new thing is built with or upon something broken.  Buildings rise, but before they can the ground must be broken to hold a foundation.  Every stone wall is built of broken rock.  Every sprouting seed is planted in and arises from broken ground.  Every new working idea most often follows upon the heels of many failures.  This is what it will take for your people to learn to be warriors in a dangerous land.  As you say, mountains rise from the land by breaking through the topsoil, when all that is underneath them is in upheaval.  It took a terrible disaster to teach us this.  A master’s work starts with small broken pieces, and is brought together and refashioned into something more than can be imagined.  This is the lesson of Azragoth.”

From the balcony, we were led down another series of steps to a central courtyard where most of the main streets radiated from around a circular central hub with a wide-open area and projecting galleries and shops lining the headings of each block.  We assembled around Corimanth and Morgrath and the other soldiers, their swords sheathed for the moment, as townsfolk poured into the stone park from side streets and shops.  This was the marketplace were the first incidents had happened.  This was the starting place for it all.  The vendor carts had all been covered and locked down and rolled off to the various homes and stall ways.  Shopkeepers had brought all of their wares into the shop alcoves for the night.  The area was open, and the sea of brightly colored tent canopies were all folded and put away for the evening.  But for the people, the open-area market was stowed for the night and the crowd had dutifully assembled to perform the custom that Corimanth had spoken of.  Children watched from the balconies and peripheries, familiar with what would happen shortly, but we were still unaware.  A delegation of men and women, in clothes seeming more in line with collecting houses and lenders, came forward through a parted pathway, from a pavilioned terrace.  Each carried before them a large pole with a half-mooned metal blade affixed to the end of each pole, that was mired in blackened filth and smelled awful.  The citizens of Azragoth revealed small metal hooks from their sides, with a blunted and flattened tip.  They moved along the side of each street at the low leeward end of the thoroughfare.  From the radiating center of the courtyard, we could see citizens lining each of the radiating streets from the city center to beyond the view where each street curved away, following the natural contour of the ground upon which the city was built.

I leaned into Begglar, as he and Nell and Dominick were the only ones in our company, save Maeven, who might be aware of what was about to transpire.  In a few more hours, the land would grow dark, and I was not sure of what was coming.

“What do you know about this custom?”

Begglar shook his head, “It has been many years since I have been to Azragoth.  Much has changed.  My trips were only day trips, so I have never had the occasion to be here at dusk.  Nell does not visit here for obvious reasons.  Dominick usually comes with me to help load the wagon, but we have not had the ability to come since the Xarmnians have occupied our highlands.  Whatever trade had been done was meted out by the Xarmnians and we’ve always received the short-end of those deals.  We had no idea Corimanth was even here.  I’m sure she and he will have much more to say to each other in private.”

*Scene 01* 11:27 – (The Under Way)

Maeven motioned to all of us, “Go ahead. Dismount.  This is where we go down.”

Begglar ambled his horse around the perimeter of the clearing and glanced over the edge of the narrow gorge.  There was no bridge that he could see across the deep channel, and no slope through the game trail ahead that appeared to descend.  On the contrary, the game trail appeared to progress upward but it was too narrow to allow a full-sized horse to pass.  The trunks thickened and tangles of vines woven a foliage curtain overhead that seem to hang lower and lower.  He considered that a doe, fawn, raccoon, opossum or a rabbit might pass with no trouble, but a rutting stag would get its antlers caught up in that tangle.  Begglar turned back to Maeven, “I don’t understand. That’s about a forty to fifty foot drop, just to the high cut stream.  And those stone channels drop into steep falls.  How do you propose we get down there?  And what of these horses?”

Maeven reached up and untangled what had looked to be twisted vines running up into the course of the large trees on either side of her and the slightly shifted edge.  “Maybe this will help,” she said sweeping her foot across the leaf strewn area where she stood.  I had notice the shift in the floor when she moved her horse closer to the edge of the bend but I had not noticed the why until then.

She and her horse stood upon a hidden platform, with cleverly concealed lowering ropes entwined in the vines of the adjoining trees.  This was a counterweighted-lift that could be raised and lowered into the narrow steephead ravine below.

Ingenious.

Soon we all could see that her horse stood upon a leave strewn platform made to look like part of the ground along the ledge.  Maeven drew her horse further into the center of the platform and secured its tether to a post that appeared to be a broken stump of a small tree.  She unwrapped a vine wound from the overhead limb revealing a lock release and a pulley and counterweight system strung overhead and fastened to a formidable-looking tree with a large bole and strong root system.  One could pass the place in either daylight or dark and never see it unless they knew it was there, but even then, they might miss it.

One by one, each of our team’s horse and rider were lowered down to a hidden trail way, as Maeven had previously alluded to, dug out and cut into a hidden rockshelf in the ravine’s edge.

Maeven supervised the lowering and steadying of the horses, calming them gently, whenever they became nervous sensing the instability of the slightly swaying platform.  It was not a fast way to move, but it was effective.  From the ledge to the lower cut pathway below the wooden gantry the drop was about 50 feet by my estimate.

Once down, the company mounted our horses again, preparing to ride under the rocky overhang of the cliff, the gurgling river just below and to the left of us, laughing at their pleased bewilderment.  Portions of the carved path extended outward so that a wooden planked pathway was built where the turn or cliff-side did not quite allow for a deeper carved half-tunnel.

A series of half-tubes, chambers, and grottos formerly cut and channeled by the corrasion of waterflow conduits and fluvial action through rifts in the karst land.  Pressure in underground aquifers, and rimstone pools had formed a series of natural and carved descent paths that workers for the underground had secretly connected, cleared and fortified, making a backway means of ascent and descent from the highlands to the lower valley and forests.

It was not lost on me that these clandestine routes and passages allowed Storm Hawk and her Lehi to move imperviously and stealthily between the highlands and the lowland valleys without the fear of being apprehended along the main descent road to the northwest or up from the lowland steppes and montane shrublands running along the coastal slopes which ran through Crowe and other townships closer to the coastal ridges.

The uplands were comprised of magnesite, limestone and dolomite, all carbonate rock formations with the strange emerging basalt (ruthenium) Marker Stone penetrating those mixed mineral rock substratas with a transcending column extruding from the buried heart of the Mid-World’s hydrographic zones.  It was unclear whether The Marker Stone was the source of the land’s freshwaters or the catalyst Rock which cut through the Mid-World’s buried oceans from the saturated phreatic zone, up through the saturated epiphreatic (floodwater) zone, into the concavities of the upper unsaturated zones webbing the Mid-World’s lands surfaces.  The resulting waters gave the Mid-World’s land surfaces its vegetation, filling the upper atmosphere with rising mists that collesced into flowing canopies of cloud cover, cycling between evaporation and condensations that fed and replenished the land.  The Mid-World’s “Land Stone” was thought by some to be the source of its ‘Living Water’, unpolluted by the salts of the outer seas.  The belief was that pure water flowed into the buried and hidden aquifers from the lower, unrevealed parts of the mystical “Marker Stone” from somewhere beyond the limits of this metaphysical world.

It struck me that, for those holding to this faith and belief, the tainting of the freshwater streams and rivers of The Mid-World, was not only a threat to all life living in these lands, but also a sign of desecration and a sacrilege.  It made sense then why one such as the mysterious Hanokh, known as “The Walker”, would press into this outrage and embark on a trek to discover what was happening upstream in the springs that converged where The Marker Stone stood in the uplands.  Whatever was tainting the freshwaters, causing illness, strange behaviors and psychotropic effect, I was certain, was not flowing from The Marker Stone, but from somewhere lower and hidden downstream.   A location that would find its way down through the natural watercourses to pollute the drinking water of villages dependent upon these waters for survival.  If those downstream waters were being polluted, the toxicity of such pollutants must be severe enough and of such a volume that dillution and the natural filters of moving over rocks, through sands, and distillation would not entirely remove its strange and dire potency.  The effects described by Maeven by way of talking to Hanokh, with the corroboration of both Begglar and Nell’s story of the affected traveler, raised serious questions.  Who would be evil enough to pollute the land’s drinking water?  Was the pollutant natural or something far worse?  From what Maeven said, Hanokh believed the contaminant was ‘something ephemeral’, even a ‘supernatural invader’.  The thought sent chills through me.  There were enough physical dangers here and arguably metaphysical with our encounter with the impersonating gollum of Becca, but other ‘supernatural invaders’ manifesting in the waters were startling and unsettling.  I wondered how one might guard against such a threat, if a malevolent entity might be surrepetitiously injested by one of us through the drinking water.  I bit my tongue just contemplating that possibility.  How long could anyone of us survive if we feared drinking the water?  I felt touches of fear seeming to crawl through me.  My spirit within me began to feel claustrophobic, almost as it a crushing weight had gripped me and was squeezing the air out of my lungs.  It was a feeling I had felt before, within the cavernous passages under the escarpment, as I frantically searched for Miray.  The overhead of the tight woods around us, began to feel oppressive as well.

Both Yasha and I had opted to be the last ones to make the descent down into what both he and Maeven had called ‘The Under Way’.   We waited until the last of our party had been lowered to the half-tube pathway about fifty feet below the outcropped shelf where we stood.  Our job would be to recover the platform with dirt, leaves and forest detritus to again conceal its presence.  We were then to make our individual descent to ‘The Under Way’ using the vine covered ropes, leaving no evidence of our exit or apparent means of the way down.  The Storm Hawk and Lehi were taking quite the risk letting us in our their secret escape route, and I felt a sense of gratitude towards Maeven upon that realization.  Helping us, they were risking both their lives and future means to successfully evade capture, if this ingenious ‘Under Way’ were ever to be discovered by the Xarmnians.  My job was to keep a back watch down the arboreal tunnel, while Yasha masked the rigging.

I held the Honor Sword in my right hand, my grip was too tight, and I could feel my hands sweating, anxious to get going and leave the area.  I was not sure how long the broken wagon might delay or thwart our pursuers.  If the Xarmnian’s had axes, it might no be long before they caught up to us, having cleared the broken wagon.  If they pursued us on foot, they may still be upon us soon.  We had ridden ahead quickly, but the narrowing forest trail and the darkness had made our forward movement cautious and tentative.  Even if the pursuing company had, by necessary, split up, how many would they send in pursuit of us, as opposed to those sent after the Lehi would had taken the other wagons?  And the demon dogs…?  What of them?  Would they get past the broken wagon?  The Xarmnians would not be stopped by the obstacle.  We could only, at best, hope for slowing them, but they would be intent, and enraged that we had run, with even the remotest hope that we could somehow evade them.  They would want to see us lose hope.  They would want to be present, to see our faces as they moved in on us.  But would they want that so much that they would choose to restrain their monster dogs from getting to us first?  My answer came almost within the very moment that I had conceived of the thought.

From the darkness, came a rush of growls and crunching leaves.  The beasts were upon us, and my own weapon was the Honor Sword I held tenuously within sweaty palms.  There was no time to get to the descending ropes.  Yasha moved swiftly to my left, his sword readied, his forearms corded and tense.  We would have to make our stand alone, having no way to tell what or who all or how many might be coming.

“We can’t let them find this,” Yasha whispered urgently. “Whatever it takes, me must stop them, if we can.”

“I know,” I huffed, my pent up breath siphoning between my gritted teeth.  “I know.  Whatever it takes,” I agreed, knowing full well, what it may take would be giving my life just to keep that secret.

*Scene 02* 14:28 – (Living Water)

Back on the banks of the creek, near Shimri’s shed, the captured Xarmnian cowered away from even the cast shadow of the giant Hanokh.  Ryden had drawn his sword and angled its blade at the captive, yet the Xarmnian seemed to take no notice of the threat of the blade. But rather shied fearfully away from the presence of the ancient Walker.  The man rocked from side to side, covering his ears as if the unperceived sounds coming from within him caused him physical pain.

“What is wrong with him?” Shimri, who stood nearby, asked.

Hanokh reached within his outer garment into a pocket of his inner garment, fishing out something from deep within its recesses.  His large hand concealed an object within his palm that neither Shimri nor Ryden could yet see.  He moved closer to the cowering Xarmnian, holding his palm high, but looking down at his open hand and then extended it toward the figure, now making animalistic sounds, growling with his face contorting between phases of extreme anger and terror, his body trembling.  The low light in the shadowy shed made clearly seeing the shrinking figure difficult.

Hanokh slowly turned back moving away from the cowering figure, passed Ryden’s extended blade, and emerged back through the broken hole in the shed, into the filtered light coming through the canopy of cottonwood and cypress trees.  Hanokh held out his open palm, finally revealing what he had pulled from his inner pocket.

Ryden had followed, retreating with his sword still pointed towards the Xarmnian’s confinement.  Both Shimri and Ryden stared at the object in Hanokh’s large hand.  It was a stoppered glass tube filled with clear liquid, but within was a twisting, writhing, pulsing mass of black threads weaving and sprouting into an amorphous glob.  The gutteral sounds coming from the Xarmnian captive within the corner of the shed pulsed in rythmic syncronization with the throbbing mass contained within the glass tube.

“It is the pairing of the darkness within him,” Hanokh rumbled.

“What is that?” Shimri asked, recoiling from the sight, tensing.

“It is, as I suspected,” Hanokh answered, “the connection of this and the darkness within your captive. They are sympathetic to each other.  This is what was drawn from the wells of Skorlith.  The town’s drinking water.  The wells are fed by the underground streams and rivers that flow from the uplands and eventually empty into the fjord lake chains of Cascale.  The connection between this and your captive is supernatural.  It responds to the darkness within this man.  I suspect it is also what is used to make the trolls.”

Ryden almost dropped his sword, so stunned he was.  Shimri drew in a stuttering breath.  “This is causing his cruelty?” Ryden gasped, incredulous.

“No.  Darkness lives within each of us.  It is the staining dark of man’s sin, coming from our ancient line.  It is the death in our hearts, that separated us from The One.  Only The Light of The One can drive that darkness out. But it is a process:  A battle of our will versus The Will of The One.  The more we surrender to The Will of The One, the more the darkness is driven out of whatever is yielded to Him.  There is much darkness in your prisoner.  He serves that darkness and operates according to its rhythm.  The degree is even greater within a troll. Such that it transforms their image and reduces it down into a squat, bulbous, apelike creature, draining its body of its natural red blood and replacing it with black blood.  The contamination resonates with the pulse of this living darkness that is polluting the waters of The Mid-World.  Take this vial and see what happens when it bring it close to your prisoner.”

With a tentative hand, Shimri cautiously reached for the glass tube.  The black mass swirled and writhed within, and Shimri’s hand froze.

“Go ahead,” Hanokh assured him, “It is physically contained, but does respond to the darkness that remains in all of us.  Holding it in your hand will not let it into you, but it will respond to what we still carry and must contend with in our present becoming.”

Lightly, Shimri’s fingers curled around the tube, and the black mass thickened.  His eye’s widened and he gasped, causing Ryden to flinch and raise the point of his sword, as he flexed with tensed readiness.

Shimri’s breath came in ragged gasps.  “I can feel the darkness.”  He turned to Hanokh.  “Please take it back.  Show us what you must, but I cannot hold this.”

Hanokh extended his large palm, and Shimri uncurled his fingers from around the tube with visible difficulty, his arm shaking with the strain.  When the vial dropped into Hanokh’s hand the black coiling mass tightened and shriveled within.  With wide-eyed wonder, he stared at Hanokh, rubbing a kind of coldness out of his fingers and palm.  “How do you hold that?  Carry it?”

Hanokh extended it out toward Ryden and Ryden recoiled, shaken.  “No! No, I don’t want to touch it,” Ryden objected, raising his sword to ward off the offer.

“You need to know,” Hanokh said, gently, “that the darkness is in all of us, to some degree, and that it is in you too.”

Ryden sword was raised in a defensive stance, his face tightened with disgust.  “Why?  Why is that necessary?!  I can see it well enough from here without touching it!”

Hanokh sighed, knowing the struggle.  “Ryden,” he said calmly, “The reason why you won’t touch it, is fear.  Fear is part of the darkness.  But the reason I want you both to touch it, is not to fear its presence, but to be sobered to its effect on you, when you see its effect on the Xarmnian in there.  There is a danger in being ignorant of what still resides within yourself, when you see its presence in one of these afflicted and imprisoned.  This man was a captive of this darkness long before he was ever made a captive in this shed.  I want you to understand this too, as Shimri now does.  It will balance you in your contentions with the evil forces of this land.  There may come a day when being able to see those you perceive only as enemies now, should be seen as they really are: captives.  Also reserve room in your perceptions of others, for the possibility of showing mercy and compassion.  To be able to do this, you will need to understand that the darkness that dominates them, also holds them captive.  They cannot be other than they are. Because without the yielding to The Light of The One, they can never find freedom from being a captive of their darkness.”

Ryden adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword, an internal struggle causing him to waver.

“Only your yielding to The Light of The One, will enable you to do what you know your spirit is telling you is True,” Hanokh rumbled gently, still holding out his hand with the liquid and its black threading resident.

Finally, Ryden lowered his sword, letting out a heavy breath as he did so.  His head lowered, but his jawline tightened, as he whispered, confessing, “I don’t know if I can…”

“It is not about your ability…” Hanokh said gently, “It is about your surrender.  The Light of The One, does not hold you in captivity, but operates in liberty.  Its effect does not compel you, or force its power over you, but operates in your yieldedness.  Your ability to choose was given as part of our imaging reflection.  Your will is free.  If you will not learn this lesson now, the lesson will come another way, for you are not abandoned in the conforming.  But make no mistake.  The future testing may be made more difficult by the choice you make in this moment.”

Finally, Ryden raised the hilt, and reinserted his blade into the scabbard sheath at his side.  He closed his eyes, as he flexed his fingers and finally extended his hand, lightly closing around the glass vial in Hanokh’s open palm.

He tensed, as his fingers curled around the tube, lifting it from the giant’s palm.  His knees almost buckled, but Hanokh reached out a hand and steadied him, gripping his shoulder.  Ryden exhaled and shuddered, his eye’s popping open, his mouth agape.  “Uuugh!” an involuntary sound escaped from his open mouth, as his body trembled, and his jaws tightened and then clamped shut.  Through clenched teeth, he pleaded, “Take it!  Take it back!  Please!”

Hanokh’s hand scooped under Ryden’s trembling fist, Ryden’s arm extended and stretched as far away from his body as he could.

“Release it.” Hanokh rumbled.

Ryden’s arm trembled, as his fingers tightened. “I c-can’t.  I can’t seem to…”

“The things we dread, we too often hold on to,” Hanokh spoke quietly, moving his open hand under Ryden’s, allowing his hand to touch Ryden’s rigid, and clench fist.  Ryden felt a warmth coming from the giant’s palm as it came in contact with his own hand, frozen in it present, struggling grip.  Finally, his warming fingers sprung open and the glass vial fell back into the giant’s open palm.  Ryden retracted his hand, rubbing its coldness with his other hand.

“Now,” Hanokh stood up to his full height, seeming to grow taller than he had been before, “you both understand that we are not without aspects of this man’s darkness.  We are only separate from it by degrees and shielded from its full power by our Hope placed in The Word of The One’s Marker Stone.  This one is prisoner and in the thrall of this darkness.  He is dangerous, because darkness extends its presence outward through his willful choices and his actions.  Follow me and look at what happens to the darkness in the glass when I bring it near him.”

Shimri signaled one of his men to hand him a firebrand torch burning in a pit near the shed and the stacked rockwall that bordered his property.  Shimri took up the torch and re-entered the dark shed casting flickering light upon the Xarmnian now pressed against the wall in the corner, huddled and hunched down, still favoring his injuries from the his fight with the troll.  With suspicion, he glared at Ryden, Shimri and Hanokh as they entered from the breech.

Hanokh opened his hand, again revealing the glass stoppered vial, he held as he slowly moved towards the Xarmnian.  Ryden and Shimri watched as the black twisting blob in the vial formed spikes and bristled, frenetically bristling and throbbing as Hanokh approached the man.  The prisoner hissed and spat against Hanokh’s approach, a foamy spittle dribbling down his lips.  The Xarmnian’s eyes appeared to darken, as Hanokh moved the glass vial near him, until suddenly the blob in the glass filled the glass with black opaqueness, the water it had floated in seemed to be sucked within the glass blob, even though it was stoppered and prevented from escaping.  Inside the tube was only the blackness.

Ryden let out a breath that he did not know he had been holding.  Shimri’s firelight danced in a sheen of golden light in the palm of Hanokh’s open hand, but its light did not reflect on the smoothness of the glass.  The tube remained in a thickening shadow, returning no reflection of the burning light.

Quietly, Shimri spoke, what both he and Ryden now saw as obvious, “I think we’ve seen enough.”  And with that Hanokh closed his hand and tucked the glass vial back into the folds and pocket of his inner garment.  The three stepped out into the open air, realizing that the air inside of the shed in the presence of the prisioner had seemed stale and thick, making it difficult to breathe.

Hanokh turned to the two men and spoke, “It is for this, that I have journeyed from the valleys and villages.  This blackness is coming down through the rivers and streams in the highlands.  I have been looking for its source, carefully tracking it up through the rivers.  I have stepped through and somehow have passed its location of contamination.  The local streams in this higher vicinity appear to be clear, so now I must go to The Marker Stone, for I know that is the source of pure, life-giving water.  I will progress downward from there, where I should have started in the first place.  Eventually I know I will come down to the source of contamination.  When I find it, I suspect there will be creatures there that are not part of the natural orders, nor are they creatures of this Mid-World.  They will be supernatural things from the Other that have somehow crossed over into this world.  And they will need to be destroyed.”

*Scene 03* 08:39 – (Hitching the Rides)

Further up the road, among the brambles and brushy ground cover, beneath the canopy of the woods, the two Half-Men creatures, (part donkey-part human), huddled in their hideaway, nervously watching the small farmhouse below.

“We’ve been waiting here for so long, and still no sign of Corg, Brem.  Let’s go.  There is nothing to be gained, waitin’ here.  The Pan will expect us back soon.”

“P’haps you’re right, Bray.  If the other trolls were coming back, they’d be here by now.  Not that I’m anxious to have them return, mind you, but The Pan did warn us what would happen if we shirked our duty.  ‘Listen to them,’ he said.  Don’t let know you are my spies.  Find out what they are really up to and report back to me.’  If we come back to him now with nothing more to report to him, other than the trolls left us to go scout the Inn, we’ll really be in for it. We still don’t know what the Xarmnians’ interests are with the innkeeper and his brood. If we return with only that, he may not think ‘that‘ is enough.  Remember what he said?”

“How can I forget?  He threatened to rip us in half.  Asked if we would like to have our ‘asses’ handed to us,” Bray shuddered.

“He could do it too,” Brem added, soberly.  “I saw him do so with an insolent mermaid once.  Left her tail fluttering on the shore, and threw her shrieking top half into the woods for the satyrs to ‘enjoy’.  Bloody mess, that was.  Stuff of nightmares.”

Bray pondered a moment, then finally said, “I’m okay waiting a little more.”

“Good choice,” Brem concurred, “Me too.”

Suddenly, both Bray and Brem felt something snatch hold of their tails, gripping them in a vise hold.  Startled, they both twisted and kicked, trying to get free, certain that what may have hold of them was The Pan himself.  A haunch and a hoof from Bray slammed into a hard, squat body, evoking a loud grunt and bark of pain from his captor.  Brem threw his hind into the hard branches of the bushes they’d concealed themselves in, squeezing his own detainer against the knuckles of the bushes, causing them to snap and break against his holder’s body.  A shout and a growl revealed to both the who of what had taken hold of each of them.  “I’ll dig out the eyes of both of you, if’n youse don’t stop a squirmin’!” an angry voice threatened, from one of the two who had seized them.  The two froze, knowing that the voice of the speaker held no idle threat.  They had seen their captor’s knife before.  Unpolished, and wicked sharp, still bespeckled with the blackstain residue of a prior use drawing blood.

“Still got your hold, Shelly?” the gruff speaker barked to his fellow.

“Barely,” the other whined back.  “Limbs broken, but I’ve still got hold of ‘im, Grum!”

“Come outta there, you two barebacks, or we’ll break these ends off and leave them bleedy!”

The two odonocentaurs dutifully backed out of the brush, as both Shelberd and Grum-Blud released their tails.  The upper torsos of the two creatures were abraded and scratched from the rough branches that had jabbed into them while evading capture and hiding in their present concealment.

“So it’s you, is it?!” Brem spat, facing the two squat trolls, glaring down at them.

“It’s us!” Grum-Blud barked, still gripping a bulbous bag in one of his large knuckles, and brandishing his sharp “poke” at them.  “Thinkin’ of leaving us afoot, were you?!” he snarled.  “I wonder what The Pan would say to that, you pig-headed humpers?!”

Brem and Bray visibly cowed, the thought chilling any further bravado that they might show to their two charges.  “Now there’s no need to bring him into this.  We’ve not abandoned our duty.  You and your kind left us to go scouting, remember?”

Grum-Blud eyed Shelberd with an off glance, knowing he still had that as leverage over these two beasts of burden.  “We’ll see about that.  I seem to remember leaving you both with full packs of supplies and Corg to keep you, numb-skulls from conveniently wandering off.” He raised his dirty blade pointing it at Brem with a threatening, and twisting motion,  forcing him to back up. “Where are those packs, and where is Corg?!”

Bray interjected, stuttering, “We-we-we had to shuck them.  The men were coming.  We c-couldn’t get through the low brush fast enough to hide.”

Brem took up the lead, “B-but we know where they are.  We can get them again.  Corg, he took them off and put them in the bushes.”

“Where is Corg?!” Grum-Blud swung the blade threateningly, at both of the two donkey-men, pushing them partially back into the brush to evade his blade.

“T-the, The men below. In that farmhouse,” Brem gestured.  “They captured him last night and locked in in that smaller structure.  There was fighting, but l-last we heard, he…he was down there.  We’ve k-kept watch.  They didn’t catch us, but they almost did.  We stayed.  You must let The Pan know that we stayed.  We could’ve run, but we didn’t.  You’ve gotta believe us!”

Grum-Blud glared at them, but slowly lowered his blade.

Shelberd broke in, “It’s worth checking out, Grum.  One of us could sneak down there and find out.”

“And it would have to be me, Shel.  You ain’t good at sneaking.  You’d best watch these two, whilst I go check it out.  Give’em a poke if they get any flighty thoughts.  Take this sack and wait for me here.”

“Whatever you say, Grum,” Shelberd mumbled, taking the smelly sack from him, but careful no to let it’s wet-stained underside brush the seepage of gore onto him.  “I’ll watch ’em, close-like.  You just head off…” realizing mid-sentence what he’d just said, he winced sheepishly at Grum, wondering if he’d receive another blow for his unwitting insensitivity.

Grum-Blud glared, but said nothing, sheathing his knife and turning down the path that led to the small clearing and farmhouse that stood next to the creek below.  He moved quickly, gathering his short legs up, gamboling into the woods on his knuckles, moving with relative stealth and speed, working his way down behind the low rock wall, edging his way closer to the lone shed that ostensibly held the only remaining troll in their small party.

With Pogsly dead, they were one short of the troop they had set out with.  He resented his brother’s foolishness, getting caught and burned up by mere humans.  A party of women, children and bewildered men, all wet behind the ears, and unknowing in the ways of The Mid-World.  Pogsly should have beaten them all.  He was more than capable of doing so.  A single troll possessed the strength of five men.  A rampaging troll had the potential violence of ten.  How had these mere men, captured Corg?  It was a puzzle that boggled his mind and made him all the more angry the closer he got to the shed.  He would have a word or two to say to Corg for being so foolish enough to allow himself to be captured.  A few choice words indeed, and a few blows to make sure those words punctuated his points of concern and throroughly hit home.

After that, they would ride to take their proposal to The Pan.  Provided Shelberd had the sense enough to keep their two rides hitched until he returned with a more contrite and bruised Corg in tow.

*Scene 04* 26:00 – (Dog Fight: [11:39]-Jaws & Bladed, [14:51]-Lone Wolf)

The narrow corridor between the densely packed trees of the deeper backwoods, and the jagged edge of the tree-lined lip of the chasm, seemed to press against us on either side.  The leaves hissed overhead like a nest of coiling serpents, and the ominous sounds of the rushing cerberi, growling and chuffing as they charged closer, echoed through the heaving and constricting throat of the forest.  Though the evening’s chill still remained in the shadow of the trail, sweat poured down my neck and coverlet tunic, I had procured from the weapons cache in the granary.  Yasha stood with his feet spread wide and his blade hand loose and ready.  He must have noted my uneasiness for he probed, “Have you ever fought a Cerberi before?”

My chest felt constricted and I could scarely answer him in no more than a whisper, “Only once, but not successfully, I’m afraid.”

“Successful enough to still be able to tell of the loss.  That’s enough.”

“How do we do this?” I queried.

Yasha shifted his sword blade from hand to hand, a practiced transfer that I could not tell whether was due to his eagerness or just a nervous motion.  “The trick is to be careful not to fall into the temptation to think they are dogs.  They are bloodthirsty monsters.  Don’t forget that.  Strike them as hard and as fast as you can.  Look for their weaknesses and take advantage of them.”

“Weakenesses? And what would those be?”

“Watch their eyes. They are not like any dog’s you’ve ever seen. They are reptilian in shape, with a yellowish gleam and spiked pupils. They are creatures suited to deep darkness. Night hunters. You will see their eyes first, or their slackened jaws, but watch their eyes.  The center head particularly.  Their peripheral vision is hampered by having three heads on a single body.  They have short necks and cannot easily turn those heads for biting.  They do have three sets of wicked teeth, but one heart and one set of lungs to supply their singular body.  Remember it is better to attack the areas where they have one organ or limb as opposed to many.  Their paws and claws are large and hard but blunt from distance traveling over rough ground.  Look for a forepaw that they may be favoring.  An injury that may have gone unnoticed by their keepers.  If they’ve run this far, they may be winded by now.  Their three heads cannot be as clear if they are short of breath.  Their reactions may be slower than usual.  They are sprinters, not long runners, but they compete with the horses carrying their masters for speed.  If the horses run, they run behind, trying to keep up. They prefer a frontal attack, but their front bulk and shoulders holding their heads make them top heavy, so if they throw their weight forward, pivot and lift with a low arc using your blade and you will flip them over, and hack at their soft underbelly.  Their backs are matted with thick fur, and with quick movements they may turn a lightly held blade, so be sure-handed and strike hard and quick, but balanced. Use a two-handed grip on the hilt, if need be, otherwise you will tire quickly.  Dodge and step aside when they rush you.  Slice the hind quarters if you get the chance.”

“Step aside?!”

“Yes.  There is an incline beyond, but they are too big to get more than a few feet in and they will not turn easily.  Stike their back quarters, before they get their heads around.  They are murderous in a frontal assault, but limited in the flanks.  Hold your blade low.  Don’t let them get under it.  Only raise it if they leap, but these are tight quarters.  Use the woods and thickets to your advantage.  They will not relent, even it you injure them, unless it is a grievous wound, so try and make each slash count.  Let your blade bite, but not too deep, or they will twist a stuck blade out of your hand and leave you defenseless.”

I nodded quickly, trying to follow Yasha’s instructions, visualize them, and commit them to memory, but there was no further time to contemplate for Yasha’s chilling words came next.  “Here they come!”

Six baleful eyes piered the darkness ahead, bounding toward us at incredible speed.  Only slightly behind was a second set of sextuplet orbs, undulating above huffing open jaws, clouded with mists over three sets of large yellowed teeth, canine incisors scissoring through the throaty growls.

There were only two of the black, shaggy monsters, but they were as large as grizzly bears, charging at us with savage intent.  A quick glance at Yasha, and I realized why he was shifting his blade from hand to hand, as he focused on the gleaming eyes of the onrushing monsters.  He was trying to determine from which side they might break.  Would they slow and circle, or just run us down?  I had no idea, and no chance to ask.  With a shuddery intake of breath, I realized I had not options, for I was right-handed and had the bloodline sash wrapped around my right wrist.  It the initial strike was hard enough, the bloodline might spare me from loosing my blade, but I would have to bring it back to hand swiftly.

On large black paws, the charging beasts’ footfalls hit the leaf-strewn ground with a crackling punchs.  I side-stepped closer to the chasm ledge to my left and the thinning fencing of the trees there.  I would have to fight right-handed only, and that meant at least one of these dogbeasts must pass between us.  But if one chose to charge Yasha to his right, it would put a pivoting Yasha right in the attack lane of my own animal.  I gasped, suddenly uncertain, as the slavering creatures raced towards us, now neck and neck, their throaty growls rising into a terrible crescendo.

Cross body!  The thought slammed into me, as my heart thrummed.  I cursed myself for being such an idiot.  As a right-handed fighter, I would have to slash at my attacker in a cross body strike.  Meaning my slash would come down to my left.  Yasha and I would serve best moving into the center, forcing the beasts into the trunks and walls of the narrow trail.  He would have to strike across his body to the right, and I would have to strike to the right.  We would have to pivot back to back.

Shhhhh!  CRUNCH!  The monsters were upon us.  Yasha met me in a swift move back to the center, his blade pairing and combing through the thick hair of his assailant.  I kept my sword’s tip down, raising it only seconds before my own monster ploughed into me.

Stunned, I wheeled and pivoted, almost becoming tangled in the twist of my own feet.  My left arm flailed, and I felt the heat of snapping jaws nearly taking off one of my fingers.  The leftward head, barely missed taking a chunk of flesh out of my side torso, but still it struck me with the force of a professional linebacker.  My body followed the motion of the passing beast, and I could smell the stink of its mangey hide, cloying and reeking in the close trail.  My blade had raked through a shagged carpet of thick black hair and evidently skipped pointedly along the beast’s rib cage in passing, wetting the blade with a shallow cut, but wrenching my hand free of the stuttering sword, my finger spattered with a gout of the beast’s hot blood.

Yasha had laid into his attacker with a more sure stroke, cleaving the outer lip of his monster, and it spat bloody froth from its superficial wounding, as it brushed past, forcing both Yasha and I into one another.

“Turn!” Yasha yelled, as we pivoted, folding back towards the monstrous mongrels.  In the forward charge, the two cerberi jostled one another, shouldering into the rising incline, trying to get turned to charge us again.

“Hit their flanks! Hurry!” Yasha commanded, but I hestitated, fearful that another set of attackers might charge our backs if we turned away from the long hollow.  “What about the others?!” I yelled.  “These are enough!  Don’t lose the chance of seconds!  If others come, we will be done.  We cannot fight more.”

A split-second passed, fear threatening me against Yasha’s guidance, but I pushed it aside.  Together, Yasha and I leapt after the back’s of the creatures, slashing savagely.  Our blades met bone and gristle, muscles and hair resisting our feeble attempts.  The monsters lunged against the thick brush, hampered by their fierce desire to turn together, while shoulder pressed into the thickets on either side.  My blade bounced off the creature’s spine, raking hair and bone again, but find a sudden carved purchase into one of the creature’s hind quarters.  A throaty grow and bark belched out of the beast, coming with the seeming punch of a physical blow to my own ears, leaving a ringing noise in them, that I could not shake.  The beast lowered into a crouch, favoring it’s freshly wounded flank, allowing the other beast that Yasha had fought to turn over its lowered body and lunge at me, its flabby ears turned back, its feral, serpentine eyes fixing me with savage hatred.  The crouched beast that I had struck, moved almost as swiftly below the other beast, turning on Yasha, our enemies now changing sides.

My attacker came in higher than I had expected, and I fainted downward, bringing my blade up, in hopes of stabbing into its thick brisket as it charged.  The lower beast, suddenly thrust upward, lifting its partner up into a higher lunge while it came in low.

Quick as a flash, I saw Yasha flick up his blade, catching my higher attacker under the jaw of its center head.  The angle was off, but the blade drove into against the force of the springing monster, driving its length through its throat and through the monster’s think mane.  The force of the lunge and the bulk of the animal in motion, wrenched the now fixed spear, out of Yasha’s hands, leaving him unguarded against the jaws of the beast’s right most head.

The monster’s jaws clamped down hard on Yasha’s warding forearm, sinking its canine incisors deep into his banded flesh, tearing through the thick leather of his forearm vambrace, crushing bone.  Yasha folded to the ground in pain, the monster’s bulk pinning him down to the leafy floor.  The central head gurgled against the blade that had run it through and suddenly went slack.  Mortified, I slashed across my body, carving the cranial brow of the beast’s leftmost head, flicking through a glassy yellow eye, and closing that wicked lamp in a spray of gore.  The lower beast, thrust upward, seeking vengeance, but tumbled it companion over itself, its large black paws raking the air like swiping bear claws, talons extended.

I arced my blade, out of the feral fur, raising it high for a downward blow on the underbeast, forgetting Yasha’s warning to not let the creatures get at my unprotected body.  The jostling and striking, had pumped adrenaline through me, but it effect was waning and I was beginning to tire.

Six feral eyes gleamed up at me, three sets of wicked jaws snapped and slackened with rythmic clacks and wet gurgling noises.  The monster whined in hunger, its deadly glared freezing my blade mid-air.  Its front legs were coiled and tense, ready to spring up like vipers, its monstrous jaws ready to tear out my innerds, and uncoil my intestines in a grisly feast.  The black-spiked irises held me mesmerized, their Medusa gazing turning my arms to stone.

The beast pinning Yasha quaked visibly, its hide moving in pulsing motion, like a blacked field of rustling wheat, pushed against a frenetic turning wind.  It’s jaw had slackened around Yasha’s forearm, leaving its bloody mess revealed in twilight glare.  Yasha’s sword must have grazed the beast’s singular heart, finally quelling the beast, taking it down.

My own nemesis was soon to put me in that dire position, if I did not strike, but fear and uncertainty were dealing me their own treacherous blows.

Zing! Ssssst!  I heard the noise, before seeing the bristling arrow come through my legs and drive deep into the coiled beast coming up under me.  A sharp belch, came from one of the beast’s throats, and I could hear a shout behind me.

“Move out of the way, fool!  I need a clean shot at it!”

Stunned, I back peddled almost falling on my rump.  The beast jerked upward, pitching the remaining weight of its now slack companion off to its side, freeing itself from the restriction of being under it.  The feral creature wagged its ponderous neck, trying to rid itself of the arrow that I could now see had lodged itself between two of its three heads, pinning one of its lips into a sinister sneer.  How deep did it go, I wondered in half a thought, before raising my blade again, only to find it dangled below my wrist from the secured bloodline.  I had not realized it had slipped from my hand, and my grip was still poised as if I still held the hilt.  My fingers were oily with blood.

Between the growls, I heard Yasha moan in pain, gasping as he clenched his lacerated arm with his other hand, trying to keep the broken bones together.  He had rolled free of the slumped mound of cerberi, trying once again to gain his feet.

I swung the loose blade back up into my hand, attempting a better hold, as the remaining creature teetered on its wounded hind leg, but righted itself on its three remaining shanks.  Its middle head glared at me through dull, almost sleepy eyes, still reptilian, but strangely hypnotic.

My legs felt like lead.  The lunging beast had bruised me in passing, and I could feel the tenderness of abraded ribs as I slowly staggered forward.

“I’ll need a clean shot, Brian! Get out of the way.” a voice, low and commanding spoke to my back, but I waved it away.

“This one is mine.  Put your bow away, Maeven!” I groused.

I heard the distinct sound of a bow being pulled taut, but I did not move.

“Put it away!” I said louder.

Silence.

The beast had regained it’s feet.  It sniffed at its dead companion, nipping at it with a sharp bite into its thick fur, attempting to rouse it.

I turned for only a half a second, looking back at Maeven.

She hung from the abseiling rope, her leg wrapped in a j-hook loop, belaying her position for a bow shot, but also readied to rappel with the same.  Her forearm held the grip, an arrow point readied around her hanging thumb, her drawing arm freed by a cross-body wrap of the same belaying rope she hung from.  Shocked, I was amazed that she had made the shot she had into my attacking cerberi.  A second later, my momentary distraction proved nearly fatal.

The cerberus lunged, hitting me hard, driving me backward into a stumble.  I slipped on the loose leaves covering the trail floor, as the beast slammed me down with a monstrous paw, pushing my wind from me.  Yasha’s sword was still held fast in the impaled beast he had managed to kill.  He could provide no aid, and my prone position offered me little chance to manuever my sword.  A dead head dangled over me, its mahoghany tongue lolling from its slackened jaw, slimy drool strings poised to web and wet my strikened upturned face.  The head with the sliced eye, wriggled, puzzled at its in ability to see the periphery of my terror.  The only unscathed head, was intent, however.  Its yellow, bloodstained jaws champing eagerly as they attempted to turn aside the other head from getting a first bite of me.

Sssst!  Sssst!  The sound of two rushing arrows signaled my only chance for hope.

I heard movement through the leaves as Maeven transfered swiftly from the descent rope to the edge of the rock rim.  Zing!  Her nocked arrows fed darts into the bearish hunch on the back of the cerberus that held me pinned.  Feathered shafts bristled from the beast’s thick shoulder, but they did not seem to dissuade the monster from making me its last meal.

Panicked, I flexed the Honor Sword, raising its pointed tip enough to rake into the creature’s softer underbelly.  Mustering what little strength I had left, I thrust the tip into the creature’s inner haunch, driving it through the monster’s muscle and into its inner groin.  The attempt met hard gristle, taut muscle, but the thrust was aided, unwittingly by the monster’s own eagerness to get its third head’s jaws around my throat, as it turned its body into a better biting position.  The restriction of its own bulky neck, and its inability to manuever a clear sideward bite proved useful.  The searing pain, felt by the cerberus as it thrust itself on my angled blade, suddenly flooded through its murderous need, and the beast thrust itself upward, attempting to free itself from the pointed bite into its nether regions.  The backward thrust pushed its heavy paw downward into my chest, emptying my lungs of whatever air remained in them.

Zzzzzat!  Another arrow from Maeven, now poised and closer, drove itself deep into the beast’s throat, causing it to mewl and back away from atop of me.  I choked on musty air as the pressure relented, my vision seeming to almost blacken around the edges.  Dried leaves cast a stale powder into the air.  I could scarcely intake the grit and the stench of the two beasts that reeked of their gluttony for death and carnage.

“Get up!” Maeven ordered, coming behind me and helping lift me to a sitting position.  “We’ve got to get these beasts off the trail.  Drop them into the chasm.”

Yasha struggled to his feet, moving toward the beast he had managed to slay, swaying with each step.

The cerberus that had almost taken me into the hereafter, was fading.  It slumped on the ground, unable to muster any additional strength as its lifeblood ebbed from around the shaft of Maeven’s arrows.  Its reptilian eyes held hatred from me, glaring with a yellowish scintillation.

“You really are a piece of work, Brian,” Maeven growled.  “Jeremiah sure had you pegged years ago.  You are determined to be a lone wolf.  Unable to accept help from anyone.  Especially a woman!”

I sighed, trying to find some strength to respond. “What do you know of it?” I grumbled.

“What has set you against allowing a female to help you?”

I closed my eyes, not wanting to have this conversation.  Especially now.

“I don’t know.  Perhaps because they’ve offered my too many apples in the past.”

“Apples?!” Maeven was startled, as I turned to look up at her.  Suddenly, she seemed so pale and small.  A stricken look of fright seemed to pass over her as she backed up a pace.  Something was happening to her, and I did not know what, but came to my feet turning towards her, unsure if she might collapse or strike out at me.  Her eyes seemed distant and had a far away look in them.

“What is it?” I moved toward her, reaching out a hand.  She started at me for a brief moment, not seeming to recognizing me, and then her clarity returned.

“I saw…a memory from my past,” she looked at me wide-eyed, “A repressed memory…from my once life…in the Surface World.”

“What did you see?” I asked gently.

“A glowing white apple…turning, ” her eyes seemed to see it again.  “Turning…end over end.  There were floating stars all around, sparkling in the air.  A shadow behind it.  A glimpse of a hand…a gold band on its finger…reaching…”  Her hands came to her face and she covered it, her dark raven hair forming a think black veil on either side of them.

Quietly she said, “There was a man in the darkness beside me.  Someone I should know.  Someone I felt strongly about, but I cannot see him.  His face is in shadow.  I can’t see him.  Remember what he looks like.  It is lost behind the sparkling stars, fluttering all around.  Behind the glowing white apple that turns there, behind a silver sheet.  It makes no sense.”

She lowered her hands and pushed her heels into her eyes, and lowered them again, then looked up at me.  “What did you mean by saying that? Too many apples,” she added for clarity.

“I don’t know, exactly.  I guess…”

Before I could finished, she finished for me. “Eve.  That is what you meant, isn’t it?” An accusing tone returning to her voice.

I sighed, offering no further answer.

Maeven moved over to check Yasha.  “Are you alright?  Hurt bad?”

Yasha straightened, holding his forearm, trying to mask the blood seeping between his fingers.  “It is just a scratch, my lady,” he said, attempting to downplay it.

“Let me see it,” she said, holding out her hand to take his arm.

He glanced up and me and then back at Maeven, unclasping his fingers from the wound.  Maeven studied him quietly.  “Move further into the light,” she commanded, brooking no argument.

He obeyed, coming with her to the edge of the ravine, the sunlight now twinkling and weaving its beams through the branches overhead.

It was a bad wound.  The cerberus’s teeth had lacerated his arm, blood pooled and spilled from the deep gashes, where the fangs had sunk through the hard leather into the skin.  A portion of his armbrace hung loosely, from what remained of its tieback laces.

“What were you both thinking,” Maeven asked shaking her head, asking more rhetorically than as a question.  “If you had not been wearing the bracer, you would have lost this hand.  You do realize that, don’t you?”

Yasha winced, as Maeven turned his forearm, giving it a sharp tug to allow the radius and ulna bones to realign.  She eyed him, “We will need to wrap that, and splint it.  Perhaps there is still enough muscle left there to heal.  Perhaps not.  Time will tell.”

“Yes, my lady,” Yasha responded, taking his forearm back into his other hand.

“Never do this again,” she fixed him with a hard stare, a look of contrition shadowing Yasha’s countenance at her chastisement.  “Cerberi are too dangerous to face alone.  You need five warriors to be sure to bring down one.  If that narrow funneled game trail had not held these two together, you both would be dead by now.  This was irresponsible.  I cannot afford to lose Lehi.  We are too few as it is, now.”

“We thought to cover the backtrail.  They were upon us before we could finish.”

“We can afford to lose a secret route, but we cannot afford to lose you two.  Never again, do you understand me?”

“Yes, my lady” Yasha bowed in assent.

She turned, looking at me again.  “Now for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” she fixed me with a hard stare.  “I did not ask to lead these Lehi.  I was pressed into this service.  But as it is now mine to lead, I figure I have a duty to lead them to the best of my ability and understanding, and to do so responsibly as unto service to The One.  Do you understand me?”

“I think so. Yes.” I answered.

“There can be no ‘lone wolfs’ in our company.  We do things together.  As a team. As a unit, watching each others’ backs.”

I nodded quietly.

“As long as you are in our charge, you will do things with us, allowing us to help each other, regardless of our gender.  You were once a great swordsman.  You demonstrated a skill I have never seen matched or equaled in all of my training.  I could never equal you in such with a blade.  But I have become a proficient archer, and I can compete with you in that.  I have honed this skill.  Trained with some of the best these lands have to offer.  My skill is at your service, as I would reasonably expect yours to be at mine, if we are to remain friends.”

I nodded again.

“I don’t know why it is that you seem to have lost the proficiency you once had.  Perhaps you are out of practice.  This is something we hope to rectify once we all get to Azragoth…provided we can still get there.”

I moved towards her, coming further into the filtered light.  “Azragoth.  What is so important about a dead city?”

“Azragoth still holds many secrets.  Some of which are important to the Stone Quests.  Some I am not allowed to speak of.  There is another, who may choose to tell you more, or may not.  It is up to him.  I know the part I was charged to play in keeping one of those secrets, but I am not presently given leave to say more about that.  You will learn in time.  Provided, you stay alive long enough to do so…’lone wolf.'”

*Scene 05* 12:24 (Trailing Tears)

Shimri and his wife Aida looked forlornly at their small log-and-stone cottage farmhouse, realizing that it was time for them to leave it as well.  Ryden held the reins of his horse, and assisted with loading packs of supplies on the mounts both Shimri and Aida would ride and follow him through the hidden path in the forest and find their way to the adjoining backtrail that led to the ghost city of Azragoth.

Hanokh, now gone, had departed as mysteriously as he and Shimri had arrived, traveling through the unseen fabric of space and time that folded around them.  Shimri, terrified by the mystical means of passage, did not relish the thought of ever traveling that way again.  He had kept his eyes closed, as Hanokh had warned him to do, but even in so doing, had sense a frenzy of movement around him, as he felt the ground drop out from under his feet in those few seconds it had taken to regain the familiar feel of terra firma.  Through clenched eyes, he had perceived flashes of white-hot light, that he was sure would have blinded him had he dared opened his eyes in the brief process of transference.

Ryden had asked Hanokh if he could go anywhere in the Mid-World like that, and Hanokh had told him ‘No’.  When asked, ‘Why not?’, Hanokh had only said, “I can only go to a place I have seen, and no further than what I can envision of it.  The Marker has revealed what I believe to be the ‘why’ of it, saying “Plans fail for lack of a vision.*” [*Proverbs 29:18]  “Every movement through the interspaces, for mortals, is an act and response of faith.  Traveling otherwise is dangerous and could result in one getting seized by those rebellious ‘others’ whose time is still yet to come at the end of days.”

Both Ryden and Shimri looked stricken by that cryptic answer, and finally Shimri choked out the words, “If its all the same to you, I’d prefer to travel by foot, horse or wagon from now on.  Once was enough for me.”  Hanokh had nodded sagely, and responded, “Just as you please.”

Now, thinking back, Shimri realized that Hanokh’s way of “walking” was not something he envied.  For now, it served as a caution, to learn to appreciate the time spent on any journey to or from a place, no matter how long it might take getting there.  He put his arm around Aida and squeezed her shoulder gently.

“Do you think we will ever be able to come back here?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“I hope so,” he answered, “but one can never be sure.”

“My sister is buried here…” Aida put a hand to her mouth, repressing a sob that threatened to escape her lips.  “The Xarmnians will…”

“Now, now.” Shimri cautioned, “Don’t let’s think about what may be.  Trust that to Providence.  The One knows what is to come, and has promised to be with us in all that is ahead.  Justice will come for what was done to Atayma.  The One holds all records in His keeping and will most assuredly settle accounts for any and all that have suffered at the hands of evildoers.”

“Then why do we resist at all!” Aida said, bitterly.  “If The One brings justice, where is it?!  Why must it come so late, when so many suffer?  Does He not hear us?  Does He really care so much, if all we see are delays?!  What good is justice that comes only after we rot in our graves?!”

Shimri held his wife close as she cried into his shoulder, holding her in a steady embrace.  There were no easy answers to the questions Aida had posed.  Nothing he could say to provide salve to her wounded heart.  The pain was one they and too many others shared.  A feeling that tempted them to despair of all hope.  Sensing the promised, abiding presence of The One and the assurances from the mysterious words of His Marker Stone, seemed all the more difficult in the face of atrocity and the mounting evidence of evil’s pervasive rule, subduing the lands of The Mid-World.  The Stone quests seemed like mere folly.  A faint hope dangled over those doing all of the dying and suffering, wishing for better days.

Was there really a valid promise in a higher realm called Excavatia?  What might that mysterious, undiscovered country offer those who needed relief from their present oppression?  Shimri bowed his head, his lower face burrowing into the sweet fragrance of Aida’s soft hair, as she clung to him still sobbing.  It was so tempting to surrender to the bleakness, and despair any aid to come.  To cling solely to the respite of the moment, as if only it offered a measure of quiet before the coming of the next storm, the next brutal assault, the next time of grieving for another innocent fallen.  The need to do something, anything to resist those who proudly decreed miserly and dealt out death stirred within.  There was, within him, and in Aida, that same need.  A refusal to surrender meekly to tyrants and thugs, seeking to establish their power through erecting a kingdom of fear.

A kingdom of fear… Shimri reflected on those words, sobering to them.  Therein was a choice.  Into which kingdom would they put their trust and be subjected to?  Long ago, both he and Aida had made their choice, when Begglar and Nell had come to Crowe.  They had agreed that Xarmnian rule must be put into check, by any and all means, however small or large the effects of their resistance might be.  Surrendering to evil was evil itself.

To know and percieve love is all its forms, was a sign that mankind was not meant to be ruled by tormentors.  The words of The Ancient Text rose to his thoughts:

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.“ [1 John 4:18]

Shimri realized, to be channels of that love, it must therefore require its recipients to be enjoined in the “casting out” process.  There was but One capable of empowering those trusting in Him to be used for that purpose, and so surrending to part of those who resist ‘evil’ was service to The One and operating in commitment to ‘Love‘.

“Aida, my Love,” Shimri spoke quietly, gently combing his fingers through her hair, holding her close.  “Do you still love me?”  A barely perceptible nod issued in response as Aida’s sobs began to subside.  “You know I do,” she whispered.  “Did you love your sister?” he asked softly.  She sniffled and nodded again, whispering, “You know I did.  Why do you ask me this?”  Aida lifted her head looking up into her husband’s face through tearful eyes.  With a gentle hand he brushed her forehead, and caressed a falling tear away from her cheek.

“Then you remember why we chose to resist.  Because we have love.  It was our choice to serve its ends.  Love is worth the risks we are taking.”

Additional tears spilled from Aida’s eyes as she looked into the eyes of her husband.  His hand gently brushed the long scar that ran from her forehead and down her cheek, as Aida studied him.  There was no sign of revulsion or hesitancy from him, as his fingers traced the vestigial mark of Xarmnian violence from the terrible night so long ago when she had intervened on behalf of her sister.  Gazing up into the loving man who had become her husband, she had come to understand that the “Love” he spoke of, was, in fact, worthy of whatever they had yet to lose to keep it.  Resolved, and galvanized once again by her husband, she wiped away the tears from her eyes and sniffled, leaning once again into him as she had done for the past thirty-four turnings of years.

“So, it’s to Azragoth, then?” she queried.

“Yes,” he whispered,”For the time being.  Until we can return.”

Ryden had been quiet, allowing both Shimri and Aida to have a moment, but the sun was climbing higher above the trees and time was running short.

“Let’s ride.  We have a ways to go yet, before making Azragoth.”

Shimri helped Aida mount her horse, and he had soon sat astride his own.  They looked wistfully back at their home one last time, then waved to the few men staying behind to guard the shed bound prisoner, before they forded the shallow stream between the tall cypress trees, crossed a hay pasture and headed off into the woods.

Ryden wove a winding trail along no discernable path, through trees and pressing through undergrowth brush, guided by some internal compass that neither he nor Aida had ever sensed.

“Are you sure this is the way?” Aida lamented as brush scratched at her legs and thighs, raking her packs and the flanks of her animal.

Ryden, if he had heard her, did not answer, and she assumed he must be trying to save himself some embarrassment by avoiding the question.

Shimri was none too certain either that Ryden did know where he was going and he wondered how long it might take before the man would finally admit to them if he had gotten them lost.  Ryden seemed to be scanning the area, looking for something.  The forest floor was covered in ferns and matted vines of kudzu that had not fully choked out the ferns from its dapple lighted kingdom.  His horse stepped high, trying to keep its hooves and fetlocks from becoming entangled in the ground foliage.  Suddenly, Ryden’s horse balked and reared, stuttering backward, and shying away from some soft patch under the cover of the ferns.  Aida’s horse turned, avoiding the former horse’s flank, giving it room to turn parallel to them, stopping further movement.

The ferns were brown and wilting, along a wide swath ahead, and Ryden noted that the ground underneath was too soft, and appeared to slope away from where his horse had reared and turned.  He carefully rode parallel to the browning edge of the fern cover, noting that the plants seemed to follow a band of rot and decay that pointed in a northwestward direction.  He looked above and noted that some of the taller trees appeared to be canted towards the deadening foliage, as if the softened earth that fed their root structure had been compromised.  Some of the tall trees leaned across the wilting path, as if in some kind of slow fall that would take a little more time to land horizontally on the other side.  Across the lowering depression, the trees along either side canted inward, as if something below ground had compromised their long standing root system.

“Something is very wrong here,” Ryden muttered aloud, a sense of rising alarm edging his voice.

“I suspected as much!” Aida huffed. “We’re lost!  You’ve forgotten the way.”

Ryden turned back and looked at her and Shimri, shaking his head.

“No.  We’re not lost.  I’ve just found something here that may delay us in getting to Azragoth by nightfall.”

*Scene 06* 17:50 (A Will to Live)

Begglar and Dominic held their horses next to the four ascending ropes, running loose along the sides of the lifting platform they had used to descend to the lower rock shelf under the edge of the upper trail above.  Storm Hawk had ascended the two ropes, armed with her bow and quiver, to see what was causing O’Brian and Yasha to delay their descent.  Shortly after, they all heard the sounds of an attack, and realized that the cerberi had, at last caught up to them, and that the Xarmnian Protectorate would not be that far behind.

The noises from above were vicious and terrible.  The group shrank back from the edge above, ready to mount their horses and run from the loading area, but Maeven/Storm Hawk had not returned to guide them down the underway passages.  Miray wailed and sobbed, crying out for O’Brian, for someone to go help him, and Lindsay and Christie and some of the other girls tried to calm her and keep her quiet.  Begglar and Dominic moved towards swaying ropes uncertain, but determined to climb up after Maeven and offer any assistance that they could.  Four of the other young men offered to join them, their newly held weapons readied and drawn.  Begglar had signaled quiet as he leaned towards the edge peering up along the swaying and shifting ropeline.

“Can you see anything?” the tall blonde named Cheryl asked, still favoring her injured leg as she limped forward.

By then, the noises from above had become muted and dull, lost admid the sounds of the rushing water in the narrow channel chasm below the second edge.

“Dead!  They’re all dead!” a young teenage boy  mewled, trembling and covering his head with his arms, pressing his hands over his ears, his face cast in a grayish palor in the shadow of the overhang. “It’s like before!  They’re killers. Bloody killers!  They ate him!  They ATE him!  And I… I could do nothing about it! NOTHING!”  It was the boy that both Nell and Begglar had had to coax forward on the upper trail, when the distant sounds of the approaching dog beasts had echoed through the narrowing trail above.  Some prior trauma had caused the young man to strongly react to the sounds of the animals, a fear beyond that of what would have been expected, had the beasts been much closer.  Nell had tried to comfort him and encourage him to keep moving forward, but the young lad had merely froze in his terror and gripped the reins of his mount so firmly, that the horse was unable to move forward against the bit, holding him back.  Begglar had had to prise the boy’s fists open and rid him of his terror hold on the reins to get the boy’s horse to move forward to join the others in the group when they had reached the impasse on the trail.

Now the boy sank to the floor of the shelf rocking back and forth, muttering remonstrances to himself, bewailing something no one could understand, occasionally striking his own head with his fists.  His breathes coming heavy and heaving, his brows furrowed as if experiencing an inner physical pain.  Nell knelt beside the lad, a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder that he did not seem to notice.  Nell’s eyes were closed, but she seemed to sense and feel something coming from the boy that caused her own expression to blanche and then crease with an empathetic grief of her own.  She looked up at Begglar and their eyes met and held each other.  There were tears streaming down Nell’s face for a grief, not coming from her, but for him.  Softly she muttered to Begglar, “It’s back.”  Begglar almost turned away and came toward Nell and the boy, but Nell raised her hand, and shook her head emphatically.  “No!” she said firmly.  “You and Dom go ahead.  See if you can help above.  I’ll see to him.  Get him to where he needs.  Go on, you and the others.”  Some of the girls and women gathered around Nell and the boy, looking fearfully to him and to Begglar and the other men moving towards the ropes.

The dangling ropes were swaying now, and Dominic pointed upward.  “Dah!  Somethin’s comin’ down!”  Suddenly, a dark bulky shadow extended just on the edge of the lower trail, and a rain of grit and gravel peppered the rocky ground.

The men jumped back as a large. black mound of fur and flesh, claws and clacking teeth, thudded to the rock ledge facing them.  The group recoiled, shrieking, shrinking back from the monstrous bulk.  The men with their swords and blades drawn, stuttered back in shock, but to their credit, held their ground.  For a few tense seconds no one moved.  Their breaths coming hard, but their weapons held at the ready await the monsters next move.

“Cerberus!” Begglar announced, noting its lolling tongue, and the glassy, hard look in the unblinking eyes of its three heads.  “This one is dead.”

Unbelieving, the four young men held their battle axes, harberds, and swords warily, looking for any sign of further movement from the wicked looking beast.  A voice from above hailed a warning, causing the men to flinching, thinking that the noise had come from the slouching beast.  A rain of gravel, dust and loose rock, crashed down as the men jumped back and Dominic and Begglar shifted away from the edge.   Another black mass of grizzly fur, muscle and massive talons, slid down the edge of the upper ledge, slumping with a fwump noise, down atop the former beast, causing the three heads below its bulk to rise and huff out whatever residual air remained in the beast’s lungs, causing those yellowed jaws to clack once more in a final, if ineffectual bite.  The weight of the second cerberus, dislodge the first beast from its precarious perch on the edge of the lower ledge and it began to slide backwards over the edge towards the narrow chasm below.  The second beast’s heads were towards the ledge, dangling over the edge.  Its muscled flanks seemed to tighten, and twitch as a final shudder evoked a delayed spasmotic kick that dug into the rock with black claws and tilted its own body downward.  The two beasts disappeared together, falling down over the edge, striking the rock walls as they fell, finally concluding their descent with a loud splash as they hit the rushing stream pouring through the chasm below.

From the overhead ropes, three figures descended, sliding down the absailing ropes with a belaying twist slowing their descent.  It was Maeven, Yasha and O’Brian.  Yasha favored an arm and it was bound in a makeshift splint, wound temporarily with vines.  They swung down, and twisted to the ledge, shifting from the ropes and onto the deck of the rock shelf.

“What are you all waiting for?!” Maeven/Storm Hawk ordered.  “Don’t just stand there gawking. Let’s get going!  The Xarmnian scouts are not far behind, and I expect none of us are anxious to meet them when they arrive.”

⋘ↂↂ⋙

Right away, I noticed the young lad huddled in the back of the carved-out lane, with Nell kneeling by his side.  The boy’s knees were drawn up to his chest with his arms crossed defensively over his ducked head.  He was rocking from side to side, muttering and almost catatonic with terror.

As I approached, I could hear him urgently whispering to himself saying, “They’re dead. They’re dead.  All dead. Dead, dead, dead.”  Nell looked up at me tearfully, her eyes pleading for me to help him somehow.

I knelt down, and stretched out my hand to him, resting it lightly on his shoulders.

“He has been through a lot,” Nell whispered.  “He’s been progressively reacting to the sounds of the dogs.  A terrible memory torments him, and he seems to be back there, reliving it again.”

I placed another hand on his other shoulder attempting to ease him and get him to stop rocking.  “Dead.  Dead. Dead,” he whispered, his head tucked away from seeing me, but I could see his brow furrowed and his eye clenched shut.

“I don’t know his name,” I said to Nell.   She commisserated, adding, “Nor do I.  But I have seen into him, and what he is experiencing again, he cannot hold onto for long, or it will do him great harm.”

“Young man,” I spoke directly to him, trying to break through.  “We are not dead.  We are here with you.  I am alive.  The beasts are dead.  How can I help you?”  The young man was breathing heavily, seeming to hyperventilate, but his rocking seemed to slightly slow at the sound of my voice.

Over my shoulder, I heard Maeven.  “We don’t have time for this!  We’ve got to get moving.  There may be other Cerberi coming, and The Protectorate with them.”  Her voice was urgent, though not unfeeling.  “Can you get him up?  On his feet and into a saddle?  We’ve got to go now!”

“Maeven,” I spoke calmly but authoritatively.  “He is my responsibility, like your Lehi are yours.  If you and the others want to go ahead, do so.  I’m not leaving this one behind.  I’ll not lose another.”

The others moved in gathering around us, and Maeven pursed her lips, wanting to say something, but seemed to restrain herself and then muttered, “Perhaps, I was wrong about you.  Perhaps, your not such a lone wolf afterall.”

I looked back at her briefly, and our eyes met.  I saw a sofening of her countenance, as she nodded a tacit approval.

I turned back to the boy, seeing Begglar move behind Nell, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.  “Show him,” Begglar said calmly, not to me but to his wife.

I looked questioningly at Begglar then at Nell, her eyes still brimming with empathetic tears.  She sniffed and seemed to gain some degree of courage against her own inner struggle.  Tentatively, she reached out a hand towards me, with her other arm still in a comforting touch on the boy.  “A moment only,” she said to me, “brace yourself.  This is his secret.”

When Nell’s hand touched mine, I was jolted.  The sounds of the river and streams in the chasm below faded and suddenly I was in another place far away, in my mind.  My sights and sensory organs temporarily taken captive, by thoughts and feelings rushing through me that were not mine and not some past experience.  I had the image of a snowy wood.  I saw deep foot tracks in drifts of snow: one larger, one of a much smaller person being partially dragged across the deeper drifts.  I felt the cold bite of winds and the stippling of my flesh as bits of blown ice chips abraded my arms.  I felt myself in a position of being able to look downward, as if I was some bird…  No, I realized.  Not a bird.  A child in a frosted tree, clinging desparately to the trunk, and below…

I gasped–Suddenly, jerked back out of the memory.  My pulse pounding in my ears, stifling my own cry of panic.  Nell had released my hand, but both of us hovered over the terrified boy, a new understanding shocking our hearts in such a way that neither of us could help tears from falling, as we move protectively over the boy.

I realized that what had just happened to me, had happened before.  That same ineffable experience that we had termed: koinonia.  The intense feeling of an empathetic connection so strong that one might share experientially in another’s memory.  The same experience that my group of travelers had encountered when we had approach the window of my old cabin in Basia–where they had experienced my…drowning.

Somehow, Nell had afforded me this insight with this youth, by an intentional touch.  Begglar had said she had the ‘gift’; that she was a…’seer’.  I had not then know what he had meant by that, but I was beginning to, and I knew, time permitting, I would need to unpack this more and talk with her privately.  But, what Maeven had cautioned, was true.  We had to get moving, and we might not be able to mask our leaving down the ‘Under Way’, enough not to go unheard by anyone standing on the ledge and upper forest below.  The sound of the waters would provide some cover, but not enough if the others and this boy had been able to hear our struggles felling the two attacking Cerberi above.  Sounds of hooves on stone, or the neighing and nickering of our horses might carry above to the ears of our hunters.

I looked down and saw that the young boy had stopped rocking and lifted his head, gazing up at me through red-rimmed eyes, blinking in disbelief.  My hand was on his shoulder, my grip having tightened as I ‘sensed’ his terror.  He looked so vulnerable at that moment, and I wanted to hug him, but sensed that there was also a strong guardedness in him that would cause him to be embarrassed by the gesture.  “Are you alright?” I asked foolishly, unable to think of a more appropriate question.  He stared at me for a moment in brief uncomprehension, before his eyes shifted and looked beyond me to the group of others that had encircled us.  I saw his jaw tightened and his face flush crimson, realizing that he had lost himself in those vulnerable moments, and was now the one everyone behind me was looking at.

His eyes shifted back to me and he whispered, “I’m fine now.”  A guarded shield raising up again over his countenance.  He cast me a brief glance of gratitude, before his shield set firmly in its place.  I offered him my right hand and he studied it a moment.  “I can get up by myself,” he muttered.

“I know you can.  But I am here to help you…I want to be your friend…if you’ll permit me.”  Tentatively, he lifted his hand, looking at me unsure, but somehow wanting to be able to trust me.  At last, he gripped my hand and together we rose to a standing position.

Seeing he had an audience now, he set his jaw and turned to me saying, “I’m gonna do what these other jerks have been too afraid to do for some stupid reason.  Alright, Mister O’Brian.  You asked, I’ll tell ya.  My name is Will.  And I’m on board.  I’m done being afraid.”

Begglar chimed in, “We’ve got to be thorough about this, lad.  No nicknames or affectations.  Do you go by William or Bill?”

“No, just Will.”

“What if we just call you Willie?” one of the boys about his age or slightly older laughed and others guffawed.

I had oft seen him and a few of the other boys joking and congregating together before, but this one had never betrayed himself to show any vulnerability…until now.  I suspected that, as we so often do, that weakness might cause him to reinforce that guardedness, and risk isolating himself from any offer of help we might extend to him.  The lad, owning to his moniker of ‘Will’ turned on the boy that had smirked and laughed.  His eyes narrowed and he stepped towards the boy, speaking low and challenging, “It depends.”

“On what?” the other responded, recognizing that the object of his jest wasn’t appreciating his ill attempt at untimely humor.

“On how bad you would like a black eye?!”

Nell broke in, coming to Will’s defense.

“Boys, did you enjoy the breakfast pasties I baked for breakfast at our Inn, t’other morn?”

The young men voiced enthusiastic agreement and a postive consensus.

“Well, if your expectin’ to ‘enjoy’ those again, I suggest you just call him ‘Will’.  Are we clear on that point?”

Contrite, the others nodded assent.

Maeven mounted her horse and turned in the saddle, “If you’re all quite through, may we go now?”

As Nell passed me, on her way to climbing into her own saddle I whispered to her.  “That was quite brilliant the way you handled that, Nell.  I’ve very impressed.”

Nell shrugged and winked at me, “I’ve raised both boy and man,” she inclined her head towards Begglar in a loving jest.  “I’ve long ago learned that the way to a male’s change of attitude and heart runs primarily through his appetites and his stomach.”

We chuckled together as we both swung from stirrup to saddle, following Maeven and the others as we rode under the cut shelf winding our way downward toward the hidden backtrails to Azragoth.

*Scene 07* 17:34 (The Siren)

The Xarmnian Protectorate scout, Bayek, and his five warriors followed the Cerberi from a lagging distance on foot, unable to keep up with the running creatures.  They had heard the commotion of a fierce struggle, down the narrow-forest corridor as the Cerberi attacked the fleeing party ahead.  But Bayek realized there is something strangely missing in the distant struggle–the absence of the sounds of frightened and fighting horses.

When they finally arrive at the spot where the trail seems to have ended, the area is not what they had anticipated.  There was no sign of their beasts.  There was only a game trail that extends upward through a forested slope along the edge.  No signs of the ravaged company.  No severed body parts, nor significant evidence of bloodshed shed.  All that remained of the savage conflict seemed to have been erased, with their quarry nowhere in sight.

“Where are they?!  Where are their horses?!” Bayek demanded of no one in particular, his sword drawn, ready to slash and hack at anything made of flesh.

His men looked from one to the other, unable to answer their chief’s questions.

Behind them, there was a slight rustling noise as something stirred the leaves and forest detritus strewn along the trail.

As one, they turned and fanned out defensively as a lithe and slender figure came into view under the dappled shadows.

“It’s a woman!” one of the men shouted.

It was, in fact, a remarkably beautiful woman.  Her hair was of a golden flax, worn long and to her lower waist.  She was dressed in what seemed a delicate green lace, as if cloaked in an arboreal bower of translucent petals of emerald hue.  Her form was lithe and pliant, yet strong and muscled, unflinching.  Her skin was as fair as alabaster with a scent of balsam and resin about her–an earthy fecundity and an exuding sense of a powerful fertility.  Her presence seemed both out of place and in place within the lonely wood—an incongruent contradiction, not easily explained.

Three of the Xarmnian warriors moved out to the edges, flanking her, one moving passed to slip behind her, while another of Bayek’s men moved towards her.

“Ahhh!  It IS a woman!  And don’t she look sweet and juicy, now?” he grinned.  Turning to her, he began to circle her, his eyes tasting.  Looking her over, up and down.  The woman’s bright green eyes followed his movements around her, barely seeming to turn her head, but still fixed on him when he re-entered her periphery.

“Hello, pretty-pretty,” he leaned in towards her, “Get left behind, did you?  How lucky for us!  I ain’t had a taste in a fortnight, and you look like you’d serve up very well!”

“I only service kings…” her voice was quiet, but seemed resonant, authoritative.  “Are you a king?”

The warrior laughed, and the others chuckled at that.

“We are all of us, kings to you, missy.  Let me introduce ourselves.  I am king Raganor, the one to your left and side is king Chewnek.  ‘Cause he does…chew necks, I mean.  He loves ‘neck meats’.  That one over there, just behind is king Lerk.  He’s a breast man.  Likes his tarts turkey fat.  He’s missing his front teeth, that one. Rotted clean to the gums. Needs his meat softened, but like all of us, we ain’t had but skin-and-bone ones lately.  Village girlies.  Starvin’ ‘em ain’t doin’ ‘em no good for using ‘em.  Wastrels, eh?..But look at you, now.  You’re fed up nice and proper.  Shapes is where they should be.  Flanks as tight as a drum now.”

The woman looked beyond her interrogator, calling himself Raganor, to the one who stood silent and watchful, beyond them.  “Kings these are not.  Does this fool always speak so boldly to those who would easily cut his thinning life cord?”

The one called Raganor drew his blade, waving it beneath the woman’s green eyes.

“When we get done with you, missy.  You’ll not be so pretty as you are now, I think.  You will feel what kings we all are by then, when you feel the hot steel of our scepters.  Let’s bring this impertinent, spritely mare to heel, boys!”

The other Xarmnian warriors began to crowd in, a lascivious gleam in their eyes, licking their mouths nervously, anxiously.  A sneer of cruelty, peeling their bearded lips.

The proud and defiant woman showed no sign of fear, causing them all to hesitate in their coming.  Her confidence in her superiority and ability to defend her chaste posture did not comport with their custom, for she did not avert her eyes from them or shrink away from their reaching hands.  Nor did she shriek or lift an arm to ward them off.

“Wait!” Bayek finally spoke up sharply, staying his warriors from making any further move.

The woman’s eyes shifted to Bayek, and she smiled at him, but the grin carried no gratitude.

“Are you a king too?” she said quietly, “Or do you only desire to be among the ones to get my first kiss?”

With those words spoken, she parted her lips mockingly, and lightly extended her tongue, which suddenly sprouted with tiny thorns and twisting green shoots of curling vines.

“Wood Siren!” Raganor gasped, bolting away from her, backpedaling in fright, almost falling over himself, raising his blade to ward her off any move she might make toward him.  The other men froze and then edged back toward the framing of the narrow corridor, ready to run for their lives should Bayek give the word.

The one whom Raganor had identified as Lerk, spoke up with a slurping slur to his quavering voice, for the unfortunate fact of having no front teeth to curb the spittle out of his words.  “Cheefs Bayekss!  Sirenszz shouldz not beez here!  Zunn uv Xarmz had an arrangement with their Mazzzter.”

Bayek stood tall at the head of the clearing, his own sword drawn and ready, but kept low, so as not to provoke the ‘siren’ until he had a few more answers from her, about her presence here and what she might know of the mysterious disappearance of their quarry.

“My man is correct.  This is Rim Wood.  You were not given rights to the uplands.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and, in a few strides, she had moved in an effortless glide to stand before Bayek.

“Our rights extend according to the bargaining conditions.  Violations forfeit those limits!”

“Violations?! What violations?!  Kilrane was granted to The Pan, but no further.  Men still hold to the lands of full-men!  We will not easily relinquish our hard-won holdings to the halves.  We will fight for what is ours!”

“My chief, she is dangerous!  Do not let her come any nearer to you.”

In spite of this warning, the women moved even closer, her eyes daring Bayek to lift his sword to her.

“Be careful, bold talker!  Our eyes see much.  We know by what means you have taken what you now hold.  Do not think that The Pan is truly without sight, though clouds have stricken him.  The former guardians of the woods have abandoned your lands.  They do not serve men such as you.  Your sword is as impotent as you stand helpless before me!”

Bayek pondered her words for a moment, realizing this creature would not be cowed, or impressed upon by either the brute threat of blade or brawn.  Though initially he may have thought this nubile and provocative woman was vulnerable and alone at the moment, he now knew better than to believe the illusion.  There was danger in her direct glare, a hypnotic and alluring sense that there was more of her not yet revealed.  He swallowed and tempered his tone, trying to even it down into a reasoning query.

“You said there was a violation of the land treaty.  What is the nature of this violation, so that I may report it back.  We are unaware of any, that we are party to.”

The woman spoke evenly and calmly, but there was an implicit warning in her tone.

“Are you not aware that there is a digger below this wood?  A root shredder?”

“I was not,” Bayek said, attempting to stifle a rising threat that he did in fact suspect the truth of it.

“There is duplicity in your words.  What else are you hiding from us?”

“A suspicion only, my lady.  Nothing more.  No direct knowledge that I can account for.”

She studied him, her eyes seeming to flense away any veneer of pretense that he might muster to evade her sharp probing.

“And this suspicion?  What can you tell us about it?”

“Our Protectorate has been tracking a deserter and his family from the stone city.  A traitor to the crown and its authority.  A word twister, bending what is our approved dictates and messaging.  A company was sent out ahead of our troop in pursuit.  We have not heard back from them, and we were to join them near the upland village of Crowe.  We discovered a connection to one of our field houses, and one of our troll spies tracked the traitor seeking refuge in an Inn that leads to the old sea road and joins the crossing to the valley of a Xarmnian stables and an old granary upon an escarpment.  The road up the escarpment showed evidence of some large digging creature that may have burrowed into the caves within the granary works.  The road was impassable, so we rode around it to the far stables to exchange our wearied mounts for fresh horses.  We saw no further evidence of the digging beast, but if what you say is true, that underground monster may be pursuing a similar path following the party we are presently hunting.  We suspect that the traitor is now in the company of the innkeeper and his wife, but there is evidence also that others are among their group.  Out Worlders, to be more precise.  We took one of them.  Killed two of their kind.  The presence of outworlders may be what has drawn this ‘digging beast’ here.  They are interlopers.  Their kind let others in, as they once did in days of old.  You well know of what I speak.”

“Then it is true,” the woman looked thoughtful, “The portals have opened once again.  The eyes of the dreaded Stone have awakened.”

“Some say they have never closed,” Bayek offered.

“The mound that man has raised over The Stone, may have only delayed its influence for a time, but Its Presence is felt always.  The ground trembles with Its power.  Rumblings that evade the senses of man, but we have felt them since our beginning.  We know the threat It still holds over us.”

Her bright green eyes again turned to Bayek, fixing him with an unblinking gaze, “Still, the return of outworlders offers us some possibilities.  Ones which I cannot tell.  You have acquitted yourself…for now…full-man, for you have spoken true.  This information is useful.  We will defer and withdraw from the shelf woods, back into Kilrane below.  The winter frost is retreating.  It is almost time for our feedlings.  The digger poses a threat to us, if it is allowed to move down into the valley and into Kilrane, but it appears this is not your doing, but is accounted for by the arrival of outworlders.  You may continue your pursuit of them.  Perhaps if you kill the outworlders, the digger will turn back.  If not, its underground destruction threatens our survival, and we are but few in number.  We will need the breeding time allotted to us by the warming season.  And we would have you deliver a message for us.  As this greening season comes, it is now more urgent for Sonnezum to come and collect his annual golden harvest. …and with that coming, bring us forth his expected offerings, in thrice measure of what he has provided before.  Our seedlings no longer have milk and must rely on his offerings if they are to thrive.”

“Who is this Sonnezum, she is speaking of?” one of the warriors asked.

“Son of Xarm, our king,” Bayek answered in a whisper.

“What gold is offered, Lady of the Wood?”

The woman’s eyes stared fixedly at Bayek, glowing luminous flashes of green flecked and circling her emerald irises as she spoke, “He knows.  He knows.”

“And what price must he pay to obtain this…gold?” Bayek queried.

“Your veins carry it, little man.”

“Deliver our message to Sonnezum, and your present offering will be spared.  But from these others…”

Vines sprouted from the tree canopy above, snaking downward with such speed, the men had no time to react or bring their weapons up to ward off the sudden seizure.  Thick green curling vines with twisting stalks wrapped around the necks of the Bayek’s warriors, jerking them aloft.  Weapons fell and clattered to the forest floor, as the seized grabbed at their chokeholds struggling and frantically wriggling to get free.  With a rush and a concussion of rustling branches clacking and leaves rattling like field-dried husks in a windstorm, the men were jerked up into the treetops, gagging and wheezing.  A spritz of wet cast down from the canopy left Bayek standing alone, feeling the fear of his predicament, standing now in a hot spattering of blood rain.

“I give you leave to pass, messenger.  But you will be watched.  Do not deviate from the path and do not delay.”

Terrified, Bayek trembling asked, “Who am I to s-say you are to him?”

“I am called Briar.  My words are sharp and driven thorns.  He will know me, for I have provided him a service before.  He will remember…what he owes me.”

The woman raised her arms above her head, her fingers sprouting out fibrous tendrils that twisted into cables, extending into the canopy.  Her lithe body rose up dangling from her fibrous arms, now turning in patches of deep, dark green, her sensuous body webbed in coverlet of leaves and curling vines, as she disappeared into the canopy and tree cover.

An ominous voice came from overhead in parting, echoing down the hollow.  “We will meet again in Kilrane, now that it is relinquished to The Pan.  Sonnezum will be expected when the forest is in its greening and our golden spores again rise upon the winds.  Tell him.”

*Scene 01* – 04:48 (Ghost Town)

Twenty-three years ago, as accounted in Mid-World time, the forest encompassed burg of Azragoth became a haunted ghost town.  The words on the Ancient Marker foretold of such places.

“…the palace has been abandoned, the populated city forsaken. Hill and watch-tower have become caves forever, A delight for wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”

The town of Azragoth was once a thriving place of goodwill and commerce, and some fair degree of prosperity before the Xarmnians raided and pillaged it.  Horrible deeds were done there.  Women were savaged and raped, men were strung from horses and torn apart.  Children were slaughtered until the town succumbed to the will of the invaders.  For two years the city was plundered, extortions were paid and subsequently betrayed.  The food stores were commandeered to feed a hungry barbaric army, and the people were starved into submission.  And then the sickness began…

From drains and ditches filled with raw sewage, a plague of starving rats crawling out overran the town, spreading the diseases faster than anyone could have imagined.  The death toll began to multiply, and the Xarmnian oppressors attempted to flee the town, but either died before they could get far enough away or were killed by their fellow soldiers to prevent them from infecting the rest of the armies and towns under the oppressive fist of Xarmni.  For years afterward, Azragoth was quarantined.  No one traveled there.  No one traded there.  No one would give shelter or aid to an Azragothian, for fear of contracting what was rumored to have killed on the order of a thousandfold.  Animals of the place were abandoned and no one would touch livestock that bore the brand of an Azragothian.  It was said, Death itself had moved in and taken residence there.  Great pits were dug by the survivors and bodies were dumped and burned until no one was left to perform the gruesome task.  Great columns of ash-white smoke with an awful stench clouded the horizon for days as the bodies in the pits continued to burn.

Azragoth was left in ruin and decay.  Consigned to the ravages of the elements.  The roadways from the valley up to the gates of the city were untended and untraveled such that they had overgrown and time had almost erased the path leading up to it.  For many years a sickly yellow quarantine flag hung slack on a leaning stave near the fork that joined the main roadway.  No wheel of a wagon nor hoof of horse disturbed the dust of that road until the wild grass covered it again.

Many years afterward, as time faded memory of the stark, bloody history of the town and eventually blurred the exact location of its site, the occasional, errant traveler passing through the surrounding forests who chanced to lose their way in a storm might occasion to stumble upon the abandoned city.  Unaware of where they were, they naturally took shelter in the old buildings that had now become overgrown with moss, ivy, and lichen.

To the traveler, the place would appear untenanted.  Its many terraced sections and stout, protective walls had fissured, where the wind, rain, ice, and snow of many seasons had sought–like the wild grassland did with the roadway–to resolve the town back into the untamed nature that once reigned in its place before its foundations were cleared.

The disease had done its worst, decimating the town’s populace, and those the sickness could not kill, the subsequent abandonment from all outside society or help had reduced the rest.  As foretold, the forested city had been reduced to being a home to wandering flocks and wild donkeys, and the many other wild things that hunted and fed on them.  The fear of the place, and the rumors of what had happened there, eventually became something of a legend in the ensuing years and in all the lands surrounding it.  Though no one within those proximal communities admittedly had seen or been near it for years, speculation naturally embellished the tales of what it had become.  Few, if any, were certain where it might still be, and one couldn’t be paid enough to take anyone there.

*Scene 02* – 10:09 (Selling the Chase)

Growling, howls and baying noises richocheted off the canyon walls. The tympanic thundering of galloping horses, hard-ridden, swelled, as the Xarmnians charged down the valley, finally gaining the main road behind us and swiftly outpacing their ferocious dog creatures.

Maeven tightened her core, her legs gripping the girth of her horse as she lifted her bow, pulling the nock and string back smoothly, preparing to let fly. “They’re getting close enough to see us more clearly.  It is time.  Get the young ones in the wagon. Now!”

The armed members of our traveling crew prepared to sheath and tuck away their weapons, but Maeven halted them sharply. “No!  Keep those weapons in a defense posture!  The Xarmnians cannot see you surrendering!  Show some resistance!  You have a cruel audience coming into view that cannot know what we are planning!  Go to it!”

Turning to Begglar, she said, “Take the buckboard and surrender your mount to one of your experienced riders. You are more suited to a rolling and heaving deck under the seat of your britches than on horseback.  You’ll need to drive that wagon hard and get the canopy up quickly once we get over the rise.”

Christie helped Miray clamor over the sidewall of the wagon, and turned. “I can still ride.  That mare and I know each other now, she’s used to me.”

Begglar quickly surrendered his horse to her, as others loaded into the buckboard.  The armed ones of my travelers, warily watching the silent horsemen, reached down for the younger to hauled them up.

Begglar look wistfully at his carefully stowed supplies, packed in among the travelers, “What about the food and grains? I am told the citizenry of Azragoth and the lowland villages are near starvation. Game is scarce…since the… coming of the winter months. Protectorate guards roam the forests, so foraging efforts are limited. Only the lake country thrives with their catches. But fish alone cannot make up for the other nutrients a body needs.”

Maeven pondered a moment, then nodded assent, “The food will do no one any good if we are caught. We’ll have to double-up on the horses and lash as much as we can to them. There is a cascading cut to the southwest of here, less than thirty minutes’ ride. The river Trathorn pours down it in a series of falls to the valley floor. There exists a hidden path to Azragoth, cut beneath the lip of the canyon walls so that it cannot be seen from the top. Tree cover masks it the rest of the way. We should be in Azragoth before daybreak. Now is the time to make this ruse look like there is no hope. Get the children aboard.  And drive this thing like your life depends on it…because it does!” Maeven commanded.

Begglar gripped the trace lines once the younger ones were aboard and secured, pulling up and then down in a whip-like motion he smacked to two back draft horses on the rumps and yelled, “Heeyah!”  Begglar slapped the reins down once more upon the flanks of the wagon team, causing them to jerk forward in surprise.

The horses, startled, lurched and then stretched forward, flanks pumping in the muddy shoulder as they scrambled up and back onto the road eyes rolling and white with both fear and excitement. The runners, holding on to the sides of the buckboard, were nearly jerked off their feet as the wagon launched forward, spraying mud from the spokes as it trundled upward.

Scars of torn grass and muddy furrows followed the plowing wagon wheels, as the wagon gained the high ground and the others scrambled over the sides to join those riding in the crowded back. The wagon gained momentum as it bounced and groaned under the added weight. Fifteen rode in the back of the wagon, with four more passengers crowding Begglar on the benched front seat, gripping sideboards, seat railings and whatever they could to hang on. The dark horsemen began to follow in a growing gallop, hilted swords now unsheathed, brandished and flashing under the moonlight. Their aspect was terrible, and the pursuing threat looked real enough.

Still encircled by a remaining part of Maeven’s armed Lehi, I asked, “What about me?”

Maeven turned, nodding to the sword I still held unsheathed and affixed to my wrist by the bloodline sash.  “After twenty-one years, can you still use that thing like you used to, or is it merely a prop used for show in a meaningless act of male bravado?”

I swore under my breath.  Her words stung no less than the burning feeling I felt along my head from being struck with that quirt strap.  She was bating me.  Provoking me to action.  And it worked.

I swept up my blade, gathered reins into my clenched fist, and my horse reared as I leaned forward, standing in the stirrups.  I whipped the sword around, brandishing my blade in a swift arc and striking down hard on one of the raised Lehi lances, as my horse fell forward, leaping up and away from a stand still.  The lance clattered to the ground as I burst the guarding circle that had closed around me, my stead’s vicious hooves stabbing the air, shouldering through them, causing the startled riders to stutter-step their mounts and suddenly turn to follow.

Maeven let fly with her bow, her arrow driven into the back of the wagon.  Christie and I charged to the flanks of the wagon that was now surging forward.

As we galloped after it, Christie rode alongside me, our horses gaining speed.  Over the noise, she looked over at me, and shouted, “Let me guess.  A former girlfriend of yours?”

I winced, my teeth gritting, stifling another curse and growled back, “Now is NOT the time!”

Through a sidewise glance, I caught her grinning far too much considering the present peril of our situation.

Zzzzst-ting!  The wood of the wagon took two other bristling arrows from Maeven’s bow, as she and the Lehi riders fell into pursuit behind us.

Topping the rise we emerged like rising shadows into the giant luminous disk of the moon.  Our images would be seen from hundreds of yards back to anyone looking our way.  We desperately hoped those watching would be buying the show.

The disguised Lehi riders behind us rose into threatening view, swords raised, like a fiendish troop of determined reapers…their curved scythes cutting against the moonlight…ready to separate us from a living connection from this world into the next.

Thwap!  An arrow from a longbow thudded into the side of the wagon board, splintering it and driving the point deep into the wood.  The response of the company suddenly became more authentic.

Maeven was an exceptional saleswoman.  I was also very glad that she had become a good markswoman as well.

Thock!  Another arrow zinged through the spokes of the turning wheel into the lower part of the paneled side and was quickly snapped in half as the turning wheel immediately broke its shaft.

Christie and I rode our horses in a weaving pattern, crossing each other’s trail to raise additional dust from the silvered roadway, adding to the plume raised by the racing wagon.  Hoping that by doing so we might mask our feigned flight.

The Lehi were pacing us to the left and right, swooping in a darting out of the raised dust now phorous in the moonlight.  We clashed swords, metal ringing against metal to appear as if we were fighting them off.  My sword rang and sluiced through the misty air, occasionally finding a waiting blade to offer a clinking toast to, in service and deference to our mutual performance.

By now, the company braced within the rumbling wagon were urging Begglar on to see if there could be any more speed coaxed out of the team of horses, others were crying out in fright and the children mewled in terror.  The effect was perfect.

“Is that necessary?!” I heard Christie ask, but the noises of the night ensured any answer I gave would be swallowed up in the cacophony of our flight.

At last, we descended the slope to a turnabout place that leveled off before descending further to the winding road cut into the edge of the downward grade to the lowlands.  The pursuing horsemen caught up to us, sheathed their weapons and edged their running horses towards it.

The additional wagons, drawn by Lehi teams under their erstwhile guise of an Iron Hills weapons convoy, followed closely, fanning out and alongside, Begglar’s wagon.  Begglar began to be more gentle with the harness traces and reigns, easing his frightened team horses down from their excitement.  They were good horses, though caring for them came at a cost to his family from among the meager food stores they were allowed in conscripted service to the Xarmnian government.

In all honesty, despite what Begglar said, I knew, on sight, they should have been put out to pasture long ago.  Had he been allowed to run a profitable business at the Inn, he would have rested them and bought fresh horses or breeding stock.  Instead, they were hard-driven, and their muscles were lean and sore. And they were wet from the sweat of their being driven.  Their mouths frothed, when they should have been stabled, brushed, blanketed and grain-fed in a nice warm barn, lined with fresh straw out of the elements.

When the wagon slowed, the company poured out from the back, steadying themselves on the ground, trying to calm enough to quickly transfer the wagon contents to the horses.  From a shadowy grove, another three riders leading a line of horses emerged from the trees towards us.  The additional rider-less horses were saddled and ready, with large saddle packs, and tie-down rolls behind the cantle of each.  The off-loading was quick, and the mounted Lehi, swiftly assisted and directed our company of travelers with packing the horses and stabilizing grain sacks and ground meal on the horses.  Begglar and Dominic swiftly, re-raised their wagon’s canopy, knowing that by doing so, it may cause momentary confusion when the Xarmnians saw it again from their pursuing distance.

The efficient Lehi raise the canopy covers of the two other wagons, shifting and distributing additional supplies from Begglar’s wagon between them to even out and lighten their loads.  The decreased weight might spare the tired horses a bit, and allow them to be diverted along the additional trails Maeven had alluded to.

In the swiftness of the clamor and transfer, the company I had led into this Mid-World trouble, now settled in to their new and temporary conveyance, only then began to realize the degree of stench coming from within the now disguised weapons wagon.  But they were already well underway with few options, following Maeven and Christie on horseback.  Their muffled cries of protest were lost as we hurriedly pushed into the obscured trail through the woods.  I had no doubt, though, that once we reached a point allowing us to finally stop, I might be getting quite the ear full.

*Scene 03* – 13:48 (A Giant Mystery)

In the burned and smoldering courtyard, where Begglar’s inn once stood proudly upon the top of the hillside, near the roadway leading down to the village of Crowe, Ryden and Hanokh listened as the newcomer Shimri, told them of Begglar’s plans and their recent capture of both a troll and a Xarmnian scout of the Protectorate.

“As you might expect, both of our prisoners were reluctant to tell us anything.  We soon rectified that by putting them together in a locked shed.”

Hanokh offered no comment, but Ryden answered dryly, “One would think with them being both on the same side of villainry, they might be able to get along.”

Shimri shrugged, “Personal differences can be quite chaffing when these irritable sorts are confined together for too long.  They are insolent anyway.  Even though the Xarmnian high command still sees fit to use the trolls, they know better than to quarter them among their human troops.  Trolls will only take abuse so far, before they realize and use their nacent strength to strike back at their oppressors.  They want to be thought of as a dangerous asset, but the Xarmnians are cautious in their relationship with these creatures.  Xarmnian bruels delight in their capability for violence, but they do not often let them be privy to their councils.  The human is its intellectual superior, should they hold their own tempers in check, but they admire the bestial power of their underlings and treat them as well as they might a particularly savage attack dog.  The trolls live to serve, and slavishly follow a powerful leader who knows how best to employ them.  I suspect that if they ever knew what their masters truly thought of them, they would turn and bite the hands that have so long fed them.”

“I can’t imagine trying to manage servile troops like that.”

“Trolls tend to follow masters that inspire terror and threat.  They seem drawn to them, and find a common need met in that.  The trolls have the ability to hide and disguise themselves, so they make useful spies.  From what I can gather, they treat underling soldiers, as less than equal, knowing the humans lack their abilities.   They have been known to spy even among the Xarmnian camps and report back to the higher command, so they are particularly hated by the rank and file troops.  Little snitches, they call them.  The Xarmnian troops are an arrogant sort anyway, so they resent the need to have these little bunglers condescend them.”

Hanokh interposed, “So what happened after you put them together?”

Shimri sighed, “They nearly tore the place apart fighting each other.  If they had found someway to work together, they might have escaped.  The shed, it turned out, was not that sturdy.  They busted through a sidewall and were at each others throats.  The Xarmnian has a broken arm and perhaps a collar bone.  He was beaten pretty bad.  Bruises and cuts all over him.  They fought for quite a bit before the Xarmnian somehow finally managed to get a knife in him.”

“Didn’t you search them before locking them up?” Ryden asked.

“We tried.  It still isn’t clear to us who the knife belong to, or how we might’ve missed it.  We suspect it belonged to the troll.”

Hanokh rumbled thoughtfully, ruminating to himself, pondering these developments.  “Where are they now?”

“Well, the troll is dead.  The other man stabbed it repeatedly, trying to get it to quit bucking and thrashing.  It finally succumbed, but we had to pull the Xarmnian off of the creature.  Covered in black blood, he was.  Talking crazy.  Screaming that he was on fire.”

“And the body?” Hanokh’s voice rose in a sound of rumbling alarm.  “What did you do with the troll’s body?!”

“What could we do with it?” Shimri tensed, sensing Hanokh’s urgency.  “We dug a pit and hooked it by the garb and drug it down into it.  We had to bury it, because it began to stink, with all of that weird stuff coming out of the wounds.”

“Its just like the one we found in the cabin,” Ryden muttered, looking meaningfully at Hanokh.

“You’ll need to take us to the burial site.  The body will need to be dug up and burned and the pit salted.  It’s the only way to be sure.” Hanokh rumbled, his large brow deepening with worry lines.

“Dug up?!” Shimri was stunned, “Wha..What for?  The troll is surely dead.”

“That may be true of its body, but its blood isn’t.”

“Its…its…its blood?!” Shimri reeled, his eye’s widening.  “B-but how can you tell? How could we’ve known…?”

“You could not.  I was not sure myself until recently.  But there isn’t much time.  Where is the Xarmnian now?” Hanokh rumbled.  “Have you learned anything from him?”

“We have him bound under guard in what remains of the shed,” Shimri answered.  “He is more, shall we say, subdued than he was before.  The troll’s blood is all over him, but they’ve tried to rinse some of it off.  Despite his hatred for us, he seems grateful enough to at least attempt to answer some of our questions.”

“Water!” Hanokh tensed.  “The living blood moves through water.  This burial pit where you cast the dead troll.  Is it anywhere near water?”

Ryden had already started moving as Hanokh came forward, towering over Shimri, out of the smoldering smoke.

“There is a small brook just…” Shimri began, but Hanokh immediately interrupted. “We may already be too late!”  Hanokh turned as Ryden mounted his horse.  “Ryden, do you know where this man lives?”

“I have an idea.  We have met in company before in dealing with the underground.” Ryden gathered his reins preparing to ride down the road, responding to Hanokh’s query.

“Then bring his mount with you and meet us there.  He will be coming with me.”

“With you?  Wouldn’t it be faster to take my own horse?”

“No,” Hanokh rumbled moving around behind him.  “Just picture in you might the site where you buried the troll and tell me when you can see it in your thoughts.”  Hanokh placed a large hand around Shimri’s shoulder, almost enveloping him in its grasp.

Shimri shivered, not sure of the giant man’s intentions.  Fearful inspite of himself.  “I… I have a family.  I am old.  What is it you want of me?”

“Do not fear.  You will not be harmed.  But you will need to close your physical eyes and yeild directional control.  There are things within ‘the between’ that mortals are not yet meant to see.”

“I do not understand,” Shimri stammered, beginning to tremble.

“Focus, my son, on your home.  Let me know when you can see it.”

“Okay.” Shimri said, closing his eyes, trying to stifle his tremors. “Okay,” he said again, releasing a pent up breath.  “I can see it now,” he said quietly.

He felt Hanokh’s free hand grip his shoulder more tightly, and heard him say in a response that sounded like far away thunder, “Now step towards the image you see, and release the how and why.”

Ryden had been watching carefully from atop his mount, having secured Shimri’s horse with a lead line to the pommel on his saddle.  His horse reared, pawing the air with its hooves in fright, as with one step forward, both men, Shimri and Hanokh, suddenly vanished from sight.

Ryden blinked, unable to fully trust what he had just witnessed.  He scanned the rising smoke, and blackened timbers, the scorched scrub grass, and the smoking trees that had partially caught fire from the cast embers carried upon a light breeze.  The barnyard fences had fallen and collapsed under the crawling fires.  The stock had either fled or succumbed to the blaze.  Knowing the brutal tendencies of the Xarmnian troops, he knew that if he had taken time to look, he would no doubt find that the animals had either been slaughtered or locked in their pens and burned alive. Now only the blackened bones of the barn’s support beams and posts scraped plaintively at the haze drifting into the darkened sky.

Burned alive. A terrifying and sobering thought that unsettled him.  Adding to that, the puzzle of the woman’s charred body that Hanokh had discovered among the smoking ruins.  He had wrapped it in a cloak and was carrying it with the intention to give her a decent burial when the man Shimri had come upon them.  What had drawn the man here?  He had know that Begglar and his family were leaving.  That was part of the plan.  But why come up risking the possibility that the Xarmnians might still be here, or have a spy posted?  He was taking quite the risk in doing so.

Trolls.  Shimri had said the Xarmnians were using troll spies.  They had encountered a few in their raids.  Ugly things.  With a nasty and spiteful disposition.  Evidently brimming with mysterious black blood.  Blood that tainted and defiled the very ground it might be spilt upon.  The troll blood exuding from the body in the cabin in Basia had pooled as any vicuous liquid might, but it had also extended tendrils and rivets aggressively, only shrinking away from flame.  Had he only imagined that?  He shook his head, remembering the giant’s entrance and words.

Encountering The Walker had raised so many questions, but also provided him with a sense of intrigue and otherworldliness about these happenings that he was not sure the occupents of this world were ready or equipped to deal with.

Seeing nothing further to lead him to believe that Hanokh and Shimri were anywhere on the premises, he calmed his stead and headed down the road towards Crowe.  A hidden turn-off down a swale ditch would take him through the woods and down a slope into the wooded brow where a small cottage and short pasture lay masked in the woods about a mile below.

As he rode along, he pondered the giant man’s words.

He still had so many questions.  What had Hanokh done with the woman’s body?  The image of the two men vanishing had stunned both him and the horses, that he was partially distracted, and had trouble believing what he’d witnessed.  He remembered Hanokh placing his large hands on Shimri’s shoulders, just before they stepped away.  Hanokh’s broad back had been turned to him, and…

Ah! He realized at last.

A sling.  Hanokh had joined the ends of the cloak into a sling.  It hung low and below his shoulders.  Then he was still carrying…

Ryden shook his head, rubbing some of the irritating burn from the corners of his eyes.  He was dusted with soot and ash, and still smelled of the smoke.  But is was good to be leaving the charnel site and breathe some of the fresh highland air again. It was still hard to believe all this, even having witnessed everything.  His head was finally beginning to clear again and he returned in his thoughts to Hanokh.

When they had parted at the burning bungalow in Basia, Hanokh had no apparent horse or conveyance, but had assured him he would meet him at the sight of the distant fire.  He had only taken a moment to mount his horse, before he discovered the giant had departed.  Ostensibly to walk to the site.  Ryden had ridden fast, down the valley and along the road that ran to and from the sea.  On arrival, he was later surprised to find that not only had the mysterious man reached the location ahead of him, he had been present in the courtyard turnabout and smoldering structural remains of Begglar’s inn long enough to have searched the grounds and discovered the remains of a victim of the blaze.

He had asked him if he had really only walked there, and Hanokh had responded cryptically, “Through here. Not to here.”

Whatever he took that to mean, Ryden now realized that the man known as ‘The Walker’, was truly cloaked in more mystery than anyone knew or had even considered.

Another of Hanokh’s cryptic statements, now arose again to pair itself to the words he now considered in a new light: “I have a way of getting where I need to be far easier than you.” Hanokn had told him.  “I was shone the way of it long, long ago.”

Ryden suddenly stiffened in shock, recalling an obscure passage copied from the many storied words appearing on the Ancient Marker Stone:

“Hanokh walked with [The One] after he became the father of Metushelach three hundred years, and became the father of sons and daughters.  all the days of Hanokh were three hundred sixty-five years.  Hanokh walked with [The One], and he was not, for [The One] took him.” [Genesis 5:22-24 HNV]

*Scene 04* – 14:34 (Scents of Urgency)

We raced through the shadowy trees beginning to close around us like a narrowing throat.  From behind, and to the left one of the Lehi riders passed us leading a remuda of horses, joining Christie and Maeven as they slowed ahead, forcing Begglar to draw-up on the reins of his team of horses.  When the rider and the horses reached Maeven, she and Christie turned their mounts and she held up a fist for all of us to slow and stop.

I heard Maeven shout to Begglar, “Get all of the horses through, then close the gap behind us.  We’ll get your people out of the wagons as soon as the way ahead become impassable. Then we’ll jam the wagon in and unhitch your teams.  There should be enought mounts to go around, once we’ve fully corked the bottleneck.”

I rode around the wagon through a narrow gap along the edge of it.  The woods and brambles had closed in, and the forest had become a darkened corridor of trees.  The canopy of limbs overheard formed a low ceiling, barely letting the silver-sheened fragments of moonglow pass through its many twisted fingers.

“Not much light,” Begglar observed. “Soon even these horses won’t be able to see enough to go forward.”

“Let us outta here!”  Muffled voices came from behind the wagon canvas.
“Someone had an accident in here!  We can’t breathe, it’s so bad.  Gahhh!”
“Eww! Eww-Eww-Eww! Please let us out!  It smells awful in here!”
“I think someone pooped in this wagon!” someone wailed.  “I feel like I fell asleep and woke up trapped in some giant’s dirty diaper!  Yuck!”
“Gross!  That is so, so,so, gross!” another voice lamented.  “What were you guys transporting in this thing?!”  Another barked, “Give me a horse, or I’ll just walk to that Azzygrowth place.  Man, this stinks in here!”
Another moaned, “It reeks of sewage.  Please tell me this is NOT a manure wagon!”  One growled, “I’m not riding in another wagon ever! Ever, y’hear!”  I heard several voices grumbling assent to the same.
“LET US OUT!” another roared.

I stifled a grin and tried masking a gufaw into a short cough.  I knew that if we let our company out, they had better not see me grin or even have the slightest hint of a twinkling amusement in my eyes.  Any whispy straw credit I had built with them up to this point could be swiftly swept away.  I was grateful for the poor light, and the density of the darkling leaves above, masking any mirth that might betray me.

Maeven and Christie rode up to me.  “You can let them out now,” Maeven said.  “Have them mount these horses.  We’ve a little ways yet to go.”

“Let them out?!  They might just strangle me.” I answered.  “I’m sorta glad having them ride in the weaponry wagon was your idea and not mine.”

I sniffed, catching a similar scent that had drawn such complaints from the wagon riders, coming from Maeven herself.

“What is that I smell from you?  Incontinence?  Fancy trying out a new perfume?” I asked, grinning enough so that Maeven could at least see the gleam of my teeth in the dim light.

“Now is not the time!” Maeven said, irritatively wheeling her horse around and moving further ahead.

Christie could not help herself but laugh, and I tried unsuccessfully to stifle my own sympathetic indulgence of hilarity.

“You guys are a hoot!  I might have to stick around just to keep you two from shooting one another,” Christie giggled.

“That you might,” I conceded, “But we’d better not let the rest of them catch us laughing.”

“Yeah,” Christie tried hiding her grin with her hand, forcing a cough.  “Yeah, better not.”

Breathe. Just breathe. I told myself.

By then, Begglar and Nell had untied the ropes on the canopy, and some of the ones from inside clawed the canvas open further, gasping for air.

I turned into the darker shadow of the sidepath and spoke, “We’ve gathered horses for each of you to ride the rest of the way.”

“Thank the merciful God!” one girl shouted.  “I’m done with wagons!  Give me a horse!”  Others assented–an odd mix of grumbling and enthusiasm.

“Just let me get to that Storm Hawk lady!  I’ve got a few choice things to say about her clamping us down in a garbage trawler!”

Lindsey crawled down from the gate, holding Miray.  She arched an eyebrow at me, but shook her head, and seemed to wave off whatever she might want to say.

I swung down from the saddle and led my horse to her.

“I can take her, if you want.”

Miray lifted her head and twisted towards me, stretching her arms out.  As I moved closer I could see her cheeks were wet with tears.

“I’m sorry about the stench in the wagon.  It wasn’t my idea.”

Lindsey nodded, but her expression was unreadable in the gloom.

“She thinks it’s all her fault,” Lindsey said quietly.

“Why would she think that?!” I asked, as I gathered Miray into my arms and held her to my chest.

“I need to go baboon!” Miray said sniffling against her quiet sobs.

“Baboon?” I asked, arching an eyebrow, casting a quizzical look at Lindsey.

“Baboon.  It’s her word for ‘bathroom’,” Lindsey offered.

“Oh, I see,” I said brushing Miray’s hair aside from her face, caressing the wet tears from her cheek.

“Hey,” I said, trying to holrd Miray’s attention long enough to get through her sobs.  “That smell.  That wasn’t you.  It comes from sulfur in the metal mines.  There is a place called the Iron Hills.  This wagon comes from that place and it is a stinky place.”

Miray shook her head vigorously and continued sobbing.  “I din it.  I brung’ded that monster.”

“What?”

Through tears, she told me that when the others had gone to bed in the granary, she woke up feeling the urge to go “baboon”.

“But we all went to go, before we bedded down, sweetheart,” Lindsey reached out a hand softly patting her back.

Miray flushed crimson, rubbing her eyes, sniffling, “Nuh-nuh-not THAT kind of potty.”  She was clearly embarrased.  “I told you, I had to go baboon.  Not wee.”

“So that’s why you went…” I started, realizing her mortification, and the connection she was making.

“I…I…I couldnint go when ev’rybody was lookin’.  Momma says ‘nice girls are not supposed to stink.'” she said tearing up, “But we doo-oo!”

I gave Lindsey a pained glance, and she returned mine, both feeling for the little one.

“I got news for you, kiddo!  We all do at one time or another. Nice or otherwise.  And mine is no more fragrant than anyone else’s.  ”

Miray began to sob, but tried to continue, “He-he-he smelled me!”

“Oh no, honey!  That’s not true!” Lindsey countered, stroking her cheek, dabbing at Miray’s tears.

I interjected, “Miray, that creature was already on the top of the hill.  Remember how high it was when you were with Nell looking down?  We heard it’s roar, remember.  It was coming already. It just found another way down.  It was not your fault.”

“It is! It is!” she wailed, insistent.

I just held her as she cried into my shoulder.  Lindsey seemed perplexed, unsure of how she might convince Miray otherwise.

“Better let her ride with me,” I said.  “She’ll be alright.  I think she needs to cry.  Get it all out.  We can try and talk to her later when she is a bit more calm.”

Lindsey was worried, but I reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.  “It’s okay.  We’d better saddle up.  Can you ride?”

“Yeah,” Lindsey said, “My sister Sarah is a barrel racer.  We have horses back home.  I care for them. She rides them mostly, but I like tending them.  Rubbing them down.  Brushing them.  It’s calming in a strange way.  Caring for them, seems to help both them and me.”

“I understand.”

By then the others had completely gotten clear of the wagon and were climbing up into the saddles.  There were four that did not have their own mounts from the stock that the Lehi had brought, but Begglar reminded them that they would each have one of the team horses, once we got to where we were going to ditch the wagon.  So the four doubled up, and together we all road forward into the dark wood with Begglar following close behind in the wagon.

It wasn’t long before we heard the sound of the distant dogs again, barking ominously through the wooden hollows.  Hoof beats seemed to echo down the wooded corridor, and Begglar picked up the pace, driving the horses cautiously, but steadily through the trees as the wooods on either side continued to encroach.  The growling and the thundering behind gained on us.  Since we were now riding ahead of the wagon, we had no rear guard to tell us how close they were.

All of the sudden, the wheels of the wagon clacked and stuttered through low brush, breaking small limbs, rustling the undergrowth.  It was only a matter of time before there would be no going further with the wagon, and for Begglar, that couldn’t happen too soon.

His eyes watered and he could barely choke down air from the sulphurous smell in back of him.  There was no wind passing through that could blow the stench away and behind, for the way ahead had become a tunnel of dense wood and foliage.  Begglar gritted his teeth against the nausea.  As bad as this was, there were other odors that persisted in his memory that were far worse, with terrible sights and sounds to accompany them.  His missed the sea.  He had witnessed atrocities there too, but not near as horrible as those done on land.  The sea naturally buried its dead within its depths, but the land refused such mercies.  With dismay, he surveyed the leavings of a brutal battlefield, now being swabbed of human detritus.  At the cessesation of fighting, there remained a field of gore, with swaths of blood-stained ground mud-wet with carnage.  At some point, he had no idea when, the pungency of the air, no longer stabbed into his nostrils.  The foul smoke might of had something to do with it.  He’d seen what seemed like hundreds of cook fires casting wavering ghost-light across the plains where cruelty had won against the day and cast their highland into the shadow of an unending night of the soul.  The sensory assaults and visions of cruelty had aged him.  Not merely in his body, but in his mind.  He fully understood what it meant to be world-weary and he did not want that for his family, so he had forbade both Nell and Dominic from climbing the hill behind his inn perchance that they might see what was transpiring until the full terrors were over and the Xarmnians quitted the fields.  But he had been conscripted. Forced into dealing with the aftermath.  Immersed into the carnage along with others, who had not directly resisted the invasion.  There could be no middle-ground.  No way to remain untouched by the violence of others.  He knew that now.  Men of peace, often had to earn that blessed season of quiet, riding through risk and bloodshed, to claim a stake in the hopeful outcome.

The Xarmnians had ridden through the fields, stabbing and hacking at any who lingered between life in the Mid-World and the edge of the next.  They had gathered victims from the field in wagon carts filled with severed limbs and hacked torsos carrying the carnage to the uplands.  The valiant fallen with the ignoble.  The trampled and crushed forever staring blindly into an unforgiving sky of darkening clouds.  Xarmni did not gather their own fallen from the killing fields.  They had been ordered to leave them to the beasts.  Their cries went unheeded, even as their fellow warriors rode through and past them, ensuring none of their enemies survived.  The Son of Xarm had no used for those who could no longer fight.  They would be a drain on the resources of the collective, if they were to be allowed to return to the stone city.  Wars had terrible consequences, but useful outcomes.  They culled the pack, letting only the strong survive.  They were left to the cycle of nature’s laws and disposal.  Within a day, great flocked of birds attended the fields, circling the sky, rising and descending.  Then came the swarms of flies.  Even as he recalled such nightmares, evoked by the stench, he knew that he dared not close his eyes against the memories, for even now the branches grated against the sides of the wagon.  He slowed the team much as he dared, as the horses jostled against one another, trying to stay on what little narrow path there still was.

Moss hung overhead and the air felt sickly sweet.  A smell of fungi permeated the narrow tunnel, and suddenly the wider wagon wheels at last clacked to an abrupt stop, almost throwing Begglar forward from the bench seat onto the backs of his team.

“Looks like that’s as far as she’ll go,” Begglar grunted.  “There’ll be no turning this wagon around.”

The Lehi that had rode attendant with them responsed,” That may be so, but they might find a way to back it up.  Just to be sure…” he dismounted.

Begglar crawled forward and unhitched his team, freeing them from their harness, as the others that had doubled-up, chose for themselves their mounts from among them.  Begglar joined Nell on her horse, while the Lehi moved to further disable the wagon.  From his back took a battle-ax, and swung it hard into the spokes of the wagon breaking two of the staves on a back wheel and on a front-wheel.  The wagon canted and then slumped, pressing harder against the trunks of the trees that had arrested its progress.

“There,” he said, satified with his work, “that ought to do it.”

Saddled, mounted and loaded, we followed Maeven, now astride a large black mare, into the woods towards the secret path she had spoken of.  From the sounds on the other side of the slope, the dogs would be upon us soon.

*Scene 05*– 13:33 (Thug and Troll)

Not far down the sloped road to Crowe, and into the woods a ways, two small, horse-like rumps pertruded out of the bushes along a brushy sidetrail leading down to a small log-hewn structure, and gateyard, along the banks of a wooded creek.  The branches and leaves enveloped the two owners of the exposed rumps, and within the leafy cover, two voices whispered in hushed tones to each other, their speech rounded out with throaty, but not unpleasant rumbling.

“What are they up to, I wonder?” one said to the other.  “Shhhht!” the other responding, grumbling and snorting, “They’re gonna hear us, you bumble fly!”  The other snorted, “That’s right. Go on shouting.  That’ll keep ’em from knowing we’re here.”  The other shuffled against the branch cover, looking backward, noticing that both of their rumps were exposed to the narrow lane they had followed through the woods.  “Lot of good it’ll do hiding in partial cover.  Our flanks are exposed.  Move further in.”  The other protested, “These branches are already scraping my skin, and my hide back there is not too thick anymore from carrying them trolls from up and down the high country.”  The other snorted, “You are every bit the nag and whine, Bray!  The Pan should have already put you out to pasture!  Would you’ve liked that?”  The other shuddered in the leaves, “Oh, gosh no!  If he ever thought we weren’t useful that’d be the end of it.  He’d give us to the satyrs for a chew toy.”  The other grunted, “Mind you think long and hard about that one, before you go complainin’ bout being a cushion for a couple of troll butts.  Do as you’re told on this job, and we might just get to see him give us a few favors for a change.”  “Well, I don’t think gettin’ all scratched up, spying is going to win us any winks from him,” the other retorted.  “That Grum-Blud is a nasty one.  Kicks me in the ribs for no reason.  If he ever got spurs, he’d do much worse and I’d have to give him some hoof-to-mouth.  If you get my meanin’.”  The other grunted, “You’re all squawk.  Hoof-to-mouth, indeed.  He carries a nasty blade.  He’d stick you like a pig.”  The other snorted, “We’ll at least then, he’d be walking and not bouncing his nasty behind on my spine.  Besides, I don’t think there’s any of us that The Pan actually likes.  He just doesn’t seem to get as annoyed with some as much as he does others and any one of his favors come at a terrible cost.” “Shut-up, Bray!  That’s heresy.  Others might here you.”  The other grunted, “Well he already doesn’t care for you.”  “Why do you say that?”  “He called you an ass.”  The other snuffed, “H-He called me a smart ass.  There’s a difference.”  “If you say so, Brimm.”  “Just shup-up, will ya?”  “If you say so…” the other muttered, under his breath.  From behind and toward the road, they heard the sound of an approaching horse and rider.  “Someone’s comin’!  Hide your rear and don’t swish your tail.”  “There are gnats in these bushes. How am I goin’ ta keep it from swishing?  The little boogers itch and crawl around on my hide.”  “Find a way!” the other hissed through his teeth.  The two voices gasped, shuffling and jostling to pull themselves further in under their poorly chosen bush cover.

Just then Ryden came down the trail, his horse moving at a trot.  He slowed briefly, thinking he’d heard voices, but unsure of it.  The wind hissed through the leaves and sighed in the upper tree tops, branches moving and creaking.  It was hard to be sure, but he shrugged and pressed onward, anxious to get to the small home he knew would be somewhere in the vicinity.

When at last he arrived at the sheltered cabin, he dismounted and tied his horse to a fence rail.  A footpath led through a short corral, along the edge of a small garden bordered by a low wall of fitted stones and covered under what looked like fish-netting, held up by a few posts.  Just beyond a small stone shed, there was a paver path that descended to the creek side, running quietly under a canopy of tall cypress trees.  A mount of dirt stood nearby, and it was clear that the troll’s body had already been exhumed.

Shimri and Hanokh were engaged in low, hushed conversation, while a woman with a scar running from her forehead and down her cheek knelt over another small mound of freshly turned earth filling the shallow pit with flower petals.  A small headstone had been erected next to the mound and the woman wept as she pulled petals from the stems.

Ryden walk quietly up to them, observing a moment of silence.  A firepit spat flames from the hole where the troll had been buried and the ground had been sprinkled with a whitish substance that bubbled and spat.  Two other men stood by, dressed as typical farmers and harvesters, their hats in their hands, holding shovels, as they observed the gathering in respectful silence.

Shimri nodded to Ryden as he approached, then pointed to the newly planted grave now being florally adorned.  “My wife’s sister.  Aytama.  She served Begglar and Nell as a housekeeper.  She was supposed to have returned here after Begglar left, but she insisted on tidying up.  Later, when we realized she had not made it back home before the rains, I was coming to fetch her, when I saw the fires rising above the trees.”

“I am so sorry.”  Ryden glanced at Hanokh and was touched to see large, silent tears rolling down his cheeks wetting his beard.  He spoke quietly to them, “Have you learned any more from that Xarmnian brute?”

Shimri sighed, “He was part of a split company of The Protectorate, dispatched to pursue and capture fugitives that managed to escape from Xarm city.”  He cleared his throat, “One was a scribe and his small family.  He was uncovered something he was not supposed to see.  He had been warned not to write anything related to what he ha discovered, but he kept personal notes.  When these were found, someone tipped him off that the soldiers were coming to arrest him.  So he quickly slipped away before his work shift was over and gathered his small family and fled before the outside gates of the city could be closed for the night.  One of the high guards is also missing, and it was believed he helped them escape the city and misled the searchers who were pursuing the scribe.  The soldier was confronted by their Captain of the Guards, named Jehaza.  They fought, and the soldiers ribs were broken, but he still managed to escape with some assistance from the underground.”

“I’m aware of it,” Ryden broke in. “Battair and I rode together on that raid.  That soldier was one of our highly placed spies within that accursed city.  He had been there for years, feeding us information.  We were sorry to lose his valuable intelligences, but we had no choice.  Jehaza was intent on killing him.  We barely got him out of there, but they chased us into the night.  The family must’ve had to make out on their own.  We never did see them.”

Shimri supplied, “They were sent to Begglar’s Inn.  Told they would find help there.  Just to be careful and get around the village of Crowe without being seen or calling too much attention to themselves.  The other night Begglar rode down here with that family in tow.  Asked us to hide them and get them someplace safe, but far enough away from his inn, for he feared the troops might pick up their trail which would lead directly to him.”

Hanokh joined in, “It appears that is exactly what happened, and this poor unfortunate one was slain for being the only one present when those devils finally arrived.”

“And that’s not all,” Shimri added.  “The Xarmnian was the last of the first group sent in pursuit of the scribe.”

“What do you mean the last?” Hanokh rumbled.

Ryden spoke up, “We apprehended the Xarmnian on the road leading up to Crowe, near a wheat field.  He was assaulting one of the local boys.  The group of soldiers were lying in wait to ambush the scribe and his family, when the boy and his father who owned the field came upon the Xarmnian soldiers.  They killed the boy’s father, and this guard took the boy prisoner, and was attending the horses, when the soldiers were attacked.”

“Attacked?  By whom?” Hanokh asked.

“By what,” Shimri answered.  “It is a strange story but we have heard the same account from both the prisoner and the boy separately.  Whatever happened, they both witnessed it.  They said the ground in the field opened up and swallowed those soldiers and some of the horses that did not flee.  Storm Hawk and these Lehi turned the Xarmnian over to us, but he was sullen and uncooperative.  So we thought we’d try motivating him to talk.  We’d caught that troll lurking in the woods with two other creatures belonging to the Half-men kingdom.  The two half-creatures got away, but the troll did not have time to mount those beasts and we cornered him in the woods.  I told you of that up at the inn.”

“Which of the half-men?  Could you identify them?” Hanokh rumbled.

“Appeared to be half-donkeys or mules.  It was hard to tell.  They can be fast when they are scared.  And since they are shorter than horses, they could move under brush and limbs that would unmount a rider.” Shimri explained.  He glanced up towards his humble cabin and the wooded trail leading to it.  “They may still be out there somewhere, but we haven’t found them yet.”

Hanokh rubbed his beard deep in thought, muttering to himself, more than to anyone present. “I had hoped he was not involved in this, but given those circumstances, it seems evident that somehow he will be.”

“Who?” Ryden asked, but Hanokh seemed to have not heard him.

Hanokh moved to place a hand on the Shimri’s wife’s shoulder as she knelt beside her sister’s grave and continued to weep, smoothing and distributing the colorful and sweet-smelling flower petals.  He knelt beside her and whispered something to her, and she sadly nodded, but continued with her trembling ministrations.

Shimri’s wife whispered, “Atayma so loved beautiful flowers.  Pink roses, carnations, field lillies and daffodils. All kinds, but she loved bright yellow dandelions the most, because they grew wild.  But those petals are too small.  I could not find enough.  But she did love my primroses.  So for now,…this is all I can do for her.”  She sobbed, “…all I can do.”

“Precious one, the prophet Isaiah wrote: ‘The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the LORD. And so it is with people. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.’ [Isaiah 40:7-8]  What may seem lost to you in these whispered moments, now forever flourishes in vivid, unfading color within the Elysium fields of Excavatia.  The short breath that was her life, now returns to The One Who spoke it into the existence we all knew and loved.  The Hope Stone still shines in The Dominion Crown, dear one.  Remember that.  He Who occupies the Eternal Land has promised it. And so shall it be.”

A few more low words were spoken, before the gentle giant slowly rose and turned to Shimri.

“Take us to this Xarmnian you have captured.  We will see what he has to say for himself.”

Quietly, Shimri nodded and turned down a further footpath that circled behind a small knoll and the canted structure of a small shed.  The two farmers that had stood in quiet attendance, moved along with them following at a discreet distance.

As Hanokh moved into view, through the breech in the shed’s outer wall, suddenly the occupant inside let out a frightened bellow upon seeing him.

“No! No! Not him! No! Don’t let him touch me!  Please not him!”

Given his sudden and visceral reaction to seeing Hanokh, it was doubtful whether any further questions posed to this Xarmnian thug in such a fearful state, would yield answers worth trusting or even useful.

*Scene 06*– 07:48 (Run Rabbit Run)

A silver wet gleam of grizzled black fur crested the hill leading down to a saddle slope where three wagons diverged, two going opposite directions along the forested ridge and one descending the downroad towards the rolling valleys below.  Four sets of lantern yellow eyes gleamed wetly, blinking narrowly through huffed breathes coming from slacked jaws dripping with foam and saliva.  A low continual rumble issued from the cerberus’ three throats as packs of similar monstrous beasts loped up behind their alpha.

The Xarmnian Protectorate horsemen rode up shortly after, their horses blowing and rumbling, as their riders angrily surveyed the scene below.   The tableau was not what they had expected.  They had witness the attempted break from the initial point of contact.  The arrows flying, swords clashing, and road dust rising as the quarry and pursuers descended beyond the crest of the road.

The cerberi bounced and snarled, spinning and lunging, not sure which of the receding wagons to follow.  The night was coming to a close.  Already the far horizon, etched by the sawtooth fangs of interleaved mountain ranges and peaks, sliced a hard-edge against a blood-red, orange and pink aural glow.  Dawn would soon break over the blushing distance and ascend to dominate the sky.  The Bruel Hadeon cursed under his breath, as the wagons rolled into the wood cover.  The other guards turned to the side gripping their reins, but looking to their leader for guidance.

“So, this Iron Hills convoy thinks they can play us for fools, do they?!  We’ll soon see about that!  Split the company!” he growled, pointing at the routes the three wagons had taken.  “Bayek and Aridam!  Each of you take a squad and six cerberi and follow the wooded trails!  The one to going back east along the wooded ledge peters out, and the traitors going that way will not get far.  The opposite trail appears to lead back west along the edge of the long valley holding the stables.  There may be something there, but I will lead the others and run them to ground. Aridam, take the route of the wagon descending the highlands.  Follow them down until the road widens at the bottom of the valley.  When you catch them hold them until we join you later.  If you don’t hear from us by noon, kill them and rejoin us on the edge of Kilrane in the clearing.  You know the one.”

The one addressed as Aridam, had hard steel eyes, a scraggled, brown-black beard, and massive wrapped hands, strapped with dark leather.  “Which of these wagons holds that Innkeeper, d’ you think?!  I can’t wait to split his bleedy loaves for this trouble!”

Hadeon snarled, “The Innkeeper is mine!  The eastern route is unlikely unless these fugitives are fools, but I wouldn’t rule that out, just yet.  The western trail seems intriguing since it returns to the stable valley.  In my mind, that is the most probable.  The sham guards of this Iron Hill shipment must be of those bandits that have been undermining our efforts to cower and control the local villages.  Reason enough to kill them.  But I am curious to find out what their interests are in helping this Innkeeper.  For that, we will need to take a few alive.  Ride hard into them, but remember, there are some we will need for questioning, so kill if you must, but reserve at least a few for giving answers.  For only the necromancers get answers from the dead. Go to it!”

The Protectorate guards split as directed, their horses steering and driving a few of the cerberi to follow and then take the lead on the diverging trails after the wagons.

Bayek led his company hard into the forested trail, his pack of cerberi growling and snorting, bounding into the darkening tree-lined path ahead.  The wagon was not far ahead, and a narrow sidelane joined it as it plunged further and further in.  Visibility grew darker as they rode with fierce urgency, certain that their quarry would find out too late their error in choosing this narrowing route.

Even at a gallop, Bayek and his riders could hear the distant sound of horses echoing down the funneling chute as the walls of trees and thick brush closed in.  The wagon would not get far, and he relished the look on those fleeing when they finally realized that they were being bottled up and driven into a death trap of their own choosing.  The forest matt of fallen leaves and pine needles cushioned their horses’ footfalls as they galloped deeper, their dark swords ready to slash and cleave and pin the fools.  The hollow was darkening, even though the outside distance foretold the promise of the coming light of day.  Wagon wheels had certainly cut through the lane and tore through side brush as the lane narrowed into a mere trail.  Up ahead Bayek could just make out and oddly shaped shadow, but it offer no shifting shadowy movement attendant to it.  Horse dung peppered the trail up to the shadowy obstruction.  More dung that should be, coming from a mere wagon team with a couple of chaperoning riders serving as point, left and right flanks, and drag.

The cerberi were the first to reach the dark bulky shape, and immediately began to whine and mewl.  The closer Bayek came, the more he began to realize why their devil dogs started reacting that way.  From the cloying stench, he recognized the shape was one of the Iron Hills wagons.  It’s canopy had been torn, and it had been driven into the posts of the surrounding trunks impeding further progress.

His suspicions were correct.  There had been quite a few more horses in this hollow, and they had somehow ridden ahead of the wagon, in anticipation of having to abandon it.  The deceptive dance of the wagons had been used to fool them into dividing their company, and the ruse had worked.  For now…, Bayek thought, grinding his teeth, angry at having been played the fool.

The cerberi mewled unable to get through the densely pack undergrowth and the close regiment ranks of trees.  The wheels were wrecked, spokes smashed, axel ground into the soft earth.  There could be no quick way of moving the broken wagon to continue the pursuit.  The dog creatures barked at each caution approach to the wagon, their paws lifting at their noses, hackles raised, mewling in frustration.

Bayek swung down from the saddle and attempted to crawl over the canted wagon, hoping to see enough to gauge how far ahead they might be.  The stench of the sulfur made his eyes water, and he coughed against a gasp.  Hauling himself up to the benchseat, he peered over, seeing only a gray mist threading through the close-set trees, the riders now far enough ahead to go unseen.  Yet still they could not go far, he told himself.  He beckoned his attendant riders to tie their mounts and then follow.  Better a pursuit on foot than to risk a return empty-handed to a furious Hadeon, having failed to make even a feeble attempt to follow.  This trail should still end soon so that even horses could not pass thrrough the narrow channel along the game trails.  The way served no purpose for any creature other than the lithe thin bodies of deer, and perhaps a few rabbits evading packs of hungry wolves.

Then he and his men unsheathed their blades and hastened forward, moving at pace along the enclosed woods.  Somehow two of the cerberi managed to wriggle around under the belly of the wagon and come from under a broken wheel.  ‘The wolves were indeed coming’, Bayek thought to himself, a sardonic smile playing at his cruel lips as he moved through the forest mists, ‘Run rabbit, run!’

*Scene 07* – 26:10 (Living Legends)

Moonlight dappled the ground silver, pouring its luminous light through the leaves covering the supplicant arms of the branches outstretched above us.  A night breeze sent a thousand sighs through the hollow throat of the forest path we traveled.

Up ahead, I saw that Christie rode alongside Maeven just off and to the left of her.  I could tell Christie was intrigued by Maeven, and from what I knew of Maeven, I was sure they would eventually become fast friends.  I had a sense about Christie.  She had her own stories to tell when she was ready, and I was sure she might gain a certain strength by sharing the road with Maeven.

Miray rode quietly in front of me, still uncertain, but I could tell she was pondering something in her quiet.  Finally she spoke, but barely loud enough for me to hear.

“Mister O’Brian, why do they call that cranky woman Storm Hawk?”

I realized just then how little I actually knew about Maeven.  I had not known that she was ‘The Storm Hawk’, and much less about how she might have come to being called such.  I had heard quiet talk of ‘The Storm Hawk’ and her Lehi’s exploits before leaving when their raids were just getting started.  Begglar and I spoke of it, but nothing really at length.  Neither of us at the time knew that ‘The Storm Hawk’ was female.  I only knew that they were working against Xarmnian oppression, and they had shown themselves to be enemies of our enemies.  Reason enough to consider them allies.

Our company had, by necessity, broken up.  Jeremiah had taken a few of our group with him and gone into the forests.  Begglar and Nell were engaged and soon to be married, and he and she were seeking ways to reinvent themselves and blend in under a seemingly inoccuous cover and profession, since Begglar was a wanted man, with a death or alive bounty on his head.  Having a similar price on my head too, Begglar and I were of the same mind finding some way to hide in plain sight, yet I chose a more secluded existence since I was alone.  While Begglar and Nell started their bakery business in the highpoint of Crowe, I slunk away to Basia and built a bungalo hermitage, with a small garden and meager stock of strays.   Maeven had been one of our group that followed Jeremiah, who had no real tolerance for me after what had happened with his brother and our losing the Cordis Stone to The Pan.  I loss track of Maeven and the others and never really knew what had happened to them.  I only knew this about Maeven.  At one time, in the not-so-distant past, she was an itinerant veterinarian in her Surface World life.  Begglar told me, he had met her again in his supply travels and over the intervening years she had tended to his stock animals from time to time, but then dropped out of sight, and he had not known what had become of her.  He assumed that The Pan had at last caught up with her and one of his strange hybrids had taken her out.  Only later, when he started re-establishing connections with his own human network to resume clandestine operations against the Xarmnians, did he learn the truth.  Maeven had re-invented herself as well.  She had joined the underground resistance.  When I had know her, fighting and swordplay were not her things.  She was a healer, and more than that, she had a love for and an affinity with animals.  Since she detested violence and the cruelty, she had demurred when we had undergone weapoms training and were put through the rigors of studying warcraft.

She once said that humankind were the only ones that obessed over violence, and that animals were creatures that were naturally incorruptible, who did not behave differently from their pre-ordained nature.  Beings that had no guile or deceit about them.  Creatures that loved and served unconditionally, and that was why she preferred being around them over humankind.

I remembered quipping back to her that not every animal was a St. Bernard.  And Maeven, being Maeven, she didn’t appreciate that.

Anyway, that was her mindset until she met her first hybrid here.  A denizen of The Pan’s mix-matched kingdom of Half-Men.  Something half-animal, fish or fowl and half-human.  Corruptions that did not and could not exist in the Surface World of her time.  An abomination, that shattered her naiveté and challenged everything she thought she knew to be true.

When I last saw her, she was just coming to grips with having encountered a satyr.  After that, she had a dangerous run-in with the beast-dogs, that the Protectorate used to track and kill their enemies.  She soon realized there was no taming their wildness, nor slaking their bloodthirst.  It was hard, too, for me to imagine what that disillusionment eventually did to her, and I never would have expected her present posture or shifted outlook upon meeting her again this way.  I suspected she took some degree of delight in my confusion, for I had underestimated her ability to grow and adapt, and it still came as quite a shock.  It did not gel with my first impression of her as a shy and naive girl, to be so self-assured and resolute, determined and cunning, sharp and dangerous– A force to be respected and reckoned with.

My own thoughts had distracted me from Miray’s question.  Noting my hesistation, the Lehi rider who had rode along with us, overheard Miray’s question and spoke up. “I believe I can answer that, little one.”  He glanced at me and tapped his knuckle to the side of his nose, as I had oft seen Begglar do.  “Begging your pardon, sir.  I don’t mean to impose,” he said to me.  I smiled and returned the gesture, remembering that the action was a sign of deference in Mid-World parlance.  “Please. By all means,” I responded.
He proferred his hand saying, “My name is Yasha.  It means ‘Protector’.  And that is what we mean to do.  I understand that somehow you know our mistress.”

“Yes.  We came as a group many years ago.  I have been away, and I am afraid we part on not the best terms with your…’Mistress’.” I answered vaguely.

“Ah yes,” Yasha seemed to take my answer simply, making no more nor less of it than what I had offered.

Miray was now looking at the man intently, and he smiled at her.  “It seems the young miss posed a question.  Sorry for the delay, Miss.”

“My name is Miray, sir.  Is the Storm Hawk your girlfriend?”

Yasha chuckled, “Goodness no, Miss Miray.  She is our lead.  It was she who imagined our group of riders to be something of a distraction…uh…,” he searched for a word, “A pest to the bad men who bully us and steal from the local villages.”

“What does Lee High mean?” Miray asked, now intrigued.

Yasha smiled, “Quite the inquisitor, are you?”  He sighed good-naturedly, “Well, I’ll tell you.  Lehi is a word that comes from our leader’s cultural language called Hebrew.  It means ‘jaw or cheek bone’ and it represents something very special to all of us.  When the bad men come, they caused many to fear them.  And fear made them silent.  They did not speak up for those things that are just and right.  They were afraid too.  The bad men kept returning with more and more men, until they forced the town to pay them to not destroy the place.”

“That was mean!” Miray growled, indignant at what she was hearing.

“Yes,” Yasha agreed, “Yes it was.  And let me tell you what our Storm Hawk decided to do about it.”

“What?” Miray was intrigued.

“She told us that when she was a girl, she lived on a small farm, with a few horses and a big barn that she used to like to climb up into.”

“A big barn?”

“Yes.  And she would climb way up and get on the roof of that barn and watch the sky just before evening came.  She would hide up there when she didn’t want to be found and like to watch the clouds.”

“Is that why she’s called Storm Hawk?”

“Well, part of it is.  But let me explain.  Her family were farmers, and they relied on the crops out in their fields and gardens to stay healthy.  But there were many things that could harm their plants.”

“What sorts of things?” Miray asked.

“Mice and rodents would get out in their fields and chew off the tops of their plants, and dig some of them up, and eat year it was getting harder and harder to keep the vermin out of their fields.  Sometimes a great big storm would come, and the mice would sense the storm coming and stop devouring the plants and run for cover.”

“They were afraid of the storm, I’ll bet.” Miray offered.

“Yes.  But they were also afraid of another creature that was hungry too.”

“What was that?  Did it eat the plants?” Miray was wide-eyed and tensed.

“No, but it did like the taste of the vermin.”

“What was it? What was it?” Miray gasped.

“It was a big hawk.”

“How big?”

“Big!”

“As big as you?”

Yasha chuckled, “No. Not quite, but pretty large for a hawk.  And our Mistress told us that it always showed up in a certain tree to watch over their fields when a storm was coming.  For it knew that suddenly, all of the mice that were busy killing their crops would sense the storm was coming and would run out from under the cover of the plants and that hawk would come and snatch them up.”

“Wasn’t that mean of the hawk?”

“It is a matter of perspective, little one.  You see, our mistress and her family needed their crops to grow and produce a harvest or they all would starve.  The rodents in the field were killing those plants, but by the same token they were endangering the lives and survival of our mistress’s family.  She welcomed the sight of the hawk in the tree, and soon that hawk grew a family, took a mate and they built a nest up in that tree that she could see from the roof of the barn.  The hawk, and his family soon came to protect the fields planted by our mistress’s family.  The storms could bring good or bad.  Sometimes the storms brought large hail stones that battered and beat down their crops, causing much damage, but more often than not, the storms brought much needed rain to water the dry fields and keep those struggling plants healthy.  The hawk only seemed to show up when a storm was coming that brought rain, so every time she saw it on that branch, she was glad.  The storm hawk respresented a good sign.  She told us that story and as she told it, she charged us to be part of protecting the fields of our own lands and communities.  She told us that the days of staying silent when evil men come to wreck your fields had to end, and that we needed to represent those who could no longer speak and raise a protest against the cruelty done.  Her words inspired us to not just complain about those who infested our lands, but to do something about it.  And that is what we have been doing as a small band of raiders.  We disguise ourselves as outlaws, we study the movements and behaviors of those bad men, and we do somethings they never could expect.”

“What is that?”

“We go in to a town that has been looted…”

“What’s looted?”

“It means to take something that does not belong to you and to threaten to hurt those who will not give it to you.”

“Oh. That’s bad.”

“Yes it is,” Yasha agreed.  “But the townsfolk were so afraid, they paid up, every time the Xarmnian Protectorate soldiers showed up.  They did not speak up or protest.  They just gave them whatever they wanted, to get them to go away.  But they didn’t.”

“They didn’t?”

“No.  The Xarmnian bad men just kept coming back and taking and taking.  Threatening and hurting people.  Some towns they burned.  Some they took their children.  Some they humiliated the men before killing several.”

“Even when they gave them what they wanted?”

“Yes. Even then.  For what these bad men wanted was to be feared.  To humiliate them and take away their dignity.  To have power over them.”

“Mean! Mean, mean, mean!” Miray clenched her fists.  “Somebody outta bop them in their heads and stomp all their toes for being so mean!  Somebody ought to say something and do something to stop them!”

“And that is just what we do,” Yasha answered.  “We knew that the townspeople were struggling and could not afford to pay those brutal soldiers anything more.  So our mistress came up with a plan to steal from the people before the soldiers arrived.”

“She wanted you all to steal too?”

“We would steal the payments first, so that we could give it back to the townspeople after the Xarmnian soldiers left, finding there was nothing left to steal?”

“Huh?”

“We would pretend to be the bad guys and come in to town, get the ransom payment and then ride out ahead of the soldiers arrival.  When the townfolk told of the previous raiders, the Xarmnians would realize they had some competition, and when they checked the houses and store bins, they would feel cheated and direct their rage at those others they thought we Protectorate guards, like themselves.  It planted seeds of distrust among the Xarmnian soldiers, and they would fight among themselves, not knowing that it was we who did it.  And then we would bring all that we had taken back to the towns and alllow them to survive just a little longer before the next group of Xarmnian soldiers arrived.”

“Wow! Wow!,” Miray was impressed.  “So the bad men thought other bad men were stealing from them.”

“Yes. And they fought each other and lost interest in stealing from the towns.  And the townsfolk began to have hope again, and finally began to help us, since we were helping them.  We built trust.  We had some of our spies go in to their camps and tell us where and when they were coming to a town, so that we could get there ahead of them.  We made the Xarmnians think that the towns a worse off than they actually are, and in so doing we have become something of a legend among them.  And that is why we call our mistress ‘The Storm Hawk.’ Understand?”

“Yes!” Miray clapped her hands giggling at the ingeniousness of it.

Others had gathered closer to hear, while Yasha had given the account, but the walls of the narrowing treelined pathway made crowding too close difficult.  Sound traveled through the arboreal corridor but little, as the murmur the wind and leaves added a shushing sound below his words.  Maeven and Christie were far enough ahead and so engaged in conversation that they did not notice that many of our riders had fallen back to hear our conversation.

I turned and looked back at our company, and saw that Nell had fallen back and she and Begglar were having some difficulty coaxing one of our teenaged riders forward.  From the dim light, filtering through the burgeoning promise of an enlightening sky overhead, I could see the young male was rigid and stiff.  A sheen of sweat gleamed off of his forehead, as Nell spoke gently to him in soft, hushed tones.  Begglar followed close behind, and Nell had gathered the horse’s lead bridle, moving the animal forward, with its rider providing no assistance, or seeming awareness of the situation.  I knew I would have to ask about that whenever we found more room along the trail.

“Tell us how you came to know her,” a voice spoke.

Startled out of my watch, I realized that the speaker had addressed me.

“Her who?”

“Storm Hawk.”

“I’m not sure how much there is to tell.  When I knew her she wasn’t the warrior she is now.  She seemed much younger then, but time here does not pass at the same rate as it does in our home world.  For those of us not from here, it is our time spent in the Surface World that ages us.  Any time spent here does not, since we are presently not of this world.  Even though at some point we will be.  Our origin world has increased it’s claim on us.”

Lindsey spoke up, “How does that work?  You said you were away from here for twenty-one years. Are you the same age now as you were then?”

“No,” I tried to find a way to make it more clear.  “Since I left and returned to the Surface World, I am twenty-one years older than from when I left.  Maeven…Storm Hawk is the same age since she stayed and has not returned to our world in all that time, but she is stronger for the time and work she put in from being here.”

“Has Begglar aged, since you last saw him twenty-one years ago?”

“Yes.  But his circumstances are different.  He and Nell were married here, and he has chosen to be part of this world over the world he left behind.  Becoming one flesh here, as The One performs under the gift of joining, fuses their hearts and lives together.  Begglar now ages as Nell does, for they are spiritually bound to each other as one.  Remember, this place is a metaphysical place.  The visual realities we know as concepts in our home world have tangible effects here.  The Mid-World is joined to ours, but in ways that may seem inverse at times and correlated at others.  Only The One knows the true connections for He knows all things.  Maeven has joined this world’s Stone Quest, so she is protected from the ravages of time.  The Marker Stone holds this dangerous world in place, even though evil men still try to rule it.  All things anchor to that Stone, though many of the connections are not presently seen.  Some will deny it.  Some will insist in their denial so much that they will harm those who accept that truth.  They are connected to the ‘otherness’ of the sleeping beast that hides in the far mountains.  Though that monster sleeps, his spiritual children do not.  The Xarmnians have sworn allegience to its power over an allegiance to The Holding Stone.  They cannot destroy it, so they attempt to suppress its power by brutalizing those who still believe in its Source through The One.  The Marker Stone is the monument of remembrance.  Its golden letters illumine those who open themselves to receive their sage truths and lessons.  Maeven is, as I am, a servant of what this living monument represents.  All those of you who join us, will also be in the alliance.”

The listeners were quiet, pondering my words.

“So, if what you are telling us is true, we just agree to be part of this by giving our names to it and then we will not…age?”

“Wait!  How do you know all this?”

“As I mentioned, there are two remarkable individuals present in this world, that are very credible witnesses.  In the past, our former company met both of them, and their testimony of these truths are compelling.  I had hoped to meet them together with you all to let you hear their accounts for yourselves.  They confirm the living words on The Marker Stone.  I have mentioned one of them to you all before.  He is the one I referred to as ‘The Walker.’  He is the one brought here by The One, and has witnessed first hand the evidence of what I’ve said.  He has amazing wisdom gifted to him by his fellowship with The One.  The fact of him, bears witness as well.  Maeven knows this too.”

“Maeven knows what?!”

Just ahead, I could see that Maeven and Christie had stopped in a small clearing close to the edge of the highland cliff along the cut of a small gorge, with the sound of rushing water echoing below.  We had arrived at a slight bend that overlooked a ravine.  We could hear the gurgling sound of water winding over and around stones, and in the distance ahead, a hollow, wet steady roar of falls.

Maeven had spoken, but repeated her question.  “Maeven knows what?” she spoke a little louder, above the water sounds flowing in the deep channel below.

“I was telling them you and I met the one called ‘The Walker’.”

“This is true.  He is one that few can stand before without being profoundly impacted.  He has deep wisdom.  A powerful man with no guile.  Even the cruel ones of this world fear him.  They fear what he will say that will pierce their pretensions.  But most of all, they fear Who he represents.  We recently spoke to him.”

“You did?” I jolted, “Where was he?”

“We met him in the woods below the village of Crowe.  He was following the water courses.  Studying the rivers.  He suspected something was happening somewhere in the uplands that was tainting the rivers with something he had yet to identify.  You remember how he was.  He can be as cryptic as you are.  Something he was puzzling out.  He seemed worried.”

“Worried!” That startled me.  “What could make him worry?”

“Something ephemeral.  Some kind of supernatural invader that was manifesting itself here.  He said it was affecting some of the townspeople downstream who rely on these streams for their water.”

Begglar and Nell rode up with the young teen and his mount in tow.  They had just overhead our mentioning of Maeven recent encounter with The Walker.”

Begglar spoke up, “Affecting?  How so?”

Maeven/Storm Hawk shrugged, “Nothing specific.  He said, ‘Odd things.’  Behavioral changes.  Some had strange colorations appear around their throats and necks.  Some had peculiar swellings.  Many were strangely fatigued after drinking the water.  They had trouble thinking clearly.  Their minds filled with strange thoughts and feelings.  Some would laugh uncontrollably.  Many had upset stomachs and cramps.  Some broke out in great sweats.  Some even took to cutting themselves saying something was swimming in their blood.  Crawling around inside of them.”

“I have heard of the same said of the folks in some of the towns below Crowe,” Begglar replied.  “Nell and I took in a traveler who was sick for days.  Said he had only begun to feel fatigued after drinking from a town well near Khorath.  Thought he might have got hold of brackish water.”

Nell confirmed, “Aye.  Tis truth.  And you say The Walker was looking into it?”

“He is. He seemed intent on it.  Only spoke to us for a few moments and then went on his way.  I doubt you will meet with him anytime soon.  The Walker has a way of getting from one place to another across great distances.  He is one place at one time and sighted far away in the next.  No one seems to know how he does this, but the man is nothing if not mysterious.”

I glanced around, unable to see much more than a narrow cut through the close set trees.  “Why have we stopped here?”

Maeven straightened, “Because here is where one trail ends, and another begins.  This is it!,” Maeven said as she drew back her reigns slightly.  Her mare slowed and stopped as she dismounted, careful not to swipe the horse with the longbow she carried behind her.  She patted the soft muzzle of her horse and gently led her to the leafy edge of the path.  When the horse stepped towards her a portion of the forest floor slightly canted upwards and then leveled out as the horse pressed closer to her.

“And you call me the cryptic one?” I retorted.

Yasha had also dismounted and shot me with a sly grin.  “You’ll see, my friend.  This is where we get to the under way.”

*Scene 01* – 05:43 (Sifting Through the Ashes)

The roads and grasslands were wet and saturated from the passage of the recent storm.  When Ryden and his mount topped the brow of the hill leading down to the location of the burning column of fire, the smoke had whitened into a general haze about the grounds.  A large figure stood amidst the smoke appearing to sift through the ashes of what had been a two storied structure with an accompanied stable yard, circular turnabout and large barn with some small outbuildings and sheds.  The charred, skeletal remains of a corner wall still stood precariously on one end of the burnt building, supported by an inner stair that appeared to have been the last to burn.  Blackened support beams had crumbled with the burning of the lower floor.  A soot blackened stone fireplace still stood where once a dining hall must have been.  The smoke shrouded figure carefully moved between the fallen beams and smoking substructure.  Judging from the porportion, the figure was a large man and Ryden realized this could be none other than Hanokh, The Walker, whose mysterious acquaintence he had just made in the hovel they had burned together in Basia.

He nudged Stormlight forward and the horse snorted and balked at the smell of the rising smoke, its nostrils flaring.

When they had reached the bottom of the small hill, Ryden heard the giant man’s voice calling out to him from the smoldering structure.

“Ryden, tie your horse away from the smoke and come over here?”

He did as he was asked, tucking his face into his cloak, as he carefully made his way through the ash and charred beams and crumbled waddle, moving alongside Hanokh. “Did you walk here?”

“Through here. Not to here,” Hanokh rumbled, gesturing to a smoking beam fallen over what looked to be a twisted branch. “Wrap your hands and help me lift this.”

Ryden twisted his hands into the slack of his cloak, taking in a breath of acrid smoke.   Coughing he caught the charred beam, while Hanokh’s massive wrapped hands pulled upward, soot powdering his arms.  A cross beam slid off of the one they lifted pushing smoldering floor planks into the pile of scorched lumber and debris.  As the swirl of ash cleared, Ryden gasped realizing what he had thought to be twisted branches were the remains of a human radius and ulna, a small skeletal forearm.  Below the beam and the plank of a bartop, lay the rest of the blackened skeleton, a crushed skull stared blankly into the desolation of the fire.  It was small but larger than that of a child.

“A woman,” Hanokh spoke above the crackle of the still smoking embers.

“The Inn keeper’s wife?” Ryden queried.

“No,” Hanokh huffed. “A servant to the family,” he said rising to his full height.

“I could find no evidence of the others.  They must be away.”

“Or taken,” Ryden offered morbidly, wishing a fraction after that he had not voiced the thought.

“Perhaps,” Hanokh conceded, moving again towards edge of the piled debris, turning the scorched barplank over and away from the remains, kneeling down once more, to gently move the skeleton onto his spread cloak, that he had laid down.

“What’er we going to do with her?” Ryden asked.

“Give her a dignified burial,” Hanokh answered gathering the bones into the cloak and hauling it up carefully.

From beyond the smoke they heard the approach of a rider on horseback, and the snort of the steed as it balked and tried to turn away from the lingering drifts of floating ash.

Ryden put his hand to the hilt of his sword, but Hanokh raised his hand.

“Who goes there?” Ryden demanded.

A shadowed figure swung down from the mount, still grasping the reins.

“My name is Shimri,” the voice of a male answered.  “What has happened here?!”

Hanokh responded, emerging from the smoke carrying his carefully bundled burden.  “It appears the Xarmnians have paid a visit to Begglar’s Inn.  What do you know of this?”

Stunned, the newcomer took a step backward as Hanokh rose to full height.

“You are…”

“Yes,” Hanokh answered, brushing the stunned recognition aside but continuing his questioning.  “What do you know of the whereabouts of Begglar and his family?”

Ryden stepped up beside him, dwarfed by the giant man.

Shimri’s gaze shifted to Ryden.  “I know you, I think.”

“I am Lehi.  We ride with The Storm Hawk.  I recognize you too.”

“Do you know where Begglar has gone?” Hanohk asked,  stepping out from the remains of the building’s foundation.

Shimri looked from Hanokh and Ryden and then back to Hanokh again, as his horse sidestepped and turned, avoiding a passing drift of smoke.

“Why do you seek him?”

“Travelers have returned to these lands from the outer region.  Strange things are happening in the lakeside villages.  I believe the time has come for the for old prophecies to be considered once again, and the stone quests to resume.”

“What do those things have to do with Begglar?”

“He is one of them.  He knew this time would eventually come, and I believe Xarmni has taken an interest in the highlands once more because of it.”

*Scene 02* – 08:18 (Riding the Ruse)

Meanwhile, back in the decending valley, on the rutted road leading up to the Xarmnian stables, Storm Hawk and her disguised Lehi riders met the Xarmnian riders at the lowbridge crossing.

To maintain the illusion that they were a Xarmnian weapons convoy, delivering a shipment from the Iron Hills forge and foundry, they formed in regulated ranks, with a tight formation around the armory wagon, slightly turning their sentries’ flanks to the centerpoint on their cargo in the Xarmnian bristle-style.

Storm Hawk had moved back into the drag position, with her strongest Lehi warrior, Yasha taking point and lead.  Rather than moving across onto the deck of the bridge he awaited the approach of the first Xarmnian challenger, holding his weapon in relaxed readiness.  There was a practiced custom that the Lehi had learned from hidden observations watching how Xarmnian groups met each other outside of the inner realms of the Xarmnian territories.  Yasha knew that any show of weakness would be met with contempt and violence, and any show of bold bravado would provoke a challenge, if not measured and matched carefully.  The newcomer must maintain a reserve while the firstcomer assessed them.  So, Yasha guided his horse to the edge of the bridge and waited, as the opposing party moved towards them.

A stout, cruel-looking man in hard leather, with chiseled, granite features and a hawkish nose, rode imperiously atop a large black horse, blocking their path onto the bridge.  Two massive, three-headed, dog-like creatures, the size of matured mastiffs flanked the horse and man, their ears flattened, jaws slackened, muscles bunched into a crawling crouch.  They were cowled in thick matted black hair, their mouths ferocious with teeth.  A low triple-growl arose from deep within each of them.  The formidible man was the first to speak.

“What is your business!?” he demanded, glaring down at them.  “Who approaches the king’s outpost stables?”

Yasha rode forward onto the bridge to meet the imposing warrior, making full eye-contact, careful not to look down to the two dog-creatures or show any sign of dread or weakness.

“We are recently come from the Iron Hills forges.  Captain Jehaza has ordered armament from the foundary in preparation.  We need relief stock from the king’s stables for the journey back.  We are expecting to meet a contingent soon, for the ride in, but our own stock are wearied from hard riding.”

“Iron Hills!” the large man sniffed digustedly.  “That would account for the stench!”

The two dog creatures mewled in agreement, sniffing the air as they came closer to Yasha’s horse.  Their menacing growls increasing in threat and volume.

“Who might you be?” Yasha challenged back, glaring at the contemptuous man.

“My name is not important.  It is my sword that you must fear.  I am a bruel of the Protectorate.  My business is not your concern.  I have my orders.  A convoy will have been authorized by the court.  I will need to see that order, before you may come any further.”

“How do I know you are authorized to see our orders?” Yasha shot back.

The bruel moved boldly forward drawing his weapon.  “This steel is all the authorization I need.”

Another of the disguised Lehi rode forward stopping just to the right and behind Yasha and spoke up.  “My name is Battair.  I am an envoy to the Xarmnian crown.  Why have we been stopped?”

The bruel moved closer turning his horse, glaring at the newcomer.

“There is a question of authorization,” the bruel growl.

“Authorization?!” Battair snorted, “I am a kingsman, sir!  If you are of the Protectorate, you are free to examine what we bear, but if you are anything else, than what you present yourself to be, it will not go well for you when we return to Jahaza to give our report.  This mission was not one of our choosing.  Few relish any assignment in the Iron Hills, and we are anxious to return to the stone city as are those who sent us.  Would you risk raising the ire of the king?”

The bruel pondered the man’s words for a moment before he irritatedly turned his horse, and sheathed his sword.

“I give you leave,” he growled, signalling those of his company, on the further side of the bridge to part and allow the convoy to pass.

“Give way to the king’s convoy!” he shouted, as the Protectorate guardians moved off of the roadway, creating a gauntlet passage.

The disguised convoy proceeded, but the Protectorate guard moved back shouting oaths as curses, as the convoy and the smell of the Iron Hills wagon reached them.  The additional dogs, held and collared by tracer reins, whimpered as the wagon passed  rubbing their dark massive paws over their noses, rolling on the grass to avoid the foul odor coming off of the travellers and their cargo.

The Protectorate tried to look imposing, but it was hard to maintain that aspect under the onslaught of such a malodorous parade.

The bruel that had impeded them rode ahead to the stable master and from the distance informed him of what had transpired and what the needs were.  Stable men scrambled and soon a remuda of supply horses were gathered to transition to the approaching convoy.  Rather than awaiting them, the string of horses were led out by a stable crew and came down the road to meet them at the turnabout.

So supplied, The Storm Hawk and her crew, headed back out of the valley. Fully equipped for their journey ahead.  The Protectorate giving them no further impediment.

When they had reached the head of the valley and proceeded upward, the bruel rode closer to one of his men.

“Follow them, but don’t be seen.  I want to know which road they take out of the highlands.  There is something about this that I just don’t like.  Have one of the others get our prisoner out of the barn and we will join you soon on the edge of the range.  I will expect a full report.”

“Do you suspect they are not who they say they are?”

“I am not yet sure.  But if they aren’t, I am sure they will soon lead us to our missing Innkeeper and his family.”

“What of the lone rider?  The one we followed through the rain? That upturned ground.  The broken furrow and deep trench.  Do you think she fell into it?”

“The horse was running blind in the wet.  There was no way around it, unless he reversed course.  But then we arrived and would have covered up any sign that the rains themselves did not erase.  The dogs are no good gathering scents through the rain.  He could have retraced and cut off to the left of the rise, down to the northwest.  There is a winding road from the top, down the northface.  If the rider is with the others, he might be a drag watch, scouting along their back trail.”

“What of the trench?  It appeared to have been breached from below.  Not one they could have dug on their own.  Something large must’ve found its way into the granary.  The Inn keeper and his family, might very well be rotting within the belly of some burrowing behemoth.”

“Too easy of an explanation not to be sure.  We will check out the north face of the escarpment to leave no doubt, but the timing and arrival of that shipment seems too convenient, not to examine further.  I did not recognize any of the riders, and I don’t think I have heard of one named Battair at court. But there are so many new additions in the king’s service to risk pressing this particular stranger.  It would make sense to employ others new to us while we patrol the kingdom perimeter.  Especially on the eve of war.”

*Scene 03* – 05:08 (Crash and Rescue)

Dust filled the air as Begglar and I followed Nell into the passage towards the grain bin that served as the women’s dormitory.  The walls shook under the influence of tremendous weight moving violently above.  Ferocious roars battered us with echoing sound fists, pounding all around us.  The ensconsed torchlights flickered through plumes of powdered rock and shifts of falling silt.

Begglar took Nell’s hand as they plunged through clouds of grain dust stirred by the grinding motions getting swiftly closer.  The air turned gritty and coppery, as we blindly stumbled forward to the women’s alcove.

“Get the women out!” I shouted hoarsely, “I’ll find Miray!”

From a shadowy passage, I heard a child’s scream, and bewildered sobbing as the dust and silt enveloped the tunnel.  “The child!” Nell gasped, but I found Nell’s hand and squeezed it, unable to see the alarm on her face.  “I’ve got this. Go on now.  Begglar, help her get the women to safety.”

I turned into the fronting tunnel, feeling my way along cold, cracking stone.  “Miray!” I shouted, desparate to her her cries just once more.  Low diffuse lights shone ghostlike through the noise and swirling dust. Fear played a tempanic thrum in my ears, as a gutteral roar reverated down the open shaft.

Fumbling my way ahead, I saw the dying torchlight flicker and snuff out in the swirling dust.  Gritty darkness descended with the fading glow.  “Miray!” I screamed against the shrinking light.  “Mister Brian!” a small shrill voice responded, as I leapt blindly forward, feeling my way along the trembling walls, trying to stay on my feet.  Rocks fell around me, as support beams cracked and rocked.  Another roar drilled through me with piercing terror, but I could not turn back. “Keep yelling, Miray!  I’m coming.  I coming.  Let me hear you!”
Her cry and wail somehow bore through the shuddering, and I found a small searching hand in the dark.  My arms and hands found her, and I pulled her towards me gathering her up against my chest, hunching over her to prevent the falling rocks from striking her. “We’ve got to move. Hold tight to me.  I’ve got you.”

Loosened stones bounced and bruised my back, but adrenaline coursed through me, as I crouch carried Miray back toward the end of the tunnel.  A crossbeam crashed down in front of us, unloading a quantity of sand and gravel, but leaving a brief triangular aperture that we scraped through as another beam cracked and fell from behind where we had just stood.  Something that sounded like metal tines tearing through rock raked the tunnel floor behind us.  A wave of heat, like a flash furnace, blew grit and sand against me as I swayed and almost stumbled.  Miray clung tight to me, and I held her with my right arm, shielding her, my left arm grasping for anything that could keep me balanced.  My shoulders seemed to be on fire.  Something large and monstrous was following us through the tunnel, but I dared not look back.

Just ahead, Begglar and Nell were ushering the women out of the bin, gathering up traveling gear as quickly as possible.   Broken rock and debris streamed down through the overhead channel shaft, and the women had to move swiftly to the perimeter of the bin to avoid getting crushed and burried.  The thick mounds of grain made swift movement difficult.   The roars from above terrified them, but Nell forced them to make haste, gathering them together into the outer tunnel that ran alongside the outer edge of the escarpment above.

Christie saw me stumbling out of the smokey corridor, but she could not see what I carried.

“Miray?!” she cried.  “Miray is gone!  I can’t find her!!”

“I’ve got her!” I croaked coughing through the dust.  “She’s right here!”

A cry of relief escaped Christie’s lips as she rushed forward to me, attempting to help me with my precious cargo.  “Let me help with her.  Is she hurt? Is she alright?!”

“There’s no time!” I yelled. “Whatever it is, it is coming right behind us!  Run! I’ve got her!  I won’t let her go!”

Suddenly the tunnel collapsed behind us, and the roar pierced through the rubble and debris.

“Move!” Begglar yelled from ahead.  Nell and the women were watching anxiously, as we came through the debris caked in dust.

The other men joined us as we scurried through the outer corridor along the sliding granary doors to the stables at the far end beyond the dining galley.

The tunnel was collapsed, choked with slabs of broken stone and debris, but something heaved under it, causing the mounds to earth and stone to tremble.

Dominick had the teams waiting for us as we quickly piled into the wagon and into the saddles of the extra relief horses we had used as pack horses.  Four served as team horses, two as the spare.   Nell swung up into the buckboard bench alongside Dominick, and Begglar and I took the spares.  The ground outside was wet, saturated and slippery, but the crew managed to get the others into the wagon bed, without too much trouble.

Whatever was back there in the caverns of the granary would have to hunt for us further on the road, for none of had any desire to remain in that place any longer.

*Scene 04* – 08:17 (Seeds of Dissention)

As soon as the rainstorm had passed, two sinister sisters lifted out of the branches of the trees along the once dried streambed, now flowing with clear, clean water from the pouring falls cascading down the cliff of the escarpment.  The two harpies had witnessed everything. From the Inn keeper and his group departing their home beyond the coastal hills, to their stop at the forbidden mound, to their trek up to the top of the escarpment.  They saw the mysterious beast breach the hilltop road, once the wagon and the party wound their way down the switchback back to the base of the escarpment.  They witnessed the travelers’ strange procession down the dry streambed to their whispered interviews with the Inn keeper, before the root clenched, testing sword. With interested, they marked the one man who was finally able to lift it from its rooted sheath.  They shuddered at the confrontation with the young girl in their company that had, heretofore, been masquerading as one of their group.  They shrank back into the leafage as the young girl’s corporeal disguise literally unraveled from her, revealing her to be a malevolent wind spirit.

The proximity of the beast at the top of the escarpment clarified what was really transpiring.  The embedded young girl-thing was the distracting lure, which the beast in pursuit was using to vector them into position while its waiting jaws moved swiftly underground to consume them before they realized their danger.

Observing this coordinated move sobered the two sisters to the knowledge that this gathering of mysterious travelers not only threatened the balance of political and martial powers and rulers in the Mid-World, but the strangers’ mission also had roused and threatened to spiritual kingdom operating between the worldly dimensions.  Wind spirits only consorted with their like-kinds.  The beast was a monster of supernatural origin.  Perhaps connected to the very dreaded creature that was rumored to still sleep in the high eyries of The Walls of Stone mountain range in the far northern region of The Mid-World.

The Xarmnian king was not the only Mid-World regent that stood to lose their claimed fiefdom, but the kingdoms of the Half-Men under The Pan stood threatened as well.  If the new beast signified a connection to the ancient creature lurking in those mysterious peaks, it would eventually draw the monster to itself to free itself from its slumbering prison, for it was told that the ancient beast’s mind was still linked to the Surface World beyond this realm—the land from which these travelers had come.  The land on the otherside of the seven mysterious, roving occuli, serving the dreaded Marker Stone.  The Stone that buzzed with supernatural life.  The disruptor.  The threat to the order of men, beasts and principalities.  The Mid-World signet of the being living in the High Realm of Excavatia referred to as The One.  The orinator of the legend of The Stone Quests and their attenuated prophecies.  For centuries, mysterious happenings in the Mid-World lands were ascribed to The Stone Marker.  Stories which eventually irritated those in positions of rule.  That is why the eventual actions of the Xarmnians to cover up and bury The Stone had been received with a kind of grudging welcome from The Pan and its kind.  Burial, for a time, decreased the buzzing of their minds as they internal natures vacillated and clashed along the spectrum between beast and human.

The group’s odd procession down the creekbed had particularly drawn their interest.  It was not lost on them that the peculiar sword that had been clasped in the dry-bed of the once pure spring was for all signs and purposes a covenant sword, from the days when such provincial districts of the Mid-World were divided into land grants among the familial clans which first occupied the territories. Each of the communal provinces were brought into being under a land covenant issue under the signet of an ornamental covenant sword which was crafted by the finest artisans of the clans. The swords represented both the commitment of each of the honor-bound clans to both protect and defend their land grants in perpetuity, and confer these covenants and the rights and privileges granted under them to their posterity.  It had been these covenants and their early vigilant defenders which had relegated The Pan and its kind into the far outskirts of the Mid-World wastelands.

It was not until the coming of the mysterious clans of the east that the covenant lands had ceased to be so vigilantly defended.  The fractious interlopers, lured the rightful covenant keepers into compromise, allowing the newcomers to live among them and alter their ancient ways, and intermarry with them, until the newcomers had overrun the territories and had a falling out that split their growing clan into the Xarmnian and Capitalian factions.  The Capitalians pushed to the lands beyond the far western mountain range and The Walls of Stone, while the Xarmnians built their own fortified stone cities and began incorporating and annexing the covenant lands by undermining their tribal traditions and cheating them through skewed trade deals.  When the covenant lands began to succumb to the militant campaigns and underhanded dealings with the Xarmnian kingdom, The Pan and their Half-Men began to move towards the central lands again, as the indigenous covenant keepers were undermined, and the supernatural elements of the Mid-World began to fade from being a manifest presence of protection.  The Half-Men and The Pan had not been able to stand against those beings which appeared to support the covenant keepers, but with their accounts seeming to fade, the Half-Men became more embolden to move back into the lands left unguarded and in tumult under the claims of fracturing interests.

The seeds of dissention and unrest were ripening into large grapes of wrath that would soon bleed red into the wine of war.  The human kingdoms would fall under the weight of their own greed and avarice, and The Pan and his Half-humankind would take the bloodied field to feast upon what remained standing, when the occupants of the lands were weakened by the ravages of war.  With the supernatural guardians no longer bound under the conditions of their being covenant keepers, there would be no force able to withstand The Pan taking full dominion over all of The Mid-World.  The one threat to the machinations of The Pan, would be anyone who might somehow complete the stone quests.

The two harpies gathered air into their wings and pushed upward into the higher breezes.  Their decision made.  Let Delilah deal with the Xarmnian human.  They would align with Delitch at the rendezvous point on the bald peak.  There was much to report.  She had gone to see The Pan and should be waiting with news of their meeting.  The forests of Kilrane would be purged of the nymphs either through a negotiation with The Pan or by other means.

*Scene 05* – 08:03 (Blood Sent)

High on the ridgetop, one of the Xarmnian Protectorate hunters, a scout named Bayek, sat atop his black horse, careful not to skyline himself. He scanned the valley below the crennellated ridge of the opposing valley range holding the Xarmnian stables.  His bruel had been clear. Don’t let the suspicious weapons shipment out of your sight.

He had watched the Iron Hills shipment train and riders turn onto the main road and proceed, as expected towards the highland’s westward descending road.  So far, so good, he thought to himself.  A weighted wagon could not easily traverse the rocky open country without following the cleared roadway, and the only known passage down the upper shelf of the Mid-World highlands in reasonable proximity was along that main road.

His compatriots had gone back to the stables to get their prisoner.  The Bruel had questioned and beaten the man severely, but he had been unable to get much more than fragmented information out of him.  The inn keeper and his wife and boy had taken these newcomers to the site of the forbidden Land Horn Stone.  With interest, they had learned that there was a secret tunnel underneath its burial mound.  So the inn keeper and his conscripts had thought they had been clever, had they?  He wondered again for what possible reason, they would risk their own lives and lands to defy the Son of Xarm’s edict.  For what purpose had they gone to the concealed Stone.  Did it still exert its power and influence even now?  None had dared touch it, for its origin was clearly from another world.  The very ground near it scortched up their feet when they had tried repeatedly to deface it, sending their mightiest soldiers writhing to the ground in paroxysms of pain.  When they were pulled away from it with ropes and cast nets, the Xarmnian apothecaries examined them and found that their armor had seared them and melted their flesh underneath.

Who were these interlopers?  This outside group of people traveling with the inn keeper?  The man they had in custody was weak, and easily cowed.  The group had two very small children among them.  Hardly an invading force.  One would expect the group to be comprised of warriors if these newcomers foolishly dared to take up the ancient quest of The Stone.  None of these factors, if true, made sense.  The man had not appeared to be defiant. In fact, he had been terrified, desperately mumbling pleas not to be killed through his bloodied lips.  Perhaps they had been too hasty in swiftly riding down and spearing through the other fleeing associates of their current captive.  Too late they had realized one of the escapees they killed was a young woman.  She would have made a more interesting prisoner.  There were many more intersting ways she could have been prevailed upon to get their answers.  More interesting, indeed, than merely beating up the snivelling old man.

As Bayek watched the wagon and company grow smaller in the darkening distance, suddenly he stood up in the stirrups of his saddle.  The flanking guards had peeled off of their detail and were riding ahead.  There was something beyond them that they were catching up to.  He unpocketed and raised his field glass to get a better look, searching the distant horizon against the misty air, and occasion flash of distant lightening.  Peering through the glass he had difficulty locating the group, but at last he found them as they emerged against the face of the rising moon.  There was another wagon just ahead of them.  At this time of falling evening, that further wagon could only be the very party they were looking for.  And at present, it looked like the company from the Iron Hills would be the ones to finally apprehend them.

Just then, Bayek heard the approach of snorting horses and his band of Xarmnian warriors coming up along the shelf to the ridge, his bruel, riding large and powerful in the lead, their train of massive dog-like creatures following, anxious to get back on the trail.

Bayek turned his horse, urgently beckoning his leader forward.

“What news?” the bruel gruffly barked.

“My Bruel, I have just sighted the wagon of our quarry.  It appears that those foul-smelling knaves guarding the Iron Hills shipment, may have a lead and could capture the fugitives and get the credit for it.  They are just now nearing the highland descent road.  We can still catch them, but we must hurry. Let the dogs run free.  There is a steep angling slope ahead that should lead us down to the main road.  Follow me.  The dogs can find their way down faster without our help.”

Another horseman paced up to the ridge, holding their bound and bruised prisoner, between him and the front of the saddle.  The old man’s head lolled to the side, pain and despair had withered him into a spindly shell of the man he was before being captured.  His hands were bound and tied to the saddle horn, his shoes had been discarded and his feet were pale and bare.  Even if he were to somehow fall out from between his captor’s muscled forarms, he could not get far on stony and uneven ground going barefoot.  “What should we do with him?!” the man’s restrainer asked.

The bruel snorted, glaring contemptuously at the frail man, his face twitching with cruel mirth.  “Wait here with him for now, and watch.  Once we  take his companions below, he may be of no further use to us.  Slit his throat and toss him out for the carrion birds.  Then you should be free to swiftly join us in the valley below.”

The old man stiffened slightly at the bruel’s words, but it was the only indication he gave that he had heard what his fate was to be.  Through blurred eyes he looked beyond to the valley and the road far below to the small dimming specks that were his former party.  Silently he prayed that somehow they might evade these cruel men hunting them, if not only for their sake, but also for his own that he might be spared at least one more day to look for way out of his seemingly hopeless predicament.

As they were speaking, the dog handlers dismounted, and came down to the dog-beasts, unfastening their leads from the creatures collars.  The unleashed dogs, bounded up and down, sensing that they were about to be in the hunt again.  Drool and foam gathering in their slackened jaws, their ears flattening and flexing, their muscled legs quivering with bloodthirsty excitement.

Their handlers barked a command, and the hairy monsters were off, bounding down the hillside towards the silvery road ahead, panting and growling as they went.  The horsemen remounted and spun, following their scout’s lead, charging down the narrow ledge that Bayek had identified.  Ahead they could hear the dog packs’ eerie baying and snarling noises, as they descended.  Bounding down the incline.  Sounding like shrill piercing cries of the half-wolves of The Pan’s kingdom. Their vicious throaty barks echoing down the hillside, reverberating off of the valley floor.  The dog creatures had no need to follow the slanting ridge shelf and would achieve the main road long ahead of the horses and their riders, but the horses might make up the ground between when they reach the base of the valley and could sprint again.  In either case, whether Xarmnian pursuers atop their horses or the vicious pack, the hunt would soon reach a violent and bloodied conclusion.

*Scene 06* – 11:56 (Down A Dangerous Road)

A wispy fog lay silver along the rutted track running alongside the white pasted wheat field as Begglar and I rode our horses alongside the rumbling wagon.  We had made no more than a mile down the angled track, headed for the main descending road when we heard noises coming from beyond the point of the escarpment along the main road we had hoped to join under the cover of the darkening dusk.

We had gone beyond the granary gates, but the beast that had been within could easily have burst through the outer doors and pursuing us even now.  The Xarmnian hunters had been in the area, Christie had confirmed, and it could just as easily be them coming along the backroad on our trail.  In either case, we had to move faster along the path to get ahead of our pursuers. We weren’t sure how much of the mists would give us cover to slip away.

Leading a weighted wagon, going overland was out of the question, and there weren’t enough horses to carry all of us, even if we doubled-up.  The buckboard would just as easily bog down on the soft shoulder, along the edge of the wheatfield, if we turned off of the hardpacked trail for the rains and mists no doubt had softened it.  With enough momentum and speed we might attempt to clear a ditch and drive into the field itself, but the wagon wheels would sink in before we got far enough to conceal ourselves.  Thankfully, Begglar and Dominic had had the foresight to lower and fold away the high wagon canopy, for it would have stuck out over the tops of the grain and whiteflag our enemies towards us.  The surrounding mists were not yet dense enough to cover us,  if we attempted to pull aside and remain quiet.  And if the beast in the granary were in pursuit, even that would not spare us from eventual discovery.  There were no clear options left.  We were in big trouble.  Death stalked us any way we tried to look at it.

Even if the travelers coming down the main road were allies, it was not the custom for highland travelers to risk moving down lonely roads in the evening hours.  Both theirs and and our presence here in the night would raise suspicion.  Marauders and thieves roamed the night, and the Xarmnian Protectorate were charged with conducting night patrols, ostensibly for the “safety” of the local from such brigands and cutthroats.

I shouted across to Begglar, “Is there any other way out of this valley than the main road?”

“Not in this direction.  The other way is down through the village of Crowe.  We need to ride and may need to see if we can get some space between us.  There is a little known cut through the woodline along the edge of the uplands.  It winds through some dense forestland, the way eventually narrows into a mere gametrail and it is doubtful that we could get the wagon through, but if it comes to that we may abandon the wagon and use its bulk to block any horse pursuit.  We’d have to go on by foot, but it might buy us some time if we get reach the turn ahead of whoever is coming.”

I gripped my reins and considered for half a second, bobbing up and down on my mount.  The side road joined the main road, just up ahead.

“Take the lead and I’ll fall back into the drag point.  Does Nell know of this cut way through the woods?”

“Aye.”

“Then let’s make for it.  Tell Nell to drive the team as hard as she can. We don’t have any choice.  I’ll let the crew in the wagon know to secure themselves and hold on.”

I reined my stead into a slower trot, letting the wagon come up alongside me, as Begglar rode astrive and informed Nell of our plan.

Fearful faces turned towards me as I neared the open buckboard.  Christie held Miray tightly in her arms, and Miray had buried her face into Christie’s shoulder.  Lindsey rode alongside her and the child and was near enough to me that I could speak to her over the creak, gait and jangle of the turning wagon wheels and jostling team, snorting in their harnesses under the tracer reins.

“Lindsey.  Tell everyone to hold on tight. We’re going to try to make a run for it on the main road.  Nell is going to have to drive the horses hard if we hope to make it to the cutoff we need to reach ahead of whoever is coming along the main road.  It’s going to get bumpy and rough.  The roads here are not made for fast travel in a wagon, so have everyone anchor to something and hold on tight.  We may have to ditch the wagon once we get into the trees so be prepared to get out quickly and into the woods.  Dominic and Nell will help you to which way to go.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to fall back and get some idea on who may be following.”

“Do you think the beast followed us out of the granary?!”

“I don’t know.  I wish I could say for sure.  There are a lot of dangers here.  We just have to do what we can against what we know.  People here do not often travel at night unless they are either desperate or up to no good.”

“Well that’s comforting…” she snorted.

“Sorry. I wish I could offer something more optimistic, but that is about how it stands.  Tell everyone to hold on.  I don’t want to lose anyone.  Not ever again.”

“Don’t worry Mister O’Brian.  I’ll tell them.  Be careful.  You saved this little one. We trust you know what you are doing.”

I fell back further as Nell and the wagon began to pick up speed.  Normally, a statement like that would give one confidence, but for me it did the opposite.  Especially since I knew what I about to do was perhaps insanely stupid and taking an extreme personal risk, but what they needed most right now was time, and I saw no other clear way to give them that.

By taking this course of action, I was ceding the position of de facto leader for this mission to Begglar.  Perhaps, I had been doing that all along. He knew the country better than I.  He had a network of contacts in the underground.  He had a greater stake in the position than I, now that he had a family here, and he had leadership experience, but I could not help feeling that this was shirking my responsibility.  I was no hero.  My last attempt at heroics got others killed.  This course may be wrong, but this time I was bearing the greater risk.  I was trying to view my present posture not as heroic, but as pennance.  Saving Miray had been instinctive, and clear-cut.  But this felt like an act of cowardice.  My guilt worked on me, stealing my clarity.  Something about that beast in the granary tugged at my thinking.  Some infernal hook, pulling me towards further risk and danger.  My life and past forays had been a Gideon’s fleece, repeatedly seeking to reassure me in this calling.  Deep down I was running from the responsibility of leadership, because I feared the weakness in myself and my record of past failures.  Doubting myself, somehow induced doubting the assurance and protection of The One.  No verse of the Ancient Text came to mind, to steel me in the moment.  I had led us into a fearful box of perilous circumstances with death being the only way out.  If another life was to be lost this night, I was making sure it would be mine.  If The One wanted me to lead this stone quest with this company, He would have to spare me in my own folly.

Resolved, I steered my horse across the pasture, cutting through the long grass toward the main road for a better look at our pursuers.  If they took me, hopefully the delay might buy Begglar and the others a little more time to make it ahead to the forest cut path.

I needed a sense of how many their were in the approaching group to account for the risk we were taking by pushing through on the night road.  Holding back might just cause the newcomers to slow and find out what we might be doing out here on a lonely trek of moonlit road.

I saw ahead where Nell had turned from the side route to the main thoroughfare as well.  The path was more travelled and the way was broader with a pale loamy dust and hardpack.  The earlier rains had tampened the road dust down a bit, keeping it from raising a plume of aerial grit behind us.  Often, distant travelers could observe how fast a lead might be traveling by the sheer amount of dust they raised galloping down the road.  With the mists and the dampened road, I hope that the followers might not guess immediately just when Nell and the others picked up speed.

From the shadowy moonlight, I could make out that the followers were a large company, apparently leading a couple of wagons of their own.  There were seventeen or eighteen of them at the most and they appeared to be heavily armed.  They rode flanking the wagons in a guarding formation, that I dimly recognized as being Xarmnian.

My breathe caught in my throat. Not good.  Not good at all.

Just then I was spotted.  Three of the approaching guards broke rank from the central column and started riding fast.

I turned ahead, spinning my horse towards my company and our own wagon. Nell had gathered the reins and had picked up considerable speed driving the wagon and team hard with Begglar atop his horse riding just ahead of them.

I rode out of the ditch and charged towards one of the guarding riders, angling ahead to drive him wide.  As I gained the main road, I unsheathed the sword I had in its scabbard at my hip, brandishing the steel, letting the rider know I was in earnest to defend my company.

The horsemen were riding fast, but I was able to drive one of them off the road and into the surrounding roughlands.  To his credit, the horsemen and his steed were very skilled.  They leapt over scrub brush, dodged broken rock, wended their way through uneven ground never fully breaking stride.  Our horses snorted as their heads surged up and down, neck and neck.

I rocked in the saddle, getting a better feel for the step and plummet of my horse’s pounding footfalls as we galloped along the edge of the road, keeping the other rider into the rough, softer shoulder.

A berm of dirt rose along the edge of the roadway and the rider road his faster horse up onto it raising their path two to four foot higher than the road my horse followed.  The rider’s stallion suddenly leapt from the berm crossing swiftly ahead of me, turning my horse so abruptly that I was almost pitched out of my saddle.  I felt a sharp sting graze my head and burn along my right ear, slightly cutting a shallow gash across my scalp.  The rider had struck me with a quirt strap, and my horse faltered as it almost stumbled to the roadway.  Being a dray horse, my steed had far wider hooves from pulling large loads.  Rather than tumbling, it skidded to a stuttering turn, its powerfully muscled haunches restabilizing it against the abrupt stop.  Ignoring the lash to my head, I glance behind and before me, my knee pressing against the front saddle strap to keep from being thrown.

What I took to be approaching Xarmnian wagons were not far behind me and, turning again to the front, I saw that two of the faster riders were catching up to my team ahead.  One rode what appeared to be an incredibly fast horse, and its rider edged the running wagon to the shoulder, brandishing some weapon I could not clearly see.

The wagon canted into the soft shoulder almost turn down, but Nell valiantly turned the team into the slant, righting the threatening tilt of the wagon.  The other rode ahead turning against the crew, blocking the forward roadway, silhouetted against the pale moon.

Other horsemen rode abreast of me hemming me in, lowering sharp pointed lances in my direction.

We were out of options.  Captives, with no hope of escape.

Suddenly, in the far distance we began to hear the sharp report, and baying echoes of packs of wild dogs.  I knew if those were the same creatures I had seen in my prior sojourn in The Mid-World. It would be those coming ferocious creatures that these Xarmnians would gleefully use to tear us all to pieces.

*Scene 07* – 15:56 (Flight by Moonlight)

Ahead and to the lead of our company, our blocking and silhouetted captor spoke sharply, “You’re late, and you’re going to get your party killed going it alone!”

A longbow and sword scabbard bristled from the shape of the dark figure before us.  The speaker’s face and body were obscured in shadow, but its back and outline were silvered by the glow of the rising moon.

“Storm Hawk?!  Is that you?” Begglar asked.

“Of course it’s me.  We came out looking for you when you didn’t arrive earlier.  Figured you might need chaperoning to get you safely in.”

“We?”

“Don’t worry about that now.  Hear the dogs?  We’ve got to move quickly.  Why didn’t you take more horses?  Your dray team is old and tired, Old Sailor.  They may have the strength to carry your wagon overland, but not the speed for it.”

“There wasn’t time.  The Protectorate Guards were coming through Crowe.  Pursuing a fugitive family.  Don’t know how they knew to come to us, but they did.  And the Xarmnians not to far behind.  We hid them and delivered them to the underground, shortly after these from the Surface World arrived.  We discovered as few days before that we were under surveillance.  They had planted a troll spy in our Inn that did not report back.  Leaving, the Protectorate already fell upon three in our company when they deserted us.  You know how they operate.  We couldn’t borrow Xarmnian stock.  They would’ve alerted the stable guards first to look for strange travelers and report back.  The need for faster horses seemed to be our most obvious next step, so we came on without them.  Predictability is too deadly to chance.”

“So is slowness,” the one called Storm Hawk observed, starting to turn away from the ridgeline and descend again into the darkness between us.

I spoke up from beyond, “Hello, Maeven.”

She stopped, reining her horse to shift back and around our wagon, coming closer to where her men held me at spearpoint.

“I know that voice,” she spoke quietly.  I raised my head trying to get a better look at her through the shadows. She had changed so much from what I had remembered.  She rode tall and confident in the saddle.  Her long, raven-feathered, hair was tied back and, no doubt, bundled to keep it from revealing it as an ebony crown of womanhood. She was no longer wispy thin, as I had know her, but had filled out from hard riding, and weapons training.  Her thighs had gained muscle from maintaining core balance on a charging mare.  Her arm were banded, with shaped hide pieces, giving her the appearance of having a masculine upper bulk, but she carried it off, undergirded by a strong, sinewy structure beneath, narrowly revealed at her joints between the sleeves.

Her face was in full shadow as she quietly considered me, her back turned against the large, radiant face of the distant moon.  At last she spoke, her voice tinged with amazement.
“Brian…,” she huffed in a contralto tone, that seemed to linger somewhere between exasperation and stunned amazement, “…is it really you?”

“It is,” I responded.

Her horse turned slightly, giving me a glimps of her face backlit by moonlight, a silver sheen on her cheek.  She wore what appeared to be a half-scarf under her chin, which she had pulled down and away from her face, revealing the fair visage beneath.  Hiding her femininty, must have been something of a challenge, riding among a company of loyal men, leading diruptor and mercy missions, amidst a land ruled by the mysogenist contempt of brutal Xarmnian soldiers and their Protectorate gangs.  If the Xarmnians were ever to know that they had been repeatedly outsmarted by a women, their rage and insensed shame would know no bounds.  Out of spite, they would viscously burn and pillage the captive villages presently held under Xarmnian thrall, to bait her out of the shadows and into strategic traps.  Whereupon, her capture would involve humiliation, domination, and brutal physical violations that reduced her to the place of contempt they held for anyone that might dare challenge their superior assumptions of themselve in the pecking order of the powerful.

Her personal risk was extreme, which stood as a credit to the level of her bravery.  She had much changed from the shy, unassuming and hesistant girl I had know from before.  There was steel in her now, and determination, that I had not seen in her before.

“So,” she said, a little louder now, “…you have returned.  Begglar said you would, but I did not believe it.  Can barely believe it now, seeing you again with my own eyes.  I had thought you had done with us.  These Mid-World forays.  The Stone quests and such, seeing as how you thwarted the last one.”

Her words stung, and I did not know exactly how to respond.

Taking in my hesitancy, she continued,”You should now know that I no longer answer to my Surface World name outside of the protection of fortified walls and in places where enemies cannot overhear it.  Why did you come back?”

I cleared my throat, “Would you mind telling your men to lower their spearpoint a might?  They are so close to my face, I can almost shave by them.”

A bit of mirth entered her voice as she signaled her Lehi horsemen to relenquish their vigilant guard a bit, and I sighed relief as those sharped points tilted and were sheathed back into carriers in the horsemen’s saddles.

Maven, now infamously known as The Storm Hawk returned to her interrogationing.”You could not have comeback on your own volition.  The oculus must have returned.  Why were you brought back?  Are you now leading this company of travelers?”

“I am.”

“And you do so by attacking those who may be in allegiance with you?”

“I did not know this was your band of Lehi.  What with those beast dogs echoing beyond us and you carrying yourselves as Xarmnians do.  In the dark it was hard to tell.  I have been away from such things for over twenty long years.”

Maeven responded, “These canyons in the pass echo and tend to amplify the sound.  They will be here very soon–you can be certain of that–but not as fast as it sounds.  There are Protectorate brutes coming from the ridge and watching us above.  They follow the cerberi. My Lehi are aware and watching, and will alert us.”

She gathered her reins and shirked out of the bow curved around her back shoulder, reaching behind and into a quiver, bristling with arrows.   In a more alert and confident voice, she addressed me curtly, “The greedy fists of Xarmni have grown longer in their reach and more skilled in their cunning.  If you had pulled that stunt of driving a Xarmnian off the road in the times before you might have confused them. But they are not as easily disrupted and mercurial as they were back then. Even so, I would have expected better of you than this. Leadership requires calculation and foresight. What you just did was reckless and impulsive.  But in that, it seem that not much has changed in the past twenty years.  You’re STILL reckless and headstrong!  I’ve learned hard lessons about the folly of those traits.  And now, you expect me to believe you have returned here to lead a quest?”

I chuckled at the irony.  “We are both ever the reluctant warriors, it seems.”

“Ever the reluctant fools if we don’t start moving and get that buckboard over the rise!”

Begglar had moved closer, at that point, and leaned over and whispered, “I think what she’s trying to say is that she missed you, laddie.”

“What was that?!”

“Oh, nothin’. Nothin’.” Begglar feigned a look of innocence, but winked slyly at me.

The sound of the baying and barking dogs, echoed ominously in the background growing louder.  A low whistle caused Storm Hawk to straighten, and clench her mount in the girth, signalling to the beast that its strength and speed would soon be called upon again to carry her through an imminent conflict.

With that, Maeven put two fingers from her other hand to her lips and blew a loud, high-pitched trilling sort of whistle, that sounded avian and piercing in the cold night air.

From the near distance, we could hear the sound of galloping, snorting horses, thunderously heading our way.  Our eyes had grown more accustomed to the darkness, and we could see tall shadowy figures on horseback converging on us through the grain fields, from a dark copse of trees, and from the packed roadway behind us.  Another series of high-pitched whistles signaled her Lehi into pre-arranged postures and formations.

A primal fight or flight instinct took over our company and they reached for their newly gather weapons, unloading and tightening in back to back around the wagon, now deeper off the shoulder of the road, mud caking and rising around its wheels.

Maeven rode around our company and the wagon in a widening circle, observing their defensive posture taking form.  The younger ones remained near and protected by Lindsey and Christie, shunted behind them, ready to duck under the wheels and take cover.  The men–young and older–stood aground outside the wagon sidewalls, their weapons drawn, looking uneasy and uncertain.

Seeing the young ones huddled and beginning to climb beneath the bed of the wagon, she turned to us and asked,“Why are the children not armed?”

Begglar responded, “We didn’t intend them to fight.”

“Intention or not, the fight will come to them,” she answered, “You know this to be true.  You trained your own son early, knowing you cannot protect the youth from unguarded moments.”

Quickly, scanning and observing the others, holding their drawn weapons unsteadily or struggling to pull swords from their scabbards, to me she asked, “Did you let them pick their weapons?”

Embarrassed, I answered in the affirmative.

“It is quite clear you have not led a company in a while.”

“It has been a few seasons.  But you are correct we should have taken the time to oversee and choose weapons more suited to them.  We had hoped to refine the choice once we arrived in Azragoth.”

“You would never have survived the way ahead.  The old forest road through Kilrane has grown unseen eyes.  Many men have disappeared there of late, both ours and Xarmnian alike.  The guardians have not been seen there for many seasons.  I think The Pan may have grown bolder and now has his agents exploring it. Xarm shows no objection.  Rumor has it that they’ve relinquished their claim to it, after so many years of quarantine.”

As silent as a shadow, she dismounted and moved to the front of the team of horses and took the bridle of the lead horse and started leading them off the softer shoulder back onto the hard-packed path.

“Mists and rains have dampened the roads, and ditches.  Any way we turn will be discovered,” Begglar lamented. “What’ll we do about our wagon’s wheel ruts?”

“You’ve been on this path for a piece, and it is still dark yet.  The wheel ruts have only bruised the shoulder for a bit, and we are leading two wagons behind you.  Your wheel imprints will get lost among ours.  There is no way to distinguish them without the clarity of full daylight.  They woould have to ride back down the adjoining side road to get the level of distinction needed to tell them apart. What you need now is speed, and some way to keep those dogs off.  You won’t beat them for scent, or throw them off track unless you can get into water.  So you do the next best thing.”

“And what would that be?” I enjoined.

“You do something highly improbable. You switch rides. We take one of our wagons down through the gorge, disguised as yours.  The guards will naturally expect you to take the road with a wagon.  We’ve fooled them some into thinking we are a Xarmnian convoy bringing weapons from the Iron Hills forges.  Our wagons are drenched in the taint and scent of that place.  Their dogs’ senses are overloaded by the smell, and may not recognize your trail and sign in the eagerness of their pursuit.”

“But the main road is the only way down to the valley floor for a wagon,” Begglar interjected.  “What are we to do with the other wagons?”

“There is a narrow wooded trail below the brow uphead,” Storm Hawk pointed.

“We know of it,” Begglar assented, “We had considered abandoning the wagon in that wood path when it narrows to block riders in pursuit, but we would have to sacrifice many of the provisions we brought for the journey and bartering in the local towns ahead.  Protectorate are still loathe to walk when they can ride.  I thought we might get far enough ahead to lose them in the woods, but with their devil dogs…” he trailed off.

Storm Hawk nodded, having already formulated a considered plan, “Load your team into our weapons wagon.  You’re not gonna like the smell, but we have those vicious dogs to consider.  Your natural scents should be covered by it well enough. If they are not fooled, the Xarmnians’ll ignore the dogs if they think we’ve split up and sent the wagon one way and some foot travelers another.  The scented wagon will be what you abandon in the wood trail.  There is still a way down a little know back route to Azragoth, that we can take horses through.”

“Horses?! The wooded trail you speak of ends in only game trails, deer and such.  The main road is the only way down to the valley floor for a wagon,” Begglar interjected.  “What are we to do with the other wagons?”

“The winding roads down from the highlands are narrow and steep.  Difficult for horsemen to arrest the movement of a weighted wagon ahead, and there are only a few places where they might get around a decending team.  The split pursuers will be forced to follow it all the way down.  Raise the cover and hide the contents of the wagon.  We’ll do the same with our wagons.”

“That accounts for two wagons, what of Begglar’s wagon?” I asked.

“There is another narrow wooded trail along the ridge that cuts back into the valley where the Xarmnian stables are kept, but it is too wooded to be seen from a distance.  My men will bring your wagon down that path and return it to you later in Azragoth.  The Xarmnians will be curious enough to want whatever you’ve taken in the wagon that is so valuable that you’d risk being hampered by it.  They’ll have to split there riders up to be sure.  They’ll be as confused as I was why you might travel so slowly, knowing they are coming to kill you.”

“You said the Protectorate was watching us from above.  What will they make of us talking here?”

Maeven/Storm Hawk pursed her lips, “I am hoping they will think we captured you and are holding you as prisoners until they get down here.”

“Are you confident that gives us enough time to do all we are planning?”

“No,” she reined around gliding back up into the saddle, turning her horse and setting an arrow notch to the string of her bow and holding it there, all in one fluid and practiced motion. “There is another option.  You and your party will try once more to escape us, making a run just over the brow of this hill.  We’ll need to make that attempt look good,” she eyed me indicating what we and they must do for the pursuing audience now coming fast down the road behind us.

By then the horses and riders had reached us and were forming a perimeter around us.  In the moonlight, they were armed heavily and had their hands fisted, one with gathered reins and one resting on the pommel of the swords at their hips ready to draw them forth.

In a language, I did not know, Maeven shouted a command to them and the riders held their mounts steady for a moment.  The noises of the dogs were growing in the distance as were the other galloping strides of more oncoming horses.

“This ruse will not fool them for long,” Maeven said, “my Lehi horsemen will need to appear to pursue your company for a distance, so load the children in the wagon.  There is a rise ahead.  The pursuit will be silhouetted by the moon.”

*Scene 01* 2:35 (Breakthrough)

Like a worm boring through the meat of an apple, the beast surged forward, breaking away the dirt and rock ahead of it, consuming the flesh of the under sediments of the escarpment, expelling the scree and pulverized powder through its pulsing gills.  It rapidly approached what it perceived to be hollow, which was suddenly filled with a churning motion.  As the beast squirmed forward, fissuring through the rock, a massive force slammed it back through the breech, trapping it in its own cut tunnel.

Water.  The force of an unground river, flooded the pocket shaft, forcing the beast’s body into a curling plug. Its spine plates raked the jagged rock, collapsing the tunnel upon the monster as it thrashed against the surging water.  Its throaty protestations gurgled in the surfeiting churn, popping and bubbling, unable to gain its equilibrium in the press.

Above the surface, the land fissured, and water bled and burst out of the ground flow in widening deltas down the escarpment, creating a diagonal furrow across the road on the upslope.  The fissure widened, causing the ground to shift like two tectonic plates driven against each other, breaking the edge crust as they ground and sloughed and then pushing it up into an artificial ridge.

Just beyond the cliff edge of the escarpment, a mere twenty feet down, water exploded out of the rock, falling precipitously down into a copse line of trees and a dried stream bed below.  The water roared down the rock line, crashing into a catcher pool, surging under a bridge, starling a team of horses tied to the bridge railing, washing over the canvas of a wagon canopy, and racing down the stony trench.

Suddenly, the ground burst open and a roar pierced the darkening sky, swirling with twisting clouds, and wraith-like shadows.  The beast was a confusion of splattering luminescence, rainfall created a curtain over its form, which was translucent, but shimmered with scintillating shadows, and bright bursts that bristled under the silvery etchings of lightning and rumbling cannonades of thunder.

Its roar seemed to shake the heavens and reverberate down the escarpment, as, far below, a small party of harried travelers fled to the solitary wagon hitched to a team of anxious and soddened horses.

*Scene 02* 4:35 (Cover of Rain)

Christie rode steadily down the dirt and stony road, trying to follow the intermittent signs of the wagon tracks and team.  The downpour of the rain had washed away many of the traces of the shallower ruts that had passed over flat rock, but pools of water still filled the channels where the wheels ran off of the stone into the softer soils.  Christie had been riding in this fashion for some time, casting her eyes along the rough makeshift road to ensure she did not miss where the team may have turned off.  Her neck ached from looking down so much that she finally leaned back in the saddle, and cast her gaze into the skies ahead of her.  The clouds were dark and grey, and blowing skeins of rain fell about a half-mile ahead of her, almost obscuring another rise in elevation.  The dark grey curtains obscured the edge of the northwest, but she could still see the evidence of the wagon’s progression.  She looked towards the west, but from where she was, she could no longer see the mysterious blue signal light that branched across the darkening sky.

How long will it be before the Xarmnians came after us? she wondered.  If she could still read the signs of the wagon’s passage after the storm wash, surely those trained hunters would be able to as well, with much less difficulty.  They might be on her track as well soon, and she knew she had to warn the others before that happened.  Thinking all of the thousands of ways this foolish pursuit of the company could go fatally wrong for her, threatened to cloud her mind with blind panic.  She wondered again if she should have just given up and waited on the coastline until the sea storm abated to see if another portal might return for her, as it had for Laura.

Laura.  What had become of the girl?  What did she go back to?  Christie’s eyes teared up just thinking about it.  So much pain.  So much cruelty both there in the Surface World and here in the Mid-World as well.  No place was safe from it.  It was an integral part of the human condition.  It was the double-bladed edge of free will.  Freedom to choose the good or the bad.  To make the charitable, selfless choice, or the cruel, selfish pursuit of gaining power over one’s fellow man.  To choose to love or to choose to terrify.

She glanced wistfully over her shoulder, back towards the farther hills and the inn beyond them.  It was then she noticed the towering black, billowing column of smoke, extending like an ominous curling finger over the eastern horizon, beckoning her to come back and meet the death that stalked her even now.

The inn.  Those monstrous men had set Begglar’s inn on fire.  It could only be that.  The pit of her stomach turned and twisted as if she had been punched.

She squinted and blinked, hoping the tower of smoke was just an illusion.  A trick of her own worrisome thoughts.

It wasn’t.

She squinted and blinked again, and her eyes widened.  Under the pillar of smoke and fire, she spotted what she had assumed to be falling ash, moving out of the shadow of the distant hillside–A line of moving dark specks, and some darker specks below them, steadily growing larger as they came into contrast with the dried yellow scrub grasses.

Men on horses.  The Xarmnians were coming.

But what was the lower line fronting them?

Her heart stilled for just a moment, as she realized she could just make out the finest edges of the sounds.

It sounded somehow familiar.  But different as well.  Deeper tones, more throaty and sharp.

Her eyes widened, as she turned and kicked the flanks of her mount, causing her horse to rear slightly and then build up towards a gallop and then a run.  She knew if she could only make the edge of the rainfall ahead, she might have a prayer.

The Xarmnians were coming after her.

They were coming with creatures that sounded like a ravenous pack of hunting dogs.  As cold and tired and damp as she had been, her only chance now was to ride as hard and fast as she could back into the rainfall.

*Scene 03* 18:23 (The Hidden Cache)

“What just happened to that girl?! I don’t understand all this?!” one of the young women cried.  Nell grabbed the girl’s hand, shifting young Miray onto her hip as she ushered those she could onward towards the restless team and covered wagon.

Lightning flashed and split the pseudo-night sky with a loud crack and a protracted flash of brilliant light.  Mixed in with the rain and thunder, the additional sound of the bestial roar from the top of the escarpment had drawn the attention of some of the men.  Something huge flailed in shadowy silhouette above and along the high edge of the escarpment cliff, made visible against the veins of light flashing across the silvered sky.

“Something is up there!” one of the young men pointed to the cliff top, but Begglar and Dominic pressed the crew to climb quickly into the wagon.

“Go!  GO!  Don’t waste time gawking!  We have to get to cover,” Begglar urged.

The falling water, now streaming out of the upper cliffside, had initially burst forth out of the hill like an uncorked spout jetting out into the lower treeline overshooting the collection basin below. Now it fell in a regular cascade down the rock face.  Its falling force had almost washed the wagon and the horses into the creekbed, and now the animals were antsy and restless, straining at their harnesses and had almost pulled free of their tethering.  Begglar grappled with the wet leather tracers, freeing them from the bridge’s baluster.  The struggling team had almost pulled the post loose of the bridge, and the leather had been strained and stretched.

Dominic and I tried calming the team, but they rolled their eyes and snorted, their hooves pawing and splashing the mud and puddles, clearly spooked by first the downpour and then by the cacophonous wailing of the angry banshee.  The wheels and tongue of the wagon twisted and its tracer rings jangled following the unnerved fidgeting of the agitated team.

A howling still permeated through the crackling fusillade and shifting clouds above us.  Black, gossamer twists of what looked like frayed material swirled in and among the gusts of wind that now pommeled us with stinging wet and cold.

The rest of the group crawled in under the canopy, hectored and cajoled by both Begglar and Dominic.  Whatever was above us would have to take its turn to torment us further, as the rain poured down with greater frigid fury.

Miray was dripping wet and shivering, as were most of our crew.  Cheryl nursed her injuries but tried to comfort two of the youths that were frightened and miserable.

“What just happened to Becca?  What did she turn into?  What did you do to her to make her suddenly…?”

I avoided the question, helping Dominic close the tailgate and pin it with the metal staves.  “You ride with them, I’ll ride up front with your dad this time,” I admonished heading around to the front box seat.

Begglar had fished the reins out of the tangle of tracers but still struggled to hold the team steady.  “Get on up there!” I shouted to him, “I’ll hold ’em, while you get on the seat.”

Begglar could barely hear me above the wind but surmised what I had intended, as I grabbed the bridle of one of the lead horses, holding him down against the bit.  I put my hand on the horse’s muzzle, again attempting to calm the animal without getting stomped on.  Begglar swung into the seat and gripped the reins, evening them out, as I released the bridle.  The team pushed forward and I almost got trapped between the lead animals as they stamped and snorted, anxious to get moving.  I pivoted out of their way and allowed the box to come towards me, thrusting a tow into the wooden spokes of the front wheel pitching me up into the seat beside Begglar as the wheel turned.

“That’s a bad way to break an ankle,” Begglar grumbled as he fed out the reins allowing the horses to splash onto the road, towards the under stables and grain bin doors ahead at the farther end of the skirt of the escarpment.

“Your horses didn’t give me much choice,” I countered.

“You know as well as I do that, they’ll be coming for us soon.  The scout Trolls are never too far out from the company troop.  It’s been two days now, and that Troll will be missed for not reporting in.  The Protectorate will be at our heels if they are not already awaiting us in an ambush ahead.  When do you think it will be safe to rendezvous with the others?”

Begglar nodded ahead.

“We’ve worked out a series of distance signals.  My company is waiting for us in the hills.  They have been gathering some of the horses so we will be able to move faster through the low country and then around the lakes and forests to the mountains ahead.  It would be best if we could make Azragoth by nightfall.”

“Azragoth?!  That place is haunted.  It’s a ghost town.”

Begglar put his finger to the side of his nose and winked, “Aye.  And we’d like to keep it that way, wouldn’t we?”

“What do you plan in Azragoth?”

“Later,” Begglar snorted, “Right now we’ve got to get to the weapons cache and give this team a chance to get out of this downpour.  That banshee has them spooked in a bad way.  It will linger until this storm blows over. They’ll be no good on the outer road this night.”

“I know just how they feel,” I commiserated.  The sudden fury of what had happened with whatever had masqueraded as young Becca had shaken me to the core.  I had not expected the encounter to end as it did, and I wondered what other things might be in store for us on the road ahead, but it was best not to dwell on that and risk fear impeding us further.

We rode down the wet road in relative silence, under the front splatter and drizzle of the overhanging canopy until we had drawn alongside the large doors.  Begglar and I both jumped out of our seats, as we guided the horses out of the pelting rain, under the more sheltered leeward side of the escarpment.  Begglar came around and thrust the wet reins into my hands, and shouted, “Hold the horses here while I get the doors opened.  Then lead them into the gate, following the fallen straw.  There is a stable in there and it’ll keep the beasties dry for now.  We will unhitch them inside where they can’t easily break and run.”

I nodded my understanding and Begglar hurried to a smaller door, fetching a key out of one of his breast coat pockets.  He fumble with it for a moment, but soon got the door opened and disappeared into the dark inside.

As I waited, I thought about the strange roaring from above.  I wondered at what animal or beast could have made such a noise above all of the storm, that it would draw our attention up to the top of the escarpment that we had just quitted only an hour before.  Could the Xarmnians be on us already?  What manner of beast would they have with them that could make such a sound?  It was no secret that the Xarmnians had regular outer patrols in the area.  Begglar had told me so.  Protectorate guards, they were called, though what they did and represented was the antithesis of protection.  They could already be in the vicinity.  They could have seen us progressing up the escarpment to the granary.

I had hoped, with the distance and the darkening sky and wind and the roar of the rain, the Protectorate guards would not immediately see us.  The land between Begglar’s hill and the granary escarpment was uneven, so we had urged everyone to hunker down and stay low when moving to the wagon.  Depending on how far they were, we might still be unseen.  The wagon road was close to the skirt of the escarpment.  The pale hill might blend with the cover sheets of the wagon, and we were still in the cast shadow of the upper hill.  All these things considered, there still was a chance we remained undetected.

The loading doors faced away from the road descending into the valley.  I kept a wary, watchful eye, but the rain-screened most of my view of what was transpiring on the lower roadway beyond.

Thunder growled from one side of the hill to the mountains beyond and echoed back.  Lightning splintered the sky with strobing flashes.

We had to act.

The raging storm would provide us with cover, but it would only delay their pursuit.

I realized Begglar and his family may have to lose their wagon and perhaps we could load supplies in the packs, but we would not get far or very fast with those draft horses.  We would need mountain stock eventually, but now we needed animals bred for sustainable speed overland to put as much distance between us and the Protectorate.  Whatever weaponry and armor we gathered from the cache could not be too heavy for us to carry or fight with.  Swiftness trumps armor plating in hand-to-hand combat.  Thankfully, there were no incendiary weapons here in the Sub-World.  Or at least never in my experience had I run across one.  But what did I know?  I knew many things but not everything, nor could I plan for all eventualities that might befall us.  There is danger enough in what is known.  But the far greater danger is in the unknowns.

Begglar unlocked the doors of the catcher bins, and we climbed over a slight berm and entered the dark bin with slanted floors that descend downward to catcher wells filled with large mounds of dry grain.  A torch was carefully lit, once we were further inside, so as not to draw attention from the outside toward any escaping glow.

Begglar and I unhitched the team, after Dominic drove the horse and wagon into a narrow tunnel, near the inner stables.  The floor, like Begglar had said, was lined with dry straw that crunched softly underfoot.  As we stabled the horses, the crew piled out of the darkened wagon, once the gate was lowered and entered the side corridor down the dimly lit passage towards the torch we had lit and placed in a wall sconce.  The grain door we had opened beyond the inner berm still was under the lip and shadow of the upper rock ledges.

“It’ll take some work, but I need about five or more of the boys and men to help us get down to the cache trap.  It is hidden under the grain.  Once we get down to it, I’ll light one of the inner furnaces.  We use it to keep the grains dry when the air gets damp under here.  Keeps the grains from sweating and moldering.”

“Fine,” I assented, “We can get some of the women to keep watch while we are occupied.”

I stationed Cheryl and Miray outside to watch and alert us if any of the Protectorate guards started moving our way.  Lindsey, who had given me her name in the dry creek while awaiting our Shibboleth tests from Begglar, offered to join them and I welcomed her help.  The others, not assisting in the digging were to be relay sentries, just inside the doors to immediately convey any alarm that was given by those stationed to keep watch to us working below.  With the rain and storm still raging outside, we could not risk having an alert go unheard.

Dominic and Begglar grabbed grain shovels and began to clear the grain from the lower edge of the mound and shovel it to the side.  Grain slid, frustratingly,  down into the cleared area so that the work was repetitive and far from easy.  Our entire company was sodden and dripping with rain and sweat as all of the men pitched in together until a second mound held enough grain to allow us to slide shovelfuls to the back wall of the bin.

At last, an area was cleared large enough for Begglar to get down on his hands and knees and feel along the slatted underboards for the particular place he was looking for.  He drew a cooking spoon out from his garment and dug at a circular inset in the floorboard until he uncovered a T-bolt the size of his fist.  With a grunt and a twist, he pulled the T-bolt upward and gave it a turn, freeing what was a grooved panel of the flooring, with cleverly concealed hinges on one end.

He raised the panel and we all craned in to see the weapons cache.  It appeared flat with a layer of grain that had likely sifted down into the concavity through the grooved slats.  There were some groans and murmurs as Begglar carefully reached in and began to scoop out handfuls of grain.  His hand dug deeper until he stopped and looked up into the firelight with a grin.  Carefully, he pulled out the first of many short swords, scabbards, and fine-linked shirts of chainmail, which were as light and pliable as any I had ever seen or felt.  A battle mace was produced from the grain-filled cache, and a hammered and dried leather tunic was pulled forth, with several following it.  Along the side, under the grain were halberds and throwing spears, and four quivers of bristling arrows in a sling, with bows made from ash and yew wood to match each set.  When quite a few weapons lay aside, Begglar lowered the door and guided the T-bolt back into its slot until the panel set even with the floor.  He climbed back to his feet and grabbed the grain shovel again and we pitched in, once more moving the second pile back over the uncovered area and blending it with the first.

Together we selected the weapons we would carry or learn to carry on us as we were trained to use them.  The chainmail shirts were given to the women, as they were lighter garments and pliable and could reliably turn the point of a dagger thrust or possibly the fatal piercing point of a spear.

The hard leather tunics were thick and layered leather that had been affixed to a linen cloth backing, yet molded to fit a man’s torso.  The hardened skin would require considerable force from a blade strike to pierce it directly, but it allowed for a full range of movement without the weight or restrictions associated with a metal breastplate.  These were the combat wear of overland raiders, rather than the armored wear of a city or kingdom guard.  Arguably they were better for use in a battle where there were fewer, smaller bands of fighters, rather than rank upon rank of soldiers who overwhelmed and fought with the advantage of numbers.  When armored soldiers became fatigued they would fall in battle, and the next row would hastily take their place in the fighting.  But lightly armored soldiers, trained with weapons would outlast those individuals in a fight because they did not tire as fast.  They might take out three or four soldiers in an extended skirmish before they succumbed to the fatigue of fighting.

Each of us rotated into the granary to arm and change out of wet clothes into battle attire.  We were ill-suited to combat at the moment, but that would change in the days and weeks ahead.  For privacy’s sake and decorum, the women took turns undressing in the grain bins with the loading doors shut to cover and shield the interior torchlight from the risk of being seen from the hills.  The rain continued to pour down and the lightning flashed from time to time, but the counts between flashes and thunderclaps and rumbling lengthened.

Begglar came up to me wet with sweat and flushed from the exercise of having done the lion’s share of uncovering the grain from the secret cache.

“I’ve just lit the drying furnaces.  There’s not much fuel left in the tinderboxes, but it should burn for a few hours anyway.  Possibly enough to keep us warm.  Nell and Dominic and some of the women will see to the horses.  There are feed sacks aplenty.  They should be rested a while.”

“What about Azragoth?  Wasn’t the plan to push forward?”

“There’ll be no making Azragoth tonight,” Begglar observed as the wind and rain fought furiously with the trees in the distant grove, and the rain gathered in puddles and poured into streams and rivulets down the granary grounds and into the wheat fields.

I stared out into the night, still suspicious of any movement along the distant roadway, “Do you think they’ll be watching us?”

“Highly doubt it.  Soldiers or no, those Protectorate Guards are a lazy sort.  Brutal bullies, deadly killers, but lazy just the same.”

“Still we must try to use the storm cover if we can.  I am betting they will come here, after dawn breaks.”

“That they will,…but we’ve got a few hours to get some rest, before pressing on.  Give it to them.  They’ve witnessed terrible things, and fatigue won’t make it any easier.  Some are rightly scared, others bewildered.  But they are beginning to have some faith in you, laddie.  Give them time.”

The tunnels were beginning to warm from the inner furnaces.  Closing the doors helped stave off the outside damp.

When the women were attired, the men filed in armed and dressed, lacing their tunics tightly across their chests, assisting each other to strap scabbards to their waists and keep the hilt tilted forward to come to hand at a moment’s notice, while keeping the scabbard’s metal locket and end ringed chape clear of the movement of their legs.  The dry grain had preserved the forged and polished steel of the weapons nicely so that it stayed dry and free of moisture that could so easily rust the blades or dull their cutting edges.  Once dressed, the women were invited back in to help adjust our garb, so that we at least looked like proper fighting men.

Nell and Dominic checked on the horses and wagon in the covered overhang of the threshing floor where the bags of grain were typically loaded.  They fed the horses oats and grains in feedbags hung from their bridles. They anticipated we would be leaving soon.  They joined us within, and dressed in their own dry clothes, having had their battle gear fitted underneath their garments all along.

Since children have better visual acuity and night vision, we left young Miray and another young one outside to watch the road for any chance sign of the Protectorate Guards’ movements until we could relieve her for a night watch.

When she suddenly appeared, white-faced at the narrow opening of the loading gate, we all turned as she scrambled over the berm, past the shadow of the doorway into the torchlight.  She was panting and frightened, barely able to speak, and seeing her once again ignited our own fear.

“Someone’s coming this way!”

“How many?!” we all seemed to ask at once.

Begglar pulled the loading door all the way shut and braced it with a thick timber while the girl caught her breath and continued.

“Only one…riding a horse…coming fast.”

*Scene 04* 16:30 (Resurfacing)

She woke up sweating profusely. Her heart was pounding and her fists were full of a bedsheet.  She raised her head and felt the underside of a coat around her face.  The smell of mothballs.  The bitter, irritating smell she remembered from her childhood.  She was in her closet again.  The place she always ran to when she was afraid.  The place she hid when her father and mother were fighting.  Where she could not hear the yelling and screaming. The sounds of things being broken and shattered.  She was sopping wet and exhausted.  Her arms felt gritty with sand.  She smelled the salt of seawater mixed in with the nauseous smell of naphthalene.

How did she end up in her closet?  How was it possible that she had been in one place…and now she was in another?  She gathered her feet under her and thrust upward.  Some clothes fell down upon her, pushed up from the hanging bar.  Her feet were cold.  Her sneakers squeaked on the wooden slat floor.

She fumbled blindly, for the hinged portion, blinking through the slanted slats of the closet door, and pushed it open.  The interior was dim, almost fully dark, but this was not the bedroom she had rented for the last four months.  This was her bedroom.  She had returned from wherever she had gone, but not to her apartment in the city.  However, this place was all too familiar.  She had not been back here in this place for many years, (seven to be precise) but it was seared into her memory and nightmares.  She had come back alright.  But to what?  Or, more importantly, to when?

The room was exactly as she remembered it.  Her small single bed by the wall, and the window.  Her card table desk, with the wobbly leg that never seemed to keep the table from moving.  The box where she kept her toys.  The tattered doll that she got for Christmas.  The crate where she kept her few story books, and her school books.  The faded poster of the Partridge Family.  Her heart-throb David Cassidy smiling as if only for her.

“C’mon get happy…,” she muttered in a breathless whisper, “C’mon get happy.”  Not feeling the groove or the vibe at all.

Whatever had happened to bring her here?

This was not a happy place.  Even though it should have been.

And these were not happy times.

She glanced out of the blurred pane of glass, catching a glimpse of an old blue four-door sedan parked near the front curb.

Rain beat down on its roof and trunk, in glistening splatters.

There was shouting and two figures out on the spartan grass lawn.

Figures she recognized, caught in a struggle.

“John! Don’t leave us please!” the smaller figure begged, clutching the larger figure’s arm.

And suddenly she gasped, knowing what was about to transpire and exactly where and when she was.

Laura was home.  And this was the night, her father would leave them.

Why had she come back?  And why here and why to this point in time?

The last thing she remembered, she had ridden a horse through a rain storm.  She had come to a hill and looked out onto a stormy sea.  And then the edge of the hill gave way, sliding in a muddied tide all the way down to the beach and the edge of a sandbar, still not covered by the foamy waves.  And then out of the sea came a shimmering blue light, and a large twisting circle of light, with a strange swirling glow inside it.  She had walked towards the light, out onto the sandbar, just before the light swallowed her whole.

Had she dreamed it all?  She shivered, gathering herself against the chill in her bones and her spirit.  The face of a clock glowed back at her mockingly in the wet miasma of water-washed moonlight coming through the window, and the painful family drama played itself out shamefully on the open street, for the disturbing amusement of the whole neighborhood.  Lights were on in the houses beyond.  Some houses remained dark at this hour.  The mocking clock digits glowed green along with the ticking hands, moving inexorably across its moon face to arrive at indications of four past ten.  It was almost as if the hands were raised in a shrugged V, giving her the “Whatever” dismissive reply.  Even her clock seemed to hold her in nihilistic disdain.  She wanted to smash it.  To break its glass face, and twist its ceaselessly spinning arms.  To claw and peel off the numbers surrounding its peering face.  She wanted to be anywhere but here. She wanted to be in any other time but now.

But if she wanted anything in her miserable life to change from being brought back here into this present, she was running out of time.  Her window of opportunity would be brief.  She had her pink suitcase already packed.  Tucked away in the back of the closet to remind her that one day she would leave this place.  That she would no longer watch her mom drink herself to death, while her dad failed to come home at night.  She would go with him this time.

The bourbon her mom had surreptitiously poured into her juice cup made her groggy, but it did not make her fall fully asleep as it had so many times before.

Laura whirled and turned back to her bi-folded closet door and the fabric-lined darkness from which she had emerged.  The suitcase was just inside, under the shoe shelf where she kept her few prized cassettes, and a few 8-tracks she had borrowed from what few friends she had at school.  Here players were old, and she had constantly worried that they would eat up her friends’ tapes.  Her mom would only let her listen to them if she kept the volume low so as not to disturb her father.  He always hated her “dopey hippie” music, as he called it.

“IRMA, LET GO A’ME!!” Laura’s father stormed from the entryway, as he entered the small house again, dragging her back from the stoop.

“I TOLD YOU WHAT I’D DO IF I EVER CAUGHT YOU DRUNK AGAIN!  THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.  I’M GOING TO FLORIDA TO BE WITH DEBBIE! I SHOULD NEVER HAVE MARRIED A LUSH LIKE YOU! NEVER!!!  NOW, LET ME GO!”

“WHAT ABOUT LAURA?!” her mother wailed. “YOU CAN”T JUST WALK OUT ON HER.  Please, take her with you!  I’ll…I’ll check myself into rehab. Only please don’t go tonite.  It’s pouring outside.  PLEASE JOHN!  PLEASE DON’T GO!! I’m begging you.  I will get help.  I will this time.”

“There is no more ‘this time,’ Irma!” he growled.  “I can’t even stand to look at you anymore.  You used to be… Ah!  The heck with it!  I’m outta here!  I’m gonna miss my flight!”

Laura could hear her mother weeping as she followed him further into the house, into their shared bedroom towards the back, beyond the small kitchen.

Now was the time.  She snatched up the little pink suitcase with the reflective stickers she has put on it.  She left her closet door open as she snagged her coat.  It had been a little small back then, but somehow it still fit her the same way as it did before.  It would probably be cold in the trunk for a while, and the rain would make it miserable, but she knew just the way to pop it open to climb inside.  It had been one of her favorite hiding places when she was allowed to play hide-and-go-seek with the neighborhood kids.  Back before they started being mean to her.  Whispering about her to others at school.

It also signified better times, not good times, for there were hardly any of those, but ‘better times’.  Back when her parents were both trying to ‘make it work.’ For when the blue car was there, it also meant her daddy was home, for he always took their only car.  When ‘the car’ was home, she found her secret refuge in it, for what it represented was togetherness.

It represented that hope for her now, for ‘the car’ was more frequently gone than parked at home.  She had to get in it.  To somehow stop what was happening in her own small way.  At least, if she could be with him now, or for however long she still had left before she was able to support herself and move out on her own altogether.

If she could get far enough down the road, her Daddy would just have to take her with him to Florida.  Debbie had always been nice to her when she visited her dad’s office.  She did not know exactly what a “floozy” was, as her mom had so often called her, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be too bad.  Debbie had always given her candy from the office candy jar.  She wished Debbie had been her mom.  She doubted Debbie would steal from her–robbing her piggy bank just to buy liquor when her father cut off her mom’s weekly allowance.

She slipped quietly out of her bedroom door, carefully closing it behind her, wincing as the hinges faintly squeaked.

Her parents were loudly arguing in the back room.  So far they hadn’t noticed anything.

“I’m making a new start, Irma!  And you’re no longer part of it!  Enjoy your booze!  That seems to be your partner nowadays!”

“John, please! For Laura’s sake, if not for mine. Please don’t leave us like this!  I don’t care if you see Debbie if that makes you happy.  I know you don’t want me anymore like you used to.  I’ll get clean, I promise!”

Laura knew she could not linger any longer.  She crouched and slinked through the living room towards the open screen door.  Rain was still falling steadily outside.  She noticed that she was tracking water on the carpet.  Her jeans were wet and her sneakers squished.  A trail of water streaks came from the front door foyer from where her parents had entered the house from the outside.  Yellow sand came off of her shoes, leaving dun-colored tracks that bled into the water streaks.

Laura glanced at her reflection in the cracked living room mirror.  The image caught her off guard.  She was much younger than she should’ve been.  And something was wrong with her eyes.  The lamp in the front room must have something to do with it.  She leaned in closer, almost forgetting that she was pressed for time.  One of her eyes was strange, but the other eye seemed normal.  Yet she had no trouble seeing.  She pulled her hair back from her face.  It was sopping wet and also felt gritty with beach sand.

She released the screen door catch and slipped out pushing the air piston in hoping the restraint chain would not jangle and alert her parents in the back room.

She splashed down the canted sidewalk, stepping in spatter mud and almost falling.  She clutched her suitcase, which was now feeling slippery in the rain pelting her in the torrential downfall.  She waded across the lawn, trying not to fall.  She rounded the back of the baby blue sedan and set her suitcase down by the back bumper.  She tried to climb up, but her wet shoes slipped and she smacked down hitting her chin on the trunk hood, involuntarily crying out, but catching herself before she slipped back onto the wet pavement, slick with oil and gutter debris.

She jumped up again and pressed the trunk lid on the corner she knew would allow the inner lock to slip out of its clutch and spring up.  As she slid back down again, she felt her effort rewarded.  Her parents would be outside again in a few seconds, and she did not want to see again what she had seen so many years again through her bedroom window–her mom getting punched by her father and doubling over on the wet muddy lawn for all of the neighbors to see.

The shadowy cavity of her father’s car gaped before her like a monster’s open mouth.  Rain played its ratta-tat-ta rumble on the metal, and water sheered off of its curved lip pouring down upon Laura as she struggled to get her pink suitcase up and into the trunk space, just beyond the spare tire.  Something else was in the trunk, but she could not see it clearly.  She imagined it was her father’s toolbox that he had pretended to play mechanic with.

She had to hurry.  If her dad caught her doing this, he would be far angrier than he was now, and he might not let her come with him.  There was still a chance that he wouldn’t, but it was a risk she was going to take.  This would change the trajectory of her life.  She truly believed she would be the much stronger person she wished she was, that her father always wanted her to be.  His “tough girl”.  He had for years told her to be tough, growing up, but she didn’t know how.  Growing up with him might be different.  Had to be different.  Her mom was the weak one.  Could never leave the bottle and she loathed the thought of becoming like her.  Her dad could teach her if she could only be allowed to be with him too.  Debbie wouldn’t mind.  Debbie the floozy.  Debbie, who gave her candy and called her “kiddo”.

Laura climbed up on the bumper, holding fast to the under-struts of the trunk lid, almost slipping again on the wet white rubber of her sneaker soles.  She pulled the lid down after her, just as she heard the front screen door slam open, almost tearing the pump rod out of its upper piston.

Had they seen her?  She heard them continuing to argue and shout.  She tugged down hard on the inner trunk strut, waiting to hear the click of the trunk catch, not sure if she would be able to above the constant rataplan of the falling rain.

The interior was pitch dark but relatively dry.  The black carpet lining smelled of spilled oil and tire rubber, but there was something else there too.  A rotten smell.  A pungently sweet and sickening odor.  Something like the smell of the dead cat she had found behind the dumpster in the alleyway.  The one she had cried about until her father had had enough of it and gave her one of his “tough girl” speeches to cheer her up.  The smell was rancid.  She felt herself gagging.  She had to get out of the trunk.  She would soon throw up.  Daddy would never let her stay with him if he found her with puke all over herself.  She pressed upward, but the lid resisted her.  She turned on her side, to put her feet up and press the trunk lid open, but it was no use.  The trunk lock had engaged again.  If only she could press the lid up in the right place she might be able to disengage it once more.  The weak place was to her left.  She heard a noise outside of the vehicle.  A loud smack and something that sounded like grinding metal.  Her dad had opened the car door and was throwing things into the backseat.

She heard her mom again, “John, please!”

She heard a hard slap and her mother’s responsive cry and gasp.

“I told you what would happen if you grabbed me again!” she heard her father’s voice come coldly through the pouring rain with such a frosty chill, Laura shivered in terror.  This was not the man she had imagined him to be, through all of those intervening years that she had lived in the prison of her mom’s addiction and household.  There was a cold selfishness in him that did not allow for much room to fit her into his other life.

She tried to scrunch forward moving around the spare to find some leverage on the soft part of the trunk to free herself. The dark was disorienting, but the stench was much stronger in that direction, and before she could catch herself, she touched something lumpy and sticky.  And then, without warning, her stomach turned and she coughed and vomited sour bile into the stygian darkness.

*Scene 05* 13:26 (The Rider)

The rain and wind beat and scraped against the thick granary doors and moaned in a plaintive sadness as it wound its way through the breaks and ledges, hillocks, and mounds.  The branches of the trees in the distance popped and clacked together, and the wheat field sighed and whispered dangerous words that we feared but could not translate.  We remained quiet save for our controlled breathing, which sounded way too loud to my ears to ensure the secrecy of our presence.

I held Miray on my hip and she hugged my shoulder, but I could hear her heart rapidly beating and her short panicked breaths coming in rapid succession.  We had called all of our watchers to come inside the catcher rooms, for we could not risk being seen dashing in from the outside.

We had no idea how many Xarmnians were approaching, for Miray had only seen the one. Still, Begglar assured us that these hunters, butchers, and pillagers of villages, rarely were seen to travel in bands of less than six mounted riders.  Sometimes they came in companies as large as twenty or thirty.  A Xarmnian scout might ride solitary, but they would keep to the shadows and would never risk riding against a band of endemic travelers comprised of more than three individuals.  If there was one riding brazenly in the open, there were certainly others that were off to the flanks of that rider who were unseen.

If we remained garrisoned in the granary, we were relatively safe.  If we rode out into the open country we could be split up and run down.  Our company had only recently been handed their weapons, but they were still a far cry from knowing how to make effective use of them.  The doors were thick and fortified.  Made of hard sturdy timber planks and fortified with iron brace bands in the interior.  The Xarmnians had cruelly demonstrated what they would do to anyone who dared to steal even a meager portion of the grain, but they were spread thin and recognized that they could not afford to post Xarmnian guards at every one of their storehouses in the remote lands.  They had to work through local agents and delegates, and up to the present time, Begglar had been their agent appointed to this post along with his hirelings.  They had no idea that they had in fact entrusted their local grain stores into the hands of a former Surface Worlder, must less to one of the at-large fugitives on their wanted dead or alive lists.

The granary escarpment was honeycombed with passages and tunnels, as well as stairways that allowed in-season workers to monitor the grain chutes and threshing floors from the top floors to the blow-through shaft and all the way to the bottom sifting floor, just above the pits and bins.  Sound traveled through the interior caverns with a mysterious resonance, that echoed and reverberated down through the lower levels.  Whatever creature had topped the escarpment rise might make its way down through to the lower levels, but it might take it a while to do so, and it would not be able to descend without making considerable noise.  The nagging threat of that weighed on the back of my mind, but the more immediate threat was the approaching rider and whoever might be with him.

Directly, we heard the approach of hoofbeats and the snort and sputter of a hard-ridden horse.  Each heavy footfall seemed to strike the earth with the blows of a forge hammer beating fire-reddened steel, pounding the imagined metal into the searing blade that would bring death to us all.  The storm outside still blew with a low threatening force, but the fact that we heard the sound of the horseman, indicated that both man and animal were already close-by.

The hoof beats slowed as the mount and rider, audibly pulled reigns and danced heavily into a slowing turning balance.  Holding our breath as much as we could, we strained to gather direction and approach from the sounds alone, barely audible above the wind and the rain.

I motioned to Begglar and he drew near. “Is there another way to view the outside, where we won’t be seen?”

“They will be looking for us up and ahead, but there is one place most searchers fail to look,” Begglar answered in a low voice.

“Where is that?”

“Down,” Begglar answered, motioning me to follow him into what looked like a small closet space, where one might keep gardening tools locked away.

Nell followed us and said, “Give me the child, you two will need your hands free if they storm the entry and manage to bust down the door.”  She took a reluctant Miray from me and swung her onto her own hip. “Keep that blade handy,” she nodded towards the honor sword I held affixed to my hip, “You’re going to need it.”

Begglar produced another key from a ring out of his pocket and unlocked the narrow closet door.  Inside was a narrow, tight-turning, spiral staircase that extended up and down into the darkness below.

“What is this?”

“There is a small narrow hallway under the edge of the sliding doors above.  It has a metal grate set in against the edge of the stone floor, with a sliding plate.  It serves as both a water drain and a firewell.  Occasionally, rats will try to enter the granary for obvious reasons, and this drain can help us burn them out.” Begglar and I climbed slowly down into the darkness until we reached a wet stone floor that felt slick and had a peculiar pungent smell.  “We can set oil down it and flush the well.  It also helps us defrost the rollers and grooves during the snowy seasons.  Ice tends to fill the grooves and prevent us from sliding the granary doors open during the winter months.  This firewell-underhall allows us to burn away the accumulated ice and thaw the runners.”

“How will this help us see above?”

There is a small slide grate up ahead near the door I let you all in through.  The plate is kept well-oiled and moves aside allowing someone below to see anyone above attempting to open the inset door to the catcher bins.  The door is reinforced, but it is the weakest access point to gaining entrance to the granary.  A few men with a battering ram could defeat the door, but I doubt these Xarmnians will try that tonite unless they were sure this was where we had taken refuge.  The outer road’s too wet to reveal the recent passage of our wagon.  And the Xarmnians would be loathed to break into this place and destroy the entrance without the assurance of a good cause.”

“And what cause would that be?” I quipped.

“That they were certain that we are inside, and we are worth destroying the door to the king’s granary to capture,” finished Begglar as he felt along the upper ledge in the dark, and pushed aside a slanted plate cover, revealing the grill work, and outside silvered splashes of the rain.  “Whoever may be coming along the road beside the outer grain bin doors, is sure to stop here at the smaller entry door, where the escarpment overhangs us above. if for no other reason, but to get a moment to collect themselves out of the rain.”

Presently we heard the sound of iron-shod hooves clack as the horse climb up upon the paved floor overhead, echoing down the hollow shaft.  We moved forward, underneath the area where the sifting vents were, hoping to catch a glimpse of the horse and rider now directly above us.

Suddenly the rider spoke…and somehow I thought I recognized the voice.

“Is anyone in there?”

The voice was female, I was sure of it.   I released the breath–I was unaware I had been holding–and exhaled.  Begglar grabbed my arm in the darkness reflexively, but I reassured him.  “Did you hear her?  The voice is female.”

Begglar assented, “Then this stranger is not of the Xarmnian Protectorate.  Not out here.”

We quickly moved back along the tunnel towards the bottom rung of the circular stair, the outside rain providing cover for the splashes our feet made within the tunnel.  I had not been able to see the rider, but from the narrow slats, I could see the chest, fetlock, and pastern of the horse and its under girth-barrel, the saddle cinch straps, the bottom of the tread covers of each stirrup, and the wet and dripping saddle cloth.  What we were missing were the feet and legs of the rider.  Where was she?  She had to have dismounted.

Xarmnians did not typically trust their women to be part of the Protectorate Guards.  The men were too bawdy, raucous, and perverse to ever cause a woman to wish to be part of their company.  Or for even a moment ever believe that she would be “protected” by them.  The thought of traveling overland with them in remote lonely places was too horrible to even imagine.  In their minds, women served only for a few important purposes: to cook, to beat, satiate a man’s carnal hunger, and to make babies.  Beyond that, they weren’t worth the energy it took to kill them and toss their carcasses to the dogs.

I concurred with Begglar, this was no Xarmnian guard, I was sure of that.

We ascended the stair to the ground level, and Begglar closed and locked the small casement door to the passage.  We moved along the edge of the large rollings doors towards the smaller door at the end.

“Mr. O’Brian?” the voice called.  All too close now, and both Begglar and I jumped, startled by its proximity.  She was just outside of the granary bin doors and was probably walking down the line looking for another access point she might have missed while angling along the road at the bottom of the escarpment skirt.  How did she know my name? I wondered.  How did she even know someone was inside?  And then it hit me.  The rain.  Wet footprints, where the ground might have remained dry.  The smaller door stoop was raised to prevent pooling around the entry point, but it was also under the overhang of the escarpment’s upper cliff.  Suddenly, I knew exactly who this was.

I move to the door and Begglar helped me remove the bracing timber.  He had recognized her as well.

Others of our company had followed us, alarmed that we were now opening a door to the outside, but were too late to stop us.

I stepped through the portal, under a curtain of rainwater, draining down from the top of the escarpment, and called out, “Christie?  Is that you?”

Upon hearing the name ‘Christie’, the others and Begglar emerged from the under grain crypts like zombies from a grave, blinking in the now silvering night sky with a misty moon overhead cutting through the scudding rain clouds.

The moonlight pierced the fleeing cloud cover and cast a fortune of silver along the fields.  I almost expected to see a few werewolves loping wet-backed through the wheat fields beyond, seeking a night kill.

Christie came out of the shadows from along the loading dock area by the large roller doors where Begglar’s wagon and the team of horses had been temporarily stabled.  She was drenched and her long golden hair was plastered to her head, her bangs hung in wet ropes from her crown.  I rushed towards her as she shambled out of the pavement, catching her as she fell into my arms.  She was exhausted and shivering, and I could tell she had been through quite an ordeal.  She wept holding onto me weakly as I bore her up to keep her from crumpling to the ground.  “I found you,” she said, sighing with both exhaustion and shuddering relief.  “I almost lost hope of ever catching up to you.”

“Hold on, She-bear,” I said as I guided her under the overhang into the dry inset where the smaller entry door was.

“Get her horse,” Begglar directed, as one of the young men moved in to help me support Christie as we guided her through the doorway.

“I’ve got Christie,” I assured him, “Get her horse.  Bring it inside if it will come.  We’ll stable him with the others.  Get the mare a feedbag, dry her and rub her down.  Pull that wet saddle off her, and get her stabled with dry straw.”

Two of the women and Lindsey helped me get Christie further inside, and the tunnels were already feeling much warmer, due to the furnaces Begglar had lit prior.

“We’ve got her,” Lindsey move in, taking one of Christie’s arms over her shoulder.  “We’ve got a change of clothes for her and some of the gear from the cache.  She’ll be outfitted like the rest of us and warmed up in no time at all.”

“Wait,” Christie said, weakly, but in an urgent whisper, trying to stand on wobbly legs, but unable to muster her remaining strength by anything other than sheer determination.  “Wait,” she said again, this time a bit louder.

Begglar rebraced the door, the young man had maneuvered Christie’s horse inside and led it by the bridle.

“Xarmnians,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath, “Back there.  Burned it down.  Coming behind me.  Coming on the road with dogs.”

*Scene 06* 8:00 (Anchored Spare)

Laura awakened, cramped and crowded into a closed dark space.  Her breathing was labored.  She felt wet and cold.  Her muscles and bones ached.  A misasma of noisesome smells pervaded the darkness.  She tasted bitter bile.  Tears wet her face as she shivered in the stuffed confinement.  She realized that, for better or for worse, she was still in locked the trunk of her father’s car…and the car was now moving.  She heard the muffled, but steady staccatto of the windshield wipers sloshing across the glass.  The tires below hissing over the wet pavement.  The moistened clacking of rain drops and overwash, pouring over the lopsided trunk hood above her.  Her father still had no idea that she had stowed away in his jaunty “Mr. Blue Bird.”  Their family car, as it was.  Though his mother was never allowed to drive it.  He was the breadwinner of the family.  The breadwinner had all the priviledges.

Now she was flying away with him, unbeknownst, trapped in the thumping, bouncing tail of “Mr. Blue Bird”.  The noises of the road changed as she realized the car was moving faster.  Her daddy must have driven on to the Interstate.  She could hear the growl of the grooves in the pavement, now made louder along with the hiss of the water.  She took in a hard shuddering breath and instantly regretted it.  That smell.  That horrible dead smell assaulted her nostrils, but with less of a pungent punch than she had expected.  What was it?  Had a rat somehow crawled into the trunk?  Was there a hole in the floorboard, under the black carpet, that had somehow let whatever creature this was into the confines of this space?  Her stomach lurched and swam within her.  The oily carpet had a sickly nut-flavored smell.  The tire rubber added a bitter burnt odor to its unsavory brew.  The air was stale, musky, and fecund.  The interior had road dirt that had dislodged from the tread of the spare.  For all practical purposes, this trunk had every attribute of what she imagined a grave might smell like.  Of being buried alive.  The thought terrified her and she began to sob.  She could not see anything.  She could not help but smell the sinister vapors that wafted over her like a burial shroud.  Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears.  She had gone back only to find that this false hope of being able to change her past was a just quicker route to an early grave.

She tried to curl up tighter, to somehow make herself smaller, so that the depairing darkness might not enter her all at once.  She felt pressed in on all sides.  Like she was drowning.  Like she had felt that night when she and the others watched the dripping man through that dusty window, in that other place.

That other place…  Oh, if she could only go back to wherever that…Other Place…was.  Trolls, aside, nothing could be as bad as this, she thought. No one cared about her here.  No one.  Her mother would sober up and then wonder where she had gone, but that was probably the extent of it.  If she had cared about her at all, she would have gotten dry longer before it came to this.  “What about, Laura?!” her mother had wailed.  “Yeah,” Laura thought to herself, “What about me?”

If she had really cared, she would have realized that I was only valuable as a bargaining chip.  She thought she could keep Daddy home, because of a sense of obligation to me.  It never occurred to her that I needed someone to love me without the obligation to do so.  That I needed someone to choose me.  To mom, I was only an ‘anchor baby’.  A way to hold daddy in the port, rather than shipping out.  Well, she sure found out differently tonite didn’t she? Laura thought bitterly, tears falling into the dark wet carpet, as the vehicle bumped along and roared over the side grooves of the highway shoulder.

She heard her father’s muffled curse as a wet spray of water hit the side of the car, shearing off of what she perceived to be another vehicle passing him at a higher rate of speed.

“Slow down, you damned idiot!” he growled, “Can’t you see it’s pouring, out?!”

Thunder rumbled overhead, and Laura could hear the answering grumble of a semi-truck’s airbrakes popping and thrumming outside, as well as the hissing of other cars splashing through the wet falling curtains.

“Ah Crap!” a thump hammered what Laura imagined to be the steering wheel, and she felt the vehicle shudder a bit, and seem to push her body into the spare.  Another thwump sound indicated that whatever suitcase, her father had pitched into the backseat, had now slid off into the floorboard.  His zippered hanging bag with it.

Laura braced herself against the push and tug of the vehicle’s motion, stretching out her arm but finding that strange hairless lump move slightly under her splayed fingers.  The dead thing.  It…it moved.

Whether sheerly by the motion of the car, or under its own power, it seemed to twitch under her hand, and before she could stop herself, she screamed.

A primal, urgent, wailing scream poured out of her.  One she could not have surpressed if she tried.

Suddenly, she felt pitched forward, and her body smacked the anchored spare.

Sobbing, with no restraint, she screamed and cried out, “Daddy!  Daddy!!! Please!”

The car fishtailed, and was thrown into a nauseating spin, its tires hydroplaning and studdering across the roadway.  She heard a loud crash and the high-pitched sound of crunching and buckling metal, the wet shatter of safety glass.  Tires screeched, and dribbled over loose wet gravel, as horns wailed, and cars swerved around the otuside of the vehicle.

Laura felt a hard piece of metal crash into her ribs and lower back, causing her to gasp in pain, as she was thrown and pitched about in the narrow space.

The world heaved and turned upside down.  She felt her small suitcase lunge out of the dark and strike her leg with a thunk.  She felt the car go into a spin, rock up and onto its side, turning her dark interior space into a confused tumble, as if she had climbed into the well of a sidemount dryer, like the ones her mom used at the coin-operated laundry mat downtown.

She heard a car door grind open, the same time the trunk space thrust upward, as if the car itself had suddenly crested a steep hill.  The car leaned towards the right, and she heard the engine racing, the car wheels spinning and throwing pea-sized gravel up against the car’s undercarriage.

She clung to the hard rubber of the anchored spare, as the backend of the vehicle felt suspended, as if a crane had grabbed the back bumper and were raising it upward.  Her pink suitcase had tumbled back into the interior cavity along the seatback end of the trunk–threatening to assault her again as gravity schemed to reload the pink projectile back into the shadowed inner chamber.

She heard a wet sloughing sound as long grass began to move along the undercarriage, picking up speed.  The strange, and quickening sensation of falling was the last perception she registered as she descended into the darkness, clutching frantically to the treads of anchored spare bolted down under the wide metal wingnut to the bottom of the trunk’s wheel well.

Anchored spare, she thought.  How ironic was it that the very term for what she now held onto for dear life, should be exactly what she viewed herself as, even as her very world was turning upside down and descending into a freefall?

*Scene 07* 22:03 (Campfire Stories)

We gathered Christie in to our tenous communal fold, such as it was, as the doors were secured and braced against any further riders daring the storm.

“We’d best get you further inside and out of those wet clothes.  You’re going to catch your death of cold,” I said.  “He’s right, dear,” Nell chimed in, “We’d best get you warmed up and quickly before the cold goes to the bone.  The girls’ll get you dry and I’ll prepare something hot to drink to get you warmed on the inside.  A nice herbal tea, I should think.”

She half-smiled and nodded, as Lindsey and Cheryl quickly produced a cloak from their pack and wrapped her shoulders, and the women led her away down a dimly lit passage to the privacy of the grain bins, where we all had changed into travel and provisional battle gear.  When Christie was dried and outfitted, the women brought her back into the common area, near the furnaces.

The air in the storage bins and stables smelled of straw and dry husks, but was dry and earthy, slightly sweetened by hints of the malt in the grain scattered along the larger loading doors on the other side of the low berm.  The caverns flickered under the torchlight, and we moved further into the commons area, a broader low-ceiling cavern bolstered with stone pillars and equipped with rows of benches and stools near the iron furnaces that Begglar had previously lit.  A warm orange glow came through the grates also casting winsome shadows on the stone pavements from the benches and chair legs arranged in that open space.  It felt like gathering around a large campfire as we settled in to wait out the storm.

Begglar and Dominick unlockedan adjoining galley and pantry that serviced the commons area and procured some of the foodstores.  They tapped some of the ale barrels stored in the large racks, and filled cups and tankards for those of us who could take it.  We snacked on dried fruits, and jerked meats that were also stored in the pantries.  We warmed ourselves by the furnaces, pitching in together to share and pass around what served as a meal while in hiding.

Begglar told me the smoke stacks from the furnaces were piped up natural volcanic chimneys that vented on the upper surface of the escarpment, but also, since the smoke was from natural wood fires, part of it vented into a smoke room on one of the mid-levels where slabs of various meats were cured and hung.  In the off season, hunters and areas herdsmen, brought haunches of meat and sides free range cattle to be butchered, stripped and dried in the high smokehouse room. As part of payment for these services, choice cuts and portions were kept for the soldiers and workers who serviced the operation.  Portions were also given to help service the inn.  The escarpment granary was a veritable cornucopedia of foods and drink for many years.  But when the freshwater spring failed, the brewery operation dwindled down to only three to four keepers, and then down to only himself and Dominick.  Without the source of freshwater, it became difficult to rinse the meats intended for curing.

Christie was brought back into the commons area and was looking much more like herself again.  She seemed refreshed and glad to be back among the group.  Naturally, we gathered around her.  We were so relieved to see her yet amazed at the same time.  Hugs were given and we shared both in the delight and relief of welcoming her back into our traveling fellowship.

“Did you ride all the way through this terrible storm?” someone asked.

“Terrible?” Christie gathered her strength in a deep breath, “Honey, after Laura and I left the inn, we rode down the sea road right smack into a rough headwind. It worsened from there on in.”

“Where did you go?” Miray asked, settling herself on the floor near Christie’s feet.

“We took shelter in an old stable near that shack where we stopped before.  It was old but the wind almost blew it apart.  When I saw the trolls, Laura freaked and rode out into the storm.”

“Trolls?!” I exclaimed, casting a meaningful glance at Begglar.

“Yeah,” Christie exhaled, catching her breath again.  “Two of them, and I think they had the body of the other one we captured and burned.  Had it stretched out on the table in the cabin.  I saw them through the window, where we watched the man by the fire.  Only got a quick peek inside really.  I thought the man would be there, but he was no where in sight.  I don’t know if the trolls did something to him or what, but it was just the two I saw, hovering around the burned one.”

Begglar harumphed, “Now we know what happened to the others.  I told you trolls almost never travel alone.”

“That must’ve been terrifying. Especially for Laura.  It was part of why she left us to go back.  Did she see them too?”  Others were gathering closer now, eager to hear more of Christie and Laura’s experiences.

“No,” Christie responded, taking a sip of a cup of tea Nell brought to her.  “Mmm this is good, thank you, Nell.”

Nell seated herself nearby, next to Cheryl, Lindsey and another of the young women.  “My pleasure, dear.  Go on with yer tale.”

“So, I went out in the storm to check for a way into the cabin.  When we first came in, the doorway had an overgrowth of twisted vines blocking it.  We took temporary shelter in the stable, but it was getting so windy that we had no way to keep warm and dry in there.  I had wanted to see if the man was there and could give us a better place to take shelter until the storm passed over.  We had no way to make a fire, and the structure shook and the roof leaked.

“I left Laura to keep the horses calm while I hurried out in the rain to the cabin.  Someone had cut down the vines that had grown over the door, and it did not feel right just barging in, so I check the window and saw the trolls in there.  No sign of the man, but I figured if he was in league with the trolls, we wanted nothing to do with him either.”

“I assure you, he wasn’t,” I muttered.

“What?” Christie asked.

“Nothing,” I said, dismissing my interjection and urging her to continue.  “So how did Laura find out?”

Christie looked downcast and regretful. “I told her,” she sighed.  “I-I came back and was frightened myself.  She pressed me, and I just blurted it out.  Not thinking.  I just knew we couldn’t expect help from the cabin and she would want to know why.  I never imagined she would react like she did.  Never thought she might go out in the storm.  She panicked.  She just jumped on her horse and took off.  I tried stopping her.  Caught the stirrup, but was dragged across the mud and grass.  Laura seemed to forget everything but her terror.  I lost my grip and she and her mare galloped off into the dark wind and rain, coming down from the sea side.

“It was nearly all I could do to turn back to my own horse and go after her, but I could barely see.  The stable collapsed behind me.  Rats were running out from under the feeder troughs and through the backwall.  There was no where else to go. Someone was coming up on me out of the dark along the banks of the stream, as I charged after her.  I assumed the man had returned from wherever he had gone to, but with the trolls there, I had no time to think.  Both of our horses charged through the storm, running overland towards the sea cliffs, but it was all I could do to hang on and stay in the saddle.  I would see her far ahead through the flashes of lightning, and she made it back to the slopes and dismount, but I arrived too late to stop her.

“When I got there, she had somehow made her way down to the beach.  The storm surged and the sea pressed inward, but she made it out onto a sandbar and the blue oculus arose out of the sea and took her.

“I witnessed it all from the cliffs above.  Her horse was running loose, but I lost track of it in the storm.  I thought about going after it, but I remembered what you told us, Mister Begglar.  That the horses knew the way home.  If my horse hadn’t known the way, I would have been completely lost out there.”

“You did fine, lass!” Begglar interjected.  “Those sea storms are powerful and dangerous.  Many’s the man who would’ve avoided going out into such a blowing, fearsome.  These overland storms lose power coming inland.  Water fuels it, but the land will take out its steam.  By all counts, you gals ran into the worst of it.  The other horse will indeed come back.  Have no doubts.  Bessie’s a good mare.  Quite reliable.  How did you come back?  How was Evangeline?  She is the younger of the two horses.  Your horse.  Has a bit more spirit in her, but you seemed to be the more mature rider to be able to handle her.”

“Evangeline was a godsend, Mister Begglar.  She did just as you said she would.  I loosened the reins and let the mare find her own way back.  I held on to her mane and ducked my head.  The rain and the cold stung and froze, but I just let the horse lead not knowing where else to turn or what else to do.  Eventually, we came down the backroad and the riding was a little easier.

“When the horse returned to the barn near the inn, I was so relieved at first, but there were strange horses there that I had not seen before.  Tall, black and powerful animals, with thick, bulky saddles mounted on cowhide blankets with carry hooks on either side.  I smelled blood spilled somewhere in the barn.  Despite the rain, the air was thick with it mixed with another foul odor.  Right away, I could sense these horses belonged to terrible, and violent men.  Xarmnians, I believe you called them.  They ride with the smell of death on them.”

“How exciting!” a teenaged boy gushed. “What did you do then?”

“Exciting is not the word,” Christie winced, but continued with the account of her journey.  “When you see them coming after you, I doubt that will be the word you will choose to describe it.”

The boy shrugged and grinned, “Sorry.  I just got caught up in your story.  Please tell us more.”

“You may not be so enthusiastic when you hear the rest of it,” she gave him a measured look, and then resumed.  “Anyway, as I was saying, the rain was still coming down pretty strong, but not as blindingly hard as the deluge I had just rode through.  Everywhere I seemed to go, I ran into danger, and I just knew I needed to get out of there before I was seen, but I couldn’t be sure where to go next or where you all had gone.  I could barely see across the yard to the inn.  I knew the plan was to go to that Marker place you referred to,” Christie said, turning to me, “but I didn’t know where that was.  Only that you guys would probably need to take the road if you were taking the wagon you were loading when we left.  There was no one I could see from the barn, so I mounted again and rode up the curved road to the top of the ridge.  I had hoped the rain would provide enough cover, but once I reached the top, I turned my horse and saw some of the men coming out of the inn below.  I reined in and ducked behind the summit, and rode down into an offshoot cut, where the rain runs down beside the road into a ditch.  I found it curved around a small blind behind a boulder and took shelter, giving me a passable view of the descending road above and below.

“Those riders soon crested the summit on their horses shortly after, and I was so terrified that they would discover me in the narrow blind.  But instead of coming towards my hiding place, they turned and rode along the ridge headed away towards the west.  They were armed with spears, and brandished swords, but it looked like they were intent on riding after someone else.  I figured they would follow the road down the other side, but they charged across the slope diagonally after three others I had not noticed before.  I could not see who clearly, but they looked like some of our party and were on foot.  The horsemen, they just cruelly ran them down.  I saw one of them throw his spear, but I had to turn away.  I could not watch anymore.  I was so scared, but the men, the soldiers, for they looked like some sort of militia, never found me or rode my way.”

There was a collective gasp as we all realized what had happened to our three deserters.  “Oh no!” cried one.  “Have mercy!” cried another.

Christie continued, “The horsemen that I could still see through the rain, gathered the bodies of those they had slain onto their horses and took them back over the hill.  Back down to the inn.  I waited and waited, but no other riders came back down my side of the hill.  There was nothing I could do.  The men were cold and efficient.  Merciless.

“It took me a while, but I left my hiding place when the rain lightened up a bit and charged down the road that wound down the hillside.  I had no idea how far ahead you all were.  The road was muddy, but I thought I’d found the wheel tracks of your wagon so I followed those.  I eventually came to a strange hill, surrounded by thornbushes.  If I had to guess, I think it was some sort of a tell.  I remembered reading about them, and only saw a few pictures, but it seemed to fit what I remembered about them.

“The wagon ruts, as much as I could make out after the rain had passed, still led up there, so I stopped to investigate and see what direction you might’ve taken and to get a good view of the lower valley.  Y’know, to see if I could spot you all ahead in the distance.  The storm was still moving, and the worst of it had passed over me, but had slowed and it stretched out over to the northwestern horizon where the road down led.

“Watching from up there on the rise, something strange happened on the side of that hill.  Something that I am still processing, but not quite ready to talk about.”  Christie paused seeming to lose herself in the recent memory, her eyes briefly unfocused and then refocused, and then she added, almost as an afterthought, “There was this strange ray of blue light, too.  It looked like the beam of some kind of search light.  It illumined the upper portion of that tell, and stretched across the sky towards the west.  Somewhere towards a distant ridgeline of far grey mountains.  A light I had not noticed until I moved around towards the western face of the tell.”

There was a growing murmur from among the group, and Miray, who had been sitting cross-legged on the grain floor, chin in hands, wrapped in Christie’s recounting of her experiences, suddenly perked up and scrambled to her feet, beaming.

“See! See!” she grinned, wagging her finger at the group. “I told you all but you dinnent believe me!  She saw it too.  So, there!”

Impishly, she stuck out her small pink tongue, whirled and turned to me.

“We tried to tell them, dinnent we, Mister O’Brian!” she came over and squeezed my hand triumphantly.

“We did,” I answered quietly, “but they were not ready yet to see it.”

The others look from one to another, puzzled by this new revelation, and the sobering account of the demise of three former members of our group.  Threads of low, apprehensive muttering wove its way crossways and through the gathering.

Lindsey piped in, eager to catch Christie up on our latest experience, and distract from the course of the discussion.

“You just missed something terrible here too, Christie.  Be glad you were not here to see it.  The other little girl that was traveling with us was not what she appeared to be.”

“Other little girl?”  Christie turned to me with inquisitive eyes, “What is she talking about?”

I sighed.  There was no easy way to say it.  After all that Christie had been through, I felt it was too early to put this additional revelation on her.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Cheryl squirm a bit, feeling perhaps some guilt on having been such an ardent defender of the deceiver.  She rubbed her leg gingerly, still suffering physically from her personal encounters of learning, as we had, that Becca was not Becca.

Lindsey saw my alarm and seemed to shrink back, regretting that she had broached the subject.  Another of the young men took up the account, handling the topic with a little less finesse.

“We had a traitor in our midst.  A monster, masquerading as a little girl.  But Mister O’Brian here fixed her with that sword of his.  Yes, he did.  She screeched like an angry owl.  Hurt our ears like the dickens, but he whacked her and she just dissolved away into dust.”

Christie turned on me, “Tell me you did not harm a little girl,” her She-Bear nature rising in alarm.

“No, we did not!” I said emphatically, turning a scowl on the young man who was making me sound like something between a hero and a villain.  “Don’t be alarmed.  We tested her to be certain.  She was not a creature of our world or this one. We have a way to expose the deception.   I assure you, this creature appeared in the form of a little girl, but was not one.”

Christie began to unconsciously move back from us, perhaps wondering herself if it had been wise to come back at all.  Wondering if we had been caught up in some mass hysteria and done something terrible to a child.  None of the faces around her bathed in the glow of the firelight seemed to reflect the sheen of madness or twinkle of duplicity.

Puzzled, she turned back to me.  “Then what was she?” she asked, arching an eyebrow, wariness peeking in, still stirring an uneasiness within her.

“She was a Banshee,” Begglar answered.

Christie looked from me…to Begglar…to others…and back to me again.  Miray looked at her directly and solemnly, nodding her head.  Christie sighed, knowing that if this was an adult deception the children wouldn’t be included in it.

“You know…,” she paused, gathering her thoughts and cautiously measuring her reply, “I’ve just been through some terrible experiences recently and before that a fight with a…a Troll.  I can’t believe I’m saying this.” She gathered her reserve and shivered a bit, hugging her arms to herself.  She then turned to Begglar, and said, “What is a Banshee?  At least, what is it here? What does the term mean in this place?”

*Scene 08* 16:05 (Mind Sight)

Grum-Blud and Shelberd huddled in a grotto cave–wet, cold and miserable.  The commotion outside alerted them to the need to make quick work of their inquisitive probings, the raging storm notwithstanding.  So with a rusted bow saw, pegged on the wall in the shack, they promptly took the only remaining part that was needed to conclude their study–the scorched head of their immolated companion.

Now they set brooding in the shallow cave, with the spray of rain and wind adding to their grudging misery.  A horseman had approached from the west, and another had fled across the shallow stream into the stormy night towards the sea cliffs in the distance.  Lightning had lanced across the sky, revealing a further fleeing figure on horseback.  From an earlier sighting through his spyglass, Grum-Blud surmised that the two headed for the coastline were the two women he had spotted on the road when he and Shelberd has emerged from the forest carrying the charred remains of his brother’s body.

The Walker had been sighted in the forest, and he and Shelberd had fled, but they were not certain if they had entirely shaken the giant man from their trail.  They had hoped to cut the women off, but the storm had slowed them as they skulked through the old remnants of Basia, coming across the hillside dugout cabin, just as the winds and rains began to gather fury and strength.  They had cut away the mat of vines that covered the exposed side of the cabin and the doorway, breaking into the solace of the abandoned cabin to take shelter and continue their grisly work of seeking out the last images of sight, their companion had gathered before being set afire.  Grum-Blud was determined to know who did the deed, by any and all means necessary.

When the riders came out of the storm, it inconvenienced Grum-Blud, but he would not be dissuaded.  The large dark-cloaked man coming in from the west, along the stream bank, was distracted by the women, and he and Shelberd had taken that opportunity to slip away into the night, scrambling over the muddy hill and following the ridgeline, keeping an eye out for the dark-cloaked rider.

They debated moving back in and cornering the man when he entered the cabin, and drew their blades out for that purpose, before sighting the large lumbering shape, that materialized out of the wind and wet and converged on the cabin as well.  A shape they recognized and wanted no further interaction with.  The large man known as ‘The Walker.’

Miserable, they scrambled away seeking to find another place to shelter and wait out the storm.  The rain had stung and the icy fingers of the wind threatened to push them out into the full fury of the cold night, but by and by they espied a shadowy grotto, inset into the hill, hiding under a short cornice of rock.  The ground was wet all around, except for a few feet in the back of the cupola.  Nothing dry enough to build a fire on, but enough to provide a meager windbreak away from the clawing reach of the fierce winds and blistering cold.

Grum-Blud glowered at the bag that held the lumpy remains of his brother’s head.  His jaws quivered in rage at their plight, mad at himself for fleeing from the cabin like a rat from a prowl of cats.

He opened the bag and fished inside with his meaty hand, grasping the blackened thing by what remained of its scorched hair.

Shelberd shivered miserably in the corner, unable to look up, mumbling and wimpering to himself.

“It’s now or never,” Grum-Blud growled, pulling out a large knife from his belt sheath and carving into the shadowy orbs with a blade that disappeared into deeper shadow.

Shelberd looked up, half covering his face with his fingers, gawking at Grum-Blud.

Grum-Blud flicked something black away, and stabbed his knife into the ground, near the sack that they had borne the head.  He lifted the head, now appearing more like a skull, towards his own face, and the pale gleam of the stormlight, seemed to fade from his shadowy countenance.  His gritted teeth appeared feral and his meaty hands clamped on the sides of the head when the ears once hung.  Grum-Blud looked deep into the eyesockets of that charred face, and his own eyes swirled in a matching blackness.

After a maddening moment, Shelberd whimpered again and hesitantly asked, “What do you see?” fearing the answer, even as he asked the question.

Grum-Blud grunted, but mumbled back, continuing to gaze deeply into the gaunt shadowy hollows of the eye sockets, his own eyes darkling even as they peered into the sunken holes above the rictus stretched slack jaw, and a gaping row of blackened-and-skinned teeth with a crooked tusk edging the side of the lower jaw.  In life, Pogsley rarely, if ever, grinned without there being the underedge of menace in it.  Now in death, the intent behind his tight, rictus grin was unreadable.  Grum-blud had skinned back the desicated flesh of his brother’s occipital brow with his blade, carving away the remnants of the droopy eyelids that had made the living face of his brother look half-sleepy.

“I see a young girl standing in a circle with others.  Pog is surrounded by others but he finds an interest in her.  She cannot look away, and he senses it.  She is holding a torch, but she is afraid.  Others are with her, but Pog’s focus is fixed on her.  I can see the fear in her eyes.  Overcoming her.  Pogsley is dark-eying her.  Probing her memories, for things that are…useful.  Her torch wavers, and her hand is growing slack.  Others are shouting at her, but it is clear she is the weakest link in the circle of those fencing him in with firelight.  There is much fear in her. Self-doubt and much pain.  Many handles to steer her by.  An easy mark.  This is not the one who did what was done to him.  She couldn’t be.  This waif is too consumed by fear.  Pogsley would have had her soon.  He is stained her soul, with his markings.  Twisting the hurting words inside her.  She offers so much to be used.  No, something else must’ve…  There’s another.  A man, he has a short beard, but he is worried.  Feels responsible, somehow.  He warns others to look away, but does not follow his own advice.  Pogsley catches him too, in an eye sweep.  Fear has weakened him…and compromise.  He might be a weak link as well.”

Suddenly, Grum-Blud jerked back, almost dropping the burned head.

“What? What?!” Shelberd wailed, alarm raising the pitch of his already shrill voice.

“They pulled a bag over him.  He struggles, through a gap I see another who is binding him.  It is neither the man or the girl.  The fingers on the edge of the bag are long and small.  It seems his assailant is a woman.  They fight, but the bag is pulled down over his arms, binding them to his sides.  There are pinpricks of light through the mesh of the weave, but not enough to see clearly.  Shapes of the others, ghostly smears.  The woman and Pog are alone in the struggle.  Pog should have easily bested her, but the bag has him hampered.  He cannot easily get to his boot knife.”

Shelberd gaped, “They slipped up behind him!  Figures!  Pog would have gutted the lot of ’em, he would.”

“Yes. Yes.” Grum-Blud continued, still probing.  There is no sound to the scenes, he is connected to.  Only the images.  A confusion of material.  A cessation of the struggle, as the bag heaves under Pogs slow breathing.  Nothing clearly can be seen through the waft and weave of the course sack.  Only near scrub and gravel.  Then a sudden twist and tumble of material.  The a flash of curling smoke, and coiling flame.  The sight is choked with yellow and orange light, but suddenly goes black.  Nothing happens for a time.  The electrical impulses, cool and bury themselves into the neural mass, enfolding into grooves of gray flesh.  Then a dream-like image surfaces.  Like a vision through deep water.  It’s the girl.  The girl that was stained by Pogsley.  It is her sight.  The spiritual stain binds the dead to the living.

Grum-Blud’s long silences chill Shelberd with a coldness felt deeper inside him.  There is a warmth of connection even in the companionship of someone as grim and cruel as Grum-Blud.  He had rather endure Grum-Blud’s insults and mockery than that of Grum-Blud’s silences. For Shelberd had traveled long enough with Grum-Blud to know that Grum’s silences were even more ferocious and dangerous.  “Grum?” he ventured.

Grum-Blud cleared his throat, grunting, “I see a moonlit room.  Glass.  A window pane and rain outside.  I see…” his voice trailed off.

“Pogsley?” Shelberd probed.

“No,” Grum-Blud retorted, “The other.  The waif girl.  Pog got a stain into her. She still lives.  But is not here.”

“Where then?”

Grum-Blud lowered the head, fumbling for the sack they had carried it in.  As he blindly tucked it into the bag, the blackness in his eyes swam away behind the hooded lids of his eyes, revealing the jaundices schlera framing his dark irises and narrowing pupils.

A faint moonwash of veiled light silvered his lumpy brow and bunched cheeks, reflecting off of the pearlescent drops of rain water that had been trapped into the tangle of his thick beard.

“She is in The Out-World.  In some sort of cart, with strange wheels.  she has locked herself into a dark box.  I could see no further, but her fear there is strong and sharp.  It clarifies what we can see through her.”

“What does that matter?  It can be of no further use to us,” Shelberd pouted.

Grum-Blud rose from a squat, and slung the bag of his brother’s head over his shoulder, a blackened stain wetting its bulbous shape.

“Maybe not, but then again, maybe so,” Grum-Blud answered cryptically.

“What are you thinking?!” Shelberd rose up from his shivering crouch, only enough to back further into the shallow cave, and feel the coldness of the bare stone behind him.

“Mind-sights like these are valuable to a certain group obsessed with crossing back over into The Other.”

“You’re not suggesting…?!” Shelberd wailed, suddenly shivering uncontrollably.

“Exactly,” Grum-Blud grinned, his face seeming to mirror that of the rictus grin eternally cast upon the face of the dead head he now carried within its sack.

“No, Grum, please think this through!  The Pan will kill us without a thought to it.”

Grum-Blud hefted the bag, black ooze dripping from its underside.

“Not if we give him something he wants,” Grum-Blud sneered.  “Right now we have little to take back to Jahaza, that he cannot get from others. But to The Pan, we bear a sight into the world he and others like him have sought for centuries.”

“B-But what if he just takes Pogsley’s head from us and kills us off?  What then?!”

“He won’t,” Grum-Blud growled.

“How can you be so sure?” Shelberd whined.

“Because delving is an insight only given to trolls.  There is no one in his kingdom of Half-men that can do what our kind can do.”

“What about the dark pools?” Shelberd moved forward beseechingly grasping Grum-Blud’s forearm, cowering and shaking.  “They say he has an entire wood filled with the dark waters, around an old stone temple.  That he looks through those waters constantly and can see into that other world.  Why would he need our Pogsley’s head?”

“Because he can see through a living person, that’s why!” Grum-Blud growled, freeing himself from Shelberd’s pleading grip.  “Fear clarifies the vision.  And if this connection still remains through my dead brother, that means this girl will somehow be coming back here.  And if she does, we…and The Pan and his kind will all be waiting for them.  Something of herself has been left here.  Something personal.  She will be brought back, and the group of outworlders that did this to my brother will find themselves wishing they had never meddled with the purposes of a troll!”

“What about that other man?  The one you said Pogsley also dark-eyed?”

Grum-Blud’s lips pulled into a further grin and he clapped Shelberd on the back, but Shelberd winced, expecting that clap to be a blow, like the countless ones he had received from Grum-Blud before.  “For once, you finally asked ‘the right‘ question, you numbskull!”

The rain just outside of the grotto cave had finally stopped and only the slow dripping from the stone cornice brow above remained.  The wind had died down to a low but threatening whisper, implying a warning, but waning as it progressed further inland following the central strength of the storm.

*Scene 09* 12:05 (Dangerous Delays)

The armory in the Iron Hills proved to be a problem for Storm Hawk and her band of Lehi horsemen.  They were suited and trained for hit-and-run short raids, but not for holding and capturing prisoners long-term.  For that, they needed a larger body of regimented troops and guardsmen.  In short, they needed the forces of the underground resistance.  Tapping resources from that hidden reservoir had been difficult but not impossible.  Begglar had proven to be the key.  His clandestine relationships from years prior still bore fruit.  His present whereabouts were known by very few, for he no longer plied the fjord waters of the lake chains of Cascale as a supply raider, causing the Xarmnians much consternation and grief.  After marrying Nell and having reinvented himself as a baker and innkeeper far away from the Skorlithian shipyards, his influence and reach had shortened but had not entirely disconnected from the many old friends he had made in his days of piracy against the Xarmnian water fleets.   His ship had suffered irreparable damage during its final sea battle with the leviathan that had once plied and plagued those bifurcated waters.  His ship had run aground onto a sand bar in one of the hidden coves and inlets.  Over the intervening years, the ship had been taken apart and used to refurbish those few remaining smaller ships that ran a sleeker, faster legacy fleet through the lake chain now that the leviathan’s carcass had been found and confirmed dead.  Skorlithians now managed those legacy fleets.  The newer boats no longer required armored sides now that the beast had been slain, and Begglar was still recognized as the brave captain that had led the charge to bring the monstrous creature to ground.  As a result, the smaller, faster fleets could more easily overtake and evade the Xarmnian warships, increasing their effectiveness.  Many of the former Mid-Worlder crew that had served with and under Begglar remained loyal but respected his need for privacy, now that the Xarmnians had identified him and put such a high price on his head.  Many of those crew now ran small fishing operations with small or modest-sized fleets of their own.  Some had retired from the cold waters, content to let the younger take their turn.  The smaller boats operated with more shallow drafts, finding themselves now able to pass over “The Rakes”, underwater buttresses built by the Xarmnians to keep the former beast from invading their passage routes and plaguing their supply ships, as it had done with the Skorlithian fleets.   The leviathan often chased schools of fish up to the edge of “The Rakes”, but turned back into the Skorlithian side of the water, allowing those fish to filter through the gaps in “The Rakes” only to be harvested by Xarmnian fishing boats operating between “The Rakes”.  The death of the leviathan of Cascale did not serve the Xarmnian interests.  In fact, it took away their advantage, making the downriver Skorlithian fishing industry profitable again.  The influence of leviathan served to build Xarmnian power.  A fact that was not lost on the coastal peoples.  A fact that fed additional Xarmnian hatred and rage towards those responsible for bringing down the beast.  The Xarmnian headwaters, within “The Rakes”, were closer to the eastern oceanic inlet and the eastern edge was more salinated, than the western Skorlithian edge of the Lake Cascale chain with more glacial freshwater fed off of the snow masses melting off of the frontal heights and shelves of the Nawsaw (נָסָה Exodus 20:20 word for ‘test’ [ref. Strong’s h5254] ) range running through the waterfront forests of Gacean.

The freshwater fish thrived, while the influx of oceanic fish sickened from the diminishing salts and something present in the fog-laced coastlands.  The melted snow filtered through the stone breaks of the mountain and across the river stone of the brooks and streams that came down into the lake chain, purifying the water as it arrived and emptied into the lake basin.

Xarmni, thinking to situate itself in a position of advantage by dominating the upper east side of the lake chain, found themselves solely vested in an untenable and failing position, forcing them to take more desperate measures of extending their influence and power.  What they lacked in their former market dominance of the independent fishing industry, they had to make up in forceful military actions.  Desperation also drove the Xarmnian efforts making many more enemies among the Mid-lander communities who resisted being ruled by the mad successor king of the Stone City of Xarm.

Skorlithians were largely sympathetic to the concept of resistance against Xarmnian tyranny.  Many of Begglar’s friends disappeared into the underground, forming its secretive organization, linking many communities and Mid-landers into its growing and restless army.

The problem with managing a grassroots underground network of dissidents across Mid-World geographies was the potential problem of infiltrators, and informants that threatened the whole.  Xarmni and its agents were adept at finding leverage points, with the goal of bringing down the insurgent hidden network.   The Xarmnians formed Protectorate Guard bands ostensibly to police the outer territories and exact taxation and tribute for their own “protection”.

Xarmni used these extortion tactics to, not only enrich their cruel leadership but also, to make up forshortfalls in their storehouses for feeding their own captive populaces and their armies.  Loss of revenue could not be excused or tolerated for whatever reason.  Xarmni’s leadership council lacked the ability to self-examine the consequences of their own policies.  Rather they sought to obfuscate their own culpability by denials and casting blame for failure, often upon an innocent party with no discretionary power to influence the outcome of a leadership directive.  Xarmni resented and sought to undermine any means of profitability and production that they could not control, manipulate or undermine.  They demonized their competitors, attempting to spoil their methods and turn the dependent communities, with whom they had traded for generations, against them stating that the competitors’ privateering practices were unsustainable and irrevocably polluting the lake chains.

Outrage drove many further into the underground network, seeking ways to respond covertly to the Xarmnian encroachments, if not openly and overtly.  Direct resistance was met with Xarmnian violence.  But covert resistance was not easily ascribed to one party whose family or living means which could be directly punished.

The operations under The Son of Xarm were growing more desperate and violent.  The monarch ruled by instilling fear for he could not rule by inspiring fealty or love.

Shimri, one of Begglar’s old crewmates, was still active in the present underground.  Shimri was Begglar’s sole connection to the old network and the distant shipping fleets still in operation against the Xarmnian encroachments.  Shimri had sent word through his connections for men to take charge of the Iron Hills armory, once word reached them that the Storm Hawk and her company had secured it.

Storm Hawk and her agents had secured a commitment from Shimri that men would arrive to relieve them from that responsibility but their arrival had been delayed.  Xarmnian troops had been seen in the area and were riding in a company leading a pack of devil dogs on the trail headed towards the main road that would eventually descend from the highlands into the lower valleys.  Speculation arose that they were seeking Begglar for questioning.  A later towering column of smoke following the passage of a seasonable rainstorm coming from the location of Begglar’s inn revealed to all that the Xarmnians had been frustrated in that intention.

Now Storm Hawk and her Lehi riders were finally taking the wider, smoother low road that ran along the base of the old escarpment granary promontory through the lowland passage, wary that the Xarmnian troop was either ahead or behind them.

The relief resistance thought that the Xarmnians had gone up the long way towards the top of the escarpment, and they had watched for a time, fearing that from the upper rise, they would be more easily spotted riding towards the Iron Hills armory, only to see them descend the slope again, apparently frustrated from proceeding on towards the summit.  The rain storm that had veiled the escarpment rise was finally thinning out, and the troop had turned their dogs and their horses back down toward the back trail that would eventually converge with the main road.  Chances were probable that they would proceed to their stock stables along the hill road, to rotate their mounts for fresh horses.

Begglar and his party were supposed to meet them near the Xarmnian stables.  Or that was the last word they had received before Begglar and his family had taken it out on the lam.  Begglar would be wary, Storm Hawk told herself, but he would need to be warned that the Xarmnians were already hot on his trail.

Her team was suited and armored up, appearing much like a Xarmnian convoy bearing a routine shipment of weapons fresh from the Iron Hills forges.  The wind was coming up from the southeast, pushing the former rainstorms ahead of its front toward the northwest.  Her team rode in a diagonal phalanx pattern, moving obliquely along the road allowing the sulfurous scents of their equipment and garb to pass beyond them.  A couple of teams pulled two wagons of wooden boxes holding stock of the weaponry and armor plating.  They had hoped to use the cover of the armor delivery as a ruse to get close enough to the Xarmnian stables to refurbish their riding stock as well so that they could supply Begglar and the others with fresh horses.  With the Xarmnian outer patrol ahead of them, Storm Hawk realized that that plan might prove to be too dangerous.  There had to be some way to get word of warning to Begglar, but she had no way of knowing how far ahead Begglar and his party might be and her scout, Ryden, was on special detail and set to rejoin them later in Azragoth.  She knew that once was agreed upon and set in motion, operating separately and with no contact, the most probable method for success was adhering to the original plan as much as possible.  The delay of the relief personnel had already cost them half a day.  A delay that may cost Begglar and his family their lives, if that Xarmnian patrol were positioned for an ambush.

As Storm Hawk and her team of disguised arms convoy soldiers, turned off of the branch road onto the track that approached the Xarmnian stockyard, high above, nestled and curved down the face of the rocky escarpment, appearing like stone, a large ice-blue eye opened on the outcropping, dotted by an ink black pupil and carefully rolled to follow the distant progress of their movements as they descended below the brow of the branch road.  It had observed a prior group of armed men moving in that same direction before.  Its other black eye slowly cracked open, appearing like a black slash along a bony rim of jagged rock.  Its implanted agent’s signal no longer pulsed in its obsidian depth like a ripple in a dark pool, but its other senses were still sharp enough to scent and perceive that which might feed its growing hunger…and obsession.  It would wait and watch.  And at some point, it would claw down the face of the cliff… furrow into the ground, and follow.

*Scene 10* 30:54 (Banshee)

“The Banshee?” Begglar grunted, “Ah, lassie. Now that is a whispery tale to be told on a night of storms.  Are you sure ya want ta hear it?”

The crew gathered around Begglar, eager faces turned toward him, as he settled himself on a bench, backlit by the flickering glow of the furnace firelight.

Christie nodded, and Miray answered audibly for all.  “Tell it! Tell it! Mister Boogler!”

Nell broke out laughing, as did the others, grateful for the release and relief of the tension.  Miray looked around with a puzzled look and shrugged her shoulders, not sure what the adults seemed to think was funny.

Begglar chuckled and wiped his face with a short handkerchief pulled out of one of his myrid pockets. From the kerchief, he had unrolled a short pipe and a cinch bag of dried and shredded tobacco, which he poured and tamped down the mix into the bell of his pipe.

“Dear, I thought you gave that up?!” Nell stood with her hands on her hips, gently reproving her husband with a light scold.  Begglar looked down at what his hands were doing, realizing he’d unwittingly outed himself.  To him, storytelling and piping, were once part of the same exercise.  He had forgetton that he’d pocketed the pipe, and he now gave his wife a sheepish grin.  “Now, Nellus, dear.  You won’t begrudge a poor man his pipe when he’s been called upon to set forth a tale now will ye?”

Nell raised an eyebrow, but gave him a wink with it, “Well, now. Maybe just this once.  It’s been a while since ye told yer tales with a fire agoin’ and good company gathered.”

“Thankee, dear one,” Begglar said, lifting a glowing ember to the bell of his protruding pipe, now carefully ensconced between his teeth, and hanging out over his beard. “I only kept this one fer celebratin’ Ash Wednesdays,” he said, giving the others a sly wink.

“Ash Wednesdays, indeed!” she said wagging her finger at him.  “And, doancha think I didna know that ya had that pipe in them vest pockets, as if I’m oblivious to yer cunning ways, me luv!  I’ve found it more times than I can count, doin’ the wash.  Your as full of blarney as the day I met ya.”  Here she touched a finger to the side of her nose, as others had seen Begglar himself do more than once, adding, “And I’ve ALWAYS been wise to it.  Ye’re lucky I let you keep it for such as this, but don’t be blowin’ yer smokes at the wee ones, me darlin’.”

“Yes, dear,” Begglar said, drawing in his cheeks and building up a short series of puffs of the smoldering tobacco, now catching to the lit ember.

Begglar reached for the bell of his pipe, and took the end from his mouth.  “Now where was I?”

“Banshee!” Miray said, laughing at the small puffs of smoke coming out of his nostrils.

“Banshee, it twas!” Begglar said lifting his pipe in salute and rehung it into the corner of his mouth.

I marveled watching Begglar settling into his natural element.  A born story teller, if ever there was one.

“Well, now,” Begglar said, “Here’s to the truth of it.  Banshees here are transitions.”

“Transitions?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Meanin’ that they are more than just one thing.  They are the same essential, but take different forms.  It is the dragons that do it.  They add the earth and clay, and bring in the plasma to find a shape from a blood-born.”

Quizzical looks fanned over the pond of firelit faces like waves touched by a gentle breeze.

“Blood-born?  Dragons?” one of the young men adjusted his posture, sitting up from a slouch.

“Aye!” Begglar answered fingering his pipe, looking around at the eager faces, bemused by something only he seemed to know.  “Perhaps, it’d be best to start with me beloved green isle, back in the Surface.  Ireland.”

“There are no dragons in Ireland!” a young man said.

“So, you’ve been there, haveya?” Begglar zeroed in on the skeptic.

“No, b-but…” the young man stammered, instantly regretting having spoken out.

Begglar raised an eyebrow, “Aye. Thought so,” He fingered his pipe bell, “There be more mysterious things in the old green isle and the thereabouts, than you’d be ken to, laddie.  Hush now. And leave me to the tellin.”

Begglar took out his pipe and gestured with it, “Have ya heard the Scotts speak of kelpies, now?”

“I have!” Miray said with a big wide grin, raising her hand in response to the general question.

“Are you saying there is a dragon in Loch Ness?” one of the young women asked.

“That’d be in the land of the Scots.  I am referrin’ to Ireland.  Kelpies are not only the beasties in their lochs.  They are better kept mum by the Irish, than the Scots.  Give a Scot a draft of whiskey, and he’ll tell all his country’s secrets.  Not so the Irish.  Before nary a word is spoken of the beastie’s one must be prepared to get a clout, and a blackened eye.  The Irish feel strongly about our fairy mysteries, and manys the man that held a handful of his own front teeth in his hand by bringin’ up what was a friendly discussion of the matters ta begin with.”

“D’ya mean like leprechauns?”

“Aye. The wee folks be part of it,” Begglar said touching the side of his nose in that characteristic fashion.

“Are you sayin’ these things are real?” the young man, formerly reprimanded, asked.

“To a point,” Begglar answered cryptically, “Legends are born out of experiences.  But they often grow to a point that the truth of the real is no longer recognizable.  Passionate people often drive tales into the stretching.  For example, the Banshee, now.  She is told to be recognized by the sound of her wailing.  The beastie we witnessed now.  Even now her terrible screech still rings in my ears.  Back in Ireland she was thought of as both an angel and a demon.  Her wails were a harbinger of doom.  She appears fair at times and foul at others.  In the legends in the land where I came from, she wanders the fells and moors.  Her moaning foretells of an upcoming death in the family.  For she is a mourner, you see?  She mourns, but then she doesn’t now. It is not her own pain that she regrets.  Its the misery she brings to others.  She being a portentuous sprite and a woeful spirit.  The wailing comes from a human tradition.  A custom, it was.  Some customs come from historical and biblical traditions.  There were paid mourners whose job it was to wail over the dead and dying.  Families would hire these women to make such a fuss. They’d come in like a flock of cave bats.  A wearin’ black mourners clothes and beatin’ their breasts like just as if it were their own kin.   The louder the wailing the greater the honor it was believed given to the dearly departed. Twas an old custom of culture but not just the Irish.  Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, China and the Middle East, all had these customs, and the Romans brought these keening customs to the Celts.”

“Biblical?” others looked up.

“Aye.   The Ancient Text, there.  It tells of that custom, as well.”

Begglar turned to me, “O’Brian, lend me a passage now, will ye.  Book of Luke, chapter 8, just the last part relatin’ to that Jairus fella.”

Begglar touched his nose and turned back to the group, “See I tole ya O’Brian was good fer somethin’.” And he winked and grinned.  I had many times noticed that Begglar became a just bit more Irish when he talked of the old country, in both his manner and inflection.  But I humored him anyway.

“Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. … While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.” Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.” When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.” [Luke 8:41-42, 49-56 NIV]

“Thankee, O’Brian,” Begglar said with a bow, “that was nicely done. Now leave off with ye.” He said curtly, turning again to the younger ones with his arms raised, ape-like and then bringing them together in a loud clap to get their attention.

“Well, now, it was a Jewish custom in those days to have mourners come and pay their respects by these raucous expressions of grief.  Some traditions live on from family to family and from culture to culture.  My homeland has a blend of traditions.  Some good, some not so much.  A blend of faithful heritage with a turn and churn of myth and folklore mixed in.  ‘Lump levening’, me dear sainted mother used ta call it.  It is not often known where the rites of the orthodox ends and the pagan ritual begins.

“Some believed the Banshee was the curse of the women mourners who laughed and mocked and derived the Master when He said the child was only asleep.  That the Banshee-kind were destined to mourn for eternity over their mockery. And were cursed to walk between this world and the next until the end of time.  A convenient argument for those holding to superstition as piously as they claimed to hold to the tenets of the faith.  Belief in such would seem to cast a nasty sort of vindictiveness upon the Lord, now wouldn’t it?” he rubbed his chin, fingering his beard thoughtfully.  “That I should say so, now, gives to the question more weight to our myth, than to the right clear truth of the Ancient Varse.  That it would.  Since there being no mention of such a curse given, the connection is a mere fancy.  Old wives tales, as ‘twas called in my day.”

He spun around again with his ape arms raised, to tease the kids, “The woman Banshee–since I don’t reckon there ‘tis a male variety– is what we in Ireland called the “Hag of the Mist”.  The very word Banshee is formed from the Gaelic tongue for ‘mound’ and ‘fairy woman’ – bean sí, pronounced /bain-see/.

He cupped a hand to his ear and touched a finger to his lips.

“Hush now!  Can ya hear it?  Listen closely.  What is that noise outside?”

Miray’s eyes went wide and she moved forward to cling to Begglar’s leg.

“Dear! Really now!” Nell interjected.  “Don’t frighten the child!”

Begglar reached down and patted Miray’s head, and squatted on his heels before her taking her hand. “Quiet now, child.  Tell me only what you hear.”

“The wind?” Miray asked, tentatively.

“Aye!  Good answer!  You’re the clever one!  The wind can’t blow on you in here.  Can it?”

Miray shook her head and grinned.

“No, it can’t,” Begglar patted her, “Now take a seat, and listen.”

Begglar rose and continued, “As you can tell, the outside wind makes strange noises as it howls through the breaks and around uneven surfaces and landmasses.  Y’kin even hear it now, outside these doors.  Hills and valley, moors and cliffs.  And in Ireland we had all these in spades.  Strong night winds would tear across the northern country, moaning and screeching like a keening woman.  Some houses were not built as they should be, and often times the drafts and cold moist air would get into the house of an evening.  And the fevers would come and pneumonia might set it and take a child or two from that world to the next.

Begglar, moved and sat on a tied sheaf of hay, closer to the fire, wagging his head.  “Aye, tis the rational thinking man, might reason.  But we Irish, now, we cleave to our superstitions like we take to the tune of a fiddle and a draught of Irish whiskey.

Here, Begglar took on the vocal affectations of two squabbling Irish women, playing to the younger ones, “‘Twas the Banshee, took the child,” says one.  “Nay, ‘twas that sad sack of yer no good husband not stoking the fire in the hearth, nor filling in the cracks in the slat works wall of your house.  But dainty is the fingers of yer worthless man.  Can’t be workin’ in the mud and dauble to fix the cracks, now.  Rather be a drinkin’ and a fightin’ at O’Mally’s Pub, says I, than attendin’ to his household.”  But the woman of the opinion that it t’were the Banshee, she’s got the bigger fists, and louder mouth and she won’t be hearing the truth of it, from Molly McDonald, now will she?  And to see to it, that she shuts her mouth about that perceived truth, she clouts her a good one, right in the eye she does.  So, as far as the folks around that settle’s it.  Best not be vexing the mourning woman with the big fists, say they.  If she says, ‘twas the Banshee wailing that warned of the deaths, and snatched her poor child with the fevers then that IS ‘the story’ that stands.  And stand it has for a good long time, now.  Not even the rector in the local parish will deny it.  He too enjoys continuing to see out of both his eyes.”

We all had a good laugh at that.  Begglar always had a way about him that was endearing.  His Inn was quite popular in its day, but it was mostly because of the man he was.

The others and I went back to their meals and dinner conversations, but I noticed that Begglar, slipped away to speak privately to Christie.

Dominic had ascended the inner stairs and had come back from the upper smoke room stores, and he and Nell had laid out cut meats and cheese along a large charcuterie serving board.  As the others rose to go to the table where Nell, Dominic and a few helpers had set out the serving, Begglar took the opportunity to approach Christie privately, with a more sober expression and squatted before her, looking at her eye to eye.

“Lass, as there were young ones present in the hearing, I could not entirely answer your sincere question directly.  And I do not wish to diminish the seriousness of your question.  Do you understand?”

I stood behind and nearby, but did not call attention to my presence.  Begglar’s demeanor had drastically changed in his approach to her, unlike the gregarious, affable front he had shone to others, there was a gentleness about the man that showed a sober humility in his manner that I had never witnessed before.  Much had changed in him, through the intervening years, and I marveled at how a strong, boisterous captain of a former pirate crew, could shift into such a demeanor of tenderness.  I could tell part of it was the influence that both Nell and fatherhood had on him, but another part was because of something much more ineffable.

Begglar took Christie’s hand and gently patted it in his large, rough paw.

“You have shone a great deal of courage, young lady, bearing all you have been through.  You’ve come through much already.  So it is wish the understanding of your courage, that I feel I can address personally your question more directly than I could with the others.

“The Banshee in legend, in my dear land in The Surface World, is a supernatural entity which visits fear on the superstitous.  Fear gives the evil ones insight and influence on a world in which they cannot physically manifest.  It also clouds what is real and it separates us from the One who centers us in our weakness.  We need to stand on the rock of certainty, or we will crumble when the storms come and the waves are driven ashore.  The young ones, they need the lighter touch of what is to be explained.  But we need courage to be sober to threat, without letting the threat drive us into the enemy’s places of shifting sand.  You mentioned you stood upon the hill and saw it for what it really is.  A Tell.  Think about that word’s dual meaning, for here you are in a world of dualities.  Here, one thing may also be another and both aspects are coequal parts of the whole of what it is.  Most times in this Mid-World there are three aspects making up the whole–a trinity.  The most difficult part to see and experience is the mysterious third.  It is because as a race we have been blinded to it.  We see through a glass darkly.  But that is where belief in the unseen is most important.  Excavatia is the mysterious third of the three parts of reality.  It is part of a promise, a hope and a legend.  The presence of The Marker Stone is a mysterious guarantee in this world.  A rock of certitude that is supernaturally protected.  Many here have tried to destroy it, but cannot.  It is a Word of surety, in a world bent on destroying it and burying its Truths.  There are physical illusions in this Mid-World that attempt to make us think they are something else.  But the one thing that secures us, is knowing and reminding ourselves of the nature and the revealed Words of The One.  You are one of the few who have given your name to this journey.  And I suspect, by doing so, you are now learning how important being named here matters.  When someone asks you how you are called, you give them your name, your calling.  That blue search light you saw, and little Miray saw, was a gleam from The Praesporous Stone–The Hope Stone.  It is placed high in the distant mountains, in the heart of a dangerous place.  A place we, who are all called, must eventually get to.  Only those committed to the quest can see the light of Hope.  Those who are called.  Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

Nacent tears filled Christie’s eyes as she nodded.  The words she had heard in her spirit on the road came back to her.

“Yes. I think I do.”

“Are you secure in knowing that you are called–marked–by The Marker Stone?”

Christie lifted her head, gratitude showing through her tears, feeling warmed by more than just the fire burning in furnaces beyond her.

“Yes,” she said, brushing a tear and a strand of stray hair away with the heel of her hand.

Begglar studied her for a brief second, and then nodded.  “Kelpies, Banshees, Leprechauns, and other fae creatures of my Surface World home, all have one thing in common in our legends, which is physically true here in this world.”  He paused, and then met Christie’s eyes and finished off, “They are all creatures given to illusions to hide the truth.  They are shapeshifters.  As variable as the shifting winds of my dear Ireland.  Here in this world, a Banshee is a wind spirit.  It enters a body given to it by a dragon.  I suspect there is one here in the Mid-World now.  The experience of that family we hid–what they saw happen to Xarmnian pursuers in a wheat field–could only be explained by the presence of a dragon.  A dragon can build is own army of mudlings.  All it needs to do so, is a hosting wind sprite, a bit of injested earth and human blood to give this “body” an image.  If this image is worn on a mudling, chances are high that the blood donor was consumed by the dragon that formed it.  A mudling, often called a gollum, which means unformed substance, can shift into as many images as are present in the blood the dragon took into itself.  This makes dragons more dangerous than even their physical might and savage nature might pose in direct combat.  They can see through their agents.  Each mudling they give this half-life, become their slavish agents, and informants.  The Becca that was human, is no longer, I am sorry to say.  The sword O’Brian bears does not just physically cleave at an enemy, but it also reveals and unmasks illusions.  The sword was not used to kill a child, but only an illusion of one.  The dust of the image still retains a memory of the blood by which it was formed.  But it cannot reform itself into a golem without the aid of a dragon.  It must return to the dragon.  And that will give us time to get to a place beyond its reach.  With this knowledge, you must not live in fear of those things that are dragon-formed.  Fear will draw those things towards you.  Find that place in knowing that you are named and take security in that hope.  Evil cannot destroy or succeed in destroying those secured by The Marker Stone.  They may seem to progress for a time, but ultimately, all will bow before The Rock.  The Marker Stone is a conduit for The Logos.  The three-part symphony twines and swirls around the scale time.  It gives its gifts of word and deed.  My word came in a life verse that references both my past and my future.  It ties into the hope visible and invisible, and passes through the veil into Excavatia.  Excavatia is a place of sanctuary and security.  A place where no evil may come.  It is a holy place, where all mysteries in the Surface World and this Mid-World will be revealed.  My verse is in the Ancient Text letter of the Apostle Paul to his brethern.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. [Hebrews 6:19 CSB]

“As I’ve told O’Brian, my confidence and security living in this place is, and has always been, being anchored in the awareness of the knowledge of what I believe about The One who occupies Excavatia.  As such the beasties of this world will not separate me from the hope I have, no matter what storms may come.  Banshees gain power by convincing others to fear them, and to making others think that it is they who hold the keys to life and death.  But I know their hidden secret.  If a Banshee wails in a threnody, ultimately, it weeps for itself.  For its end is coming, and those of us moving forward into the promise of a Stone Quest, will not be silenced or stopped.”

“I think I understand more now,” Christie said, “I didn’t before.  Thank you, sir.  Brian… Is it Brian or O’Brian?  I’ve heard him called both.”

“O’Brian,” Begglar said with a wry grin, “And don’t you let him forget it, now!”

“But, I thought he introduced himself as Brian.”

“He most likely did.  Brian is a fine, strong Irish name.  The name of an Irish king in the past.  O’Brian in the Irish parlance simply means “Of Brian” the same as would any child or descendent of one called Brian.  Brian means ‘strong one’, in the old Irish.  And this here ‘O’Brian’ has a tendency to let things go to his head.  He’s too much into his own thoughts, to be of much use, more’s the pity.  So until he earns being called ‘Brian’ outright, I’ll be callin’ him ‘O’Brian’ in the interim. Understand?”

Christie smiled and nodded, “I suppose most of us are too much into our own thoughts, I guess.”

“Now don’t you be giving him a pass,” Begglar raised a warning finger, ” Leadership is upon him now, and it is a fair burden to be carrying, if you are not humbled by it to be a servant.”

Christie smiled, “When O’Brian… told us about beasts between worlds, none of us understood what he meant by it.  He said something about a creature called ‘Hollywood’ being from a place called ‘Holy Wood.’  Does any of that make sense to you?”

“Aye,” Begglar rocked back on his heels and turned to sit on the bench next to Christie.  “Makes sense that he would be fixated on that.  It would be meaningless to the rest of you, but for him it was a place where he feels he had his greatest failing.  What used to be known in the ancient times of this world as a ‘Holy Wood’, is a dark place now.  The Pan and his kinds dwell there.  He had claimed it and made it the seat of his throne.  The trees appear dead there.  The sky over it seems a bit darker everyday, as if night has decided to take away the memory of the day and hold its position against the progress of the sun.  There is some connection there between the Mid-World and The Surface World, and The Pan and his kind are obsessed with finding it.  Many pools of water are underneath the shadowy trees, hanging with moss and poisonous parasitic plants.  It is a place of defilement now.  This place would mean nothing to you all, but it was the place where he fled and lost Caleb, his friend and the brother of our then leader, Jeremiah.  Feelings of failure tend to take shape and form, and the beast that stalks O’Brian hooked into him before he left here.  O’Brian carried something supernatural with him into his life in The Surface World.  Something he hangs onto and does not realize he can be empowered to shake.  As long as he runs from the problem, it pursues him.  He sees its reflection in him, and it scares him.”

“But how does that help us?”  Christie asked.

“It doesn’t,” Begglar answered, clasping one hand in the grip of the other.  “He regrets failing in the two parts of his existence.  His Surface World, physical self, and his Mid-World metaphysical self within his soul.  But mind that I told you there is a third part to each of us.  An inner, unseen part anchored in Excavatia.  At the end of our days, we will be rejoined fully to all parts of ourselves, and be completed in The One who makes us whole again.  We will be perfected, not by our own efforts, but by what He has already accomplished for us.  The third part of us will see The One as He truly is, and we will be enfolded into that eternal part, and fully embraced, not losing any of ourselves.  Not even a single hair.” Begglar tugged on his beard for effect, and Christie chuckled.

“Why didn’t O’Brian just tell us that?  You make it so much clearer to understand.”

“Ah, O’Brian tends to mix his metaphors.  And he has never had children of his own.  It comes easier to us who learn to adapt our words to train up a child.  We don’t force feed a steak into a baby’s mouth, but learn to mash and breakdown their food into a spoonsized bite, once they are off their milk diet.  O’Brian is a force feeder, and it is no wonder people tend to choke on his words.  When he takes the time to know each of you better, he will begin to understand how to choose what morsels to serve and when.  And speaking of morsels, I think it is time we went over there to eat something before it is all gone.”  Begglar gestured towards the line of the others, gathered around the long table.

“I think I’ll just drink my tea for now.  It has an odd berry and buttery taste, that burns a little but is soothing,” she lifted her cup to her lips and took a small sip.  “It is warming, after being out in all the cold.”

“Chances are that ‘tea’ is not just an herbal blend.  Nell specializes in serving customers in the Inn.  She served in one in her home town of ‘Sorrow’s Gate’ when I first met her.  Seems to be able to read what people need when they come in.  She is an expert in wild herbs and ferments.  If I were to guess, that tea you are sipping is a combination of Japanese sake and elderberry wine.  Learned the sake recipe from an oriental fellow that was part of Jeremiah’s party when we came through.  A rice wine.  You’ll need more food in your stomach to be able to take the road ahead soon, so eat up.”

Christie laughed, and said, “I thought you faith folks were not supposed to be given to strong drink.”

Begglar stood and grinned, touching the side of his nose again, “To excess, aye. Or in the presence of stumblers, tis’ true.  But consider what we do, is in moderation, and with temp’rance. There is a time when wine is meant for thy stomach sake, as well as for merriment.  And tis’ true we also have a sayin’ here in the highlands. ‘There be no barman nor barmaid that can say they served water to a Xarmnian and lived to tell the tale.'”  He winked, and took Christie’s hand raising her to her feet.  “You get as good at making wines and ales as you do at surviving running an inn frequented by your enemies.  Now off with you. Eat up.”

Christie walked ahead towards the table, and Begglar turned and spotted me leaning against one of the room’s support columns, my arms folded.

“Mixing my metaphors?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Serves you right for dropping at the eaves!” Begglar said, turning to head towards the crowd at the serving table.

“And I was just begining to like you,” I said aloud, following him, even as I heard Begglar chuckling to himself in response.

*Scene 11* 5:23 (The Burn)

Back in Basia, the large man named Hanokh and the Lehi scout, Ryden, stood outside of the dugout cabin, breathing heavily as flames and smoke curled and twisted upward into a gray, overcast sky.

The two men had upended the table and slid the headless, blackened, body off into the stone firebox, casting smoldering embers into the dusty room. The body, sizzled, swelled and smoked, forming black blisters that spewed a writhing liquid ichor across the hearth stone sputtering onto the hardpacked floor. The resulting stench was brutal and palpable. Lacking any form of liquid accelerant, both men searched for flammable items that might compensate for the reduction of the flame, dampened down under the smoking and seeping carcass.

Though the rain had stopped, all potential kindling that might be employed to feed the fire, had to be found from items contained within. Brush and grass, tree and limb, still dripped with evidence of the storm’s recent passage. The rotten cot and broken down bedframe fed some of it. The table, smeared with a black stain helped feed the rest, until the cabin began to fill with smoke. Even with the door opened, the two men could no longer endure the conditions within the enclosure to continue builing up the inferno. When they finally closed the door, they hoped they had done enough. Outside, a light breeze still carried a draught of dampness with it, and they could not risk letting it undo their hurried efforts. The interior would only burn if it was kept dry enough.

Finally, the rising flames could be spotted hissing through the dusty glass of the side window. They watched as tongues of fire extended higher and licked hotly at the support beams holding the ceiling and sod roof.

Ryden had secured his horse, Starlight, from a shady copse of trees and a grotto that had served as a partial windbreak against the storm, and he now stood beside Hanokh watching the cabin being consumed and its structure weakened by flame.

“How long should we give it?”

“When the roof sags, we will know,” Hanokh remarked quietly.

Ryden noticed that Hanokh intensely watched the bottom of the door frame as smoke curled up from under the threshold, and around the top of the lintel, rather than observing the slope of the roof line.

“What are you looking for?” Ryden asked.

Hanokh gazed at the smoking structure, his eyes continually searching the edge of its foundation and the edges of the doorframe.

“Making sure that nothing that is inside gets out,” Hanokh rumbled in reply.

“Can that living liquid survive the fire?”

Hanokh grunted, “We must ensure that it doesn’t. It must not reach the stream.”

Ryden pondered that a moment, “If the troll blood survives the fire, and escapes this cabin, how will we stop it from moving towards the stream?”

Hanokh took out a canister he had tucked into his cloak.

“I took the liberty of salvaging this from the cook shelves inside,” he said holding up the carved container.

“What is that?” Ryden said, turning to watch as Hanohk, cut away a wax seal.

“Preservation,” Hanokh rumbled, “provided it has not lost its savor.”

“Preservation?” Ryden asked, leaning over to view the contents of the canister.

Hanokh moved forward, towards the smoking door pouring out a crystalline substance along the bottom of the threshold, and a loud hiss arose, as the greyish power formed a powdery line along the porch step.

Hanokh, cleared his throat, standing upright and backing away from the smoldering door.

He answered, simply, “Salt.”

Ryden looked up towards the roof line and reached out to grab the large man’s arm, gesturing upward. “Looks like the timbers are weakening.”

Hanokh raised his eyes and backed up from the burning cabin as the roof began to pit and sag. Being much taller that the other man, his gaze commanded a higher perspective and suddenly he turned to Ryden.

“Mount your horse,” he pointed beyond the roof into the sky beyond the hill harboring the imploding cabin. “Look beyond the hills. That column of smoke shows this is not the only thing that burns today.”

“Looks to be coming from the upper hill near the village of Crowe,” Ryden said, swinging up and into his saddle. “We have contacts in that area. There may be trouble.” Ryden turned his horse towards the trail that led to the sea road. Holding his reins, he turned towards Hanokh.

“Do you have a horse?” he asked, as the steed stamped sideways, impatient to get moving.

“I am not called The Walker for nothing,” Hanokh responded. “I have a way of getting where I need to be, far easier than you. I was shone the way of it long, long ago. Ride fast, my young friend. When you arrive, I will be there waiting for you.”

Ryden’s horse stamped and turned, and Ryden pulled his horse’s reins to turn him back toward the giant man. When he did so, Hanokh was no where in sight.

*Scene 12* 4:28 (Xarmnian Need)

The enemy stables were set in a short-stepped valley, with surrounding pasture lands and the barn and shelter structures built along one of the sloped steps on the northwestern rise of the valley’s opposing side. A wide, shallow stream ran end to end through the bottom of the valley, watering the lowlands and pastures, ensuring seasonal and perennial green colored the lush grassland. Natural rainfall helped to water the valley and replenish the stream, whose level rarely rose above a low and wide bridge that spanned the watercourse along the descending road. Barn sewage naturally drained or was mucked into a short fissure ditch routed into what was once was a forked branch of the stream.

From the higher redoubt, Xarmnian conscripts could observe the approach of anyone passing through the intersecting valley, and quickly descend to the stables to prepare a mounted reception, if need be.

The upper ridge of the valley was capped by a precipitous rise of stone that formed a crested butte along the steeper northwestern ridgeline. The daily trek from the stables to the lower, greener pastures, ensured the stock horses, stabled there were in fit physical condition, and well-accustomed to traversing irregular ground. The stepped pastures were broad and long, allowing the horses ample room to run, gallop, cavort and graze. The valley served as a natural corral for the stables, minimizing the need for extensive fences, except in those areas in close proximity to the barns and to shield the stock away from the filth in drainage ditches.

The sporting field, was a field too often watered by the blood of “the disciplined” peasantry. Here, brutal soldiers “practiced” their “gallantry” on anyone with the temerity to resist the imprimatur of Xarmnian will.

As Storm Hawk and her disguised crew rode down into the valley towards the distant stables a line of horsemen left the structure and began to ride out to meet them.

One of the Lehi, rode alongside Storm Hawk, who had fallen back to a wing position, allowing one her more formidable riders to take point. It would be dangerous for her to speak during an encounter with Xarmnians, but from a seemingly subservient position she could watch and observe without calling attention to herself. Xarmnians expected the strong and formidable in appearance to lead a band, and rarely noticed those individuals they thought of as underlings and attendant footsoldiers.

“Why couldn’t we have ridden past this outpost? Those riders coming ahead are most certainly Xarmnians, and the inn keeper’s leaving will have them on high alert. We are taking quite a risk in doing this.”

“Not as much risk as would be, if we oddly bypassed a chance to procure replenishment stock, carrying a convoy of weapons to the battlefront. We’ve too few horses with us for an overland trek. This team will need relief horses. Xarmnian protocols must be followed, if we are to appear credible,” Storm Hawk answered quietly.

“How would they know?”

“They can count, can’t they? Any Xarmnian patrol would pay an obligatory visit to those stables before leaving the area, heading back down into the lowlands.”

“They will smell our armor and know we have come from the Iron Hills. They might be suspicious.”

“The smell of our clothing will ensure they keep their distance. They will be reluctant to examine us too closely because of it. We need to keep them off balance, and anxious to send us on our way.”

“Do you expect to meet that Xarmnian search party on the road ahead?”

“If they are not still here at the stables, then certainly. They suspect only the small family, not an armed contigent. An armory shipment provides good cover, until we are forced to reveal ourselves. There is unrest in the region. It certainly makes sense that the crown would requisition more battle gear from even the outposts. We have that to serve as our advantage. The appearance of a credible mission serving a growing Xarmnian need.”

*Scene 13* 12:13 (Unseen Wounds)

Darkness…
It was all enveloping. Its coldness reached through Laura, trying to take from her the only light she still kept kindled deep within her heart and mind. There was a simple phrase she learned long ago, that often gave her hope.
“What the darkness takes…God remakes…”
The confined space in the trunk was crowded with the miasma of stench and cold. The coalesced shadows pressed upon her, crowding her into a smaller and smaller place that demanded she shrink into a smallness that her body would not achieve, leaving only the shrinking that despair might bring.

She could feel and sense something looking through her. Something alien and angry. Or someone… Some cognizant and thinking being, at least. The invader had that same oily and creepy feeling that she had experienced in the terrifying thrall of the troll. She had a feeling the stain of that encounter still scarred and bruised an inner part of her mind, implanting its probing roots into the emotional open wounds she had suffered through her youth into her present.

Memories of her parent’s rejection, their aloofness, the isolation and resulting distrust that kept her closed off within, trying to protect herself from further pain.

Sobbing in that deep darkness, her mind sought solace in a vague memory. A time when her mom couldn’t find a “babysitter” for her. No place to put down “the anchor” freeing her to float away on a sea of alcohol induced oblivian, without having a little “needy, clingy” to think about. A chance glance at a local neighborhood announcement board at a local supermarket, gave her mom a temporary remedy to her “anchor” problem. A local church was holding a week-long “daycare” for kids Laura’s age called “V.B.S.” The church would pick up and feed the kids lunch and a snack, but more importantly, keep the little “snot-nuggets” from 9 AM to 2 PM, and bring them home after.

Laura found herself, roused from her bed the next morning, her hair quickly brushed by her mom, and her crying, because combing through the tangles pulled her hair. She was made to dress quickly, for the church bus would be there soon to pick her up at around 8:30.

Her questions seemed to annoy her mom, as she was told to put on her torn coat, and quit dawdling.

“You’re going to VBS,” her mom said curtly.

“Whatsa VBS?”

“VBS is where you are going while mommy runs some morning errands this week.”

“Are you going to be long?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“Daddy is on a business trip this week.”

“Where did he go this time?”

“He’s in Chicago at a conference.”

“Will he bring me something back?”

“That’s up to him. Now hush and go get your sneakers on. They’ll be here soon.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know them.”

“You’re sending me with people you don’t know?!” she asked with a rising note of alarm.

“Look, they’re nice people. Church people.”

“There are all kinds of churches. Some churches even lock kids up, away from there parents. I heard of this one kid…”

“Oh, hush! These are nice people, and you’d better be nice to them.”

“But you don’t know them…”

“That’s enough, Laura Jean! You’re going with them and that’s all there is to it. I don’t want to hear any sass.”

“Will I need money? What will I eat?” she asked timidly.

“I don’t think so. But the flyier said they’ll feed you. There was no mention of cost.” Despite this, she grabbed her purse and ruffled through it, retrieving a single dollar bill.

“Look, here’s a couple of bucks, just in case. Mind you don’t lose it. Now quit wasting time. They’re nice people. You’re gonna be fine. Might even have fun.”

“When will daddy be back?”

“Laura, you’re wasting my time. Now get your shoes on and go into the front room. The church people should be here any minute.”

Laura had many misgivings that day. Strangers were going to pick her up in a big white van. She imagined all sorts of terrible outcomes from such a prospect. Should she sneak a kitchen knife into her coat, in case they were not as “nice” as her mom assured her they would be? Laura debated, but her mom practically bum-rushed her into the living room and out onto the front porch. The broken pavement of their front sidewalk, signified the neglect and disrepair of their household, subtly advertizing their poverty to the people coming to get her. She couldn’t ride a skate down it’s path without falling on her bum. Joggers, passing through their neighborhood street, generally ran on the street in front of her house, rather than risk tripping over the uneven pavement slabs, pushed up by tree roots, and canted down into washed out soft spots in the ground.

When the “white van” did show up, it was not as bad as she expected. A woman that looked like what she imagined a “grandmother” should look like, climbed out of the passenger side of the van, helped down by an elderly man who had driven the vehicle. He stood by the open door and pulled back the side door, as the lady approached them. The name of the local church hosting the “VBS” event was printed on the side in large black letters, with a quoted phrase by someone named Mark and a odd, sort of military time set next to it “16:15”.

“Go ye into all the world…”

The van had other boys in girls already seated inside. She recognized a boy named Nathan who lived from two blocks over. He was a hair-puller. She hoped she would not be expected to sit in front of him.

Carmen, a little girl that she was friends with was there. Perhaps, this VBS thing might not be so bad, if Carmen would be there too.

The grandmother-lady approached the house, gingerly navigating the canted sidewalk, yet maintaining a friendly, open smile.

“Good morning, Mrs. Freeland. I’m missus Daughtrey, from Wayside Church. Is this your precious Laura?”

“Yeah…precious Laura,” her mom muttered. “The flyer said y’all would keep her till 2 o’clock and feed her while she is there.”

“Yes, Mrs. Freeland. Very happy to have her join us. She will have lots of fun today.”

“So the flyer said nothing about the cost for this deal. How much will it set me back?”

“Oh, there’s no need for payment, Mrs. Freeland. It is no charge.”

“Really?! I usually have to cough up about ten bucks for Jenny to come over here and look after her while I’m out. Dad’s got the car, so I have to walk down to the corner and catch a bus to get into downtown. Y’all must be raking in the coin to be able to keep and feed so many crumb-munchers.”

The was a brief quiet, as the woman did not know exactly how to respond.

Thinking back on that conversation, made Laura wince at how curt and rude her mom was.

“Well, just have her back sometime before too late. As I said, her dad has the car and is on a business trip, and I can’t get up there to pick her up. I’ll got things I got to do, and I can’t be bothered with her today.”

Her mom then turned and went back into the house, leaving Laura alone there on the porch with the stunned lady.

Tears formed in Laura’s eyes, and her faced reddened. What must this stranger think of her and her mother?

The lady composed herself, and cautiously approached the step leading up to where Laura was standing on the porch.

“Miss Laura. I’m missus Daughtrey. My name is Laura too. Just like yours. You look like you could use a hug. Would you like sit up front with me and Jim? I have a feeling we’re going to become good friends before too long. That is, if you want to.”

“I’m not supposed to hug strangers…”

It was the wrong thing to say, but Laura didn’t know what else to say. She was embarrassed thinking back on it after so many years later, but Mrs. Daughtrey, was the first person that she felt a warmth from. She desperately wanted to hug the lady then and there, but she did not want to appear weak in front of the other kids in the van. The ones watching her from the side-window.

Mrs. Daughtrey did not react unkindly, but rather smiled at her with a warmth, that Laura had never felt from anyone else.

“You are a very wise girl, Miss Laura. That is a good practice. But hopefully, after today, we can get to know each other better and I will no longer be a stranger to you. Fair enough?” she asked extending her hand to Laura.

Laura quietly took the lady’s hand and descended the steps, walking alongside of Mrs. Daughtrey. Together, they deftly navigated the crooked sidewalk towards the open door of the van.

“Jim,” Mrs. Laura Daughtrey addressed the white-haired gentleman standing near the front passenger door, holding it open for her, ready to assist her getting back up into the higher bench seat. “This little lady and I have the same name.”

He squatted down, his knees popping, and came down to Laura’s level, “Well, I’ll be!” He grinned at her and extended his hand, “Hello, Miss Laura Daughtrey! You’re much shorter than I remember.”

“Nooo,” Mrs. Daughtrey, chided playfully. “This is Missus Laura Freeland.”

Laura remembered giggling a little as she shook the kind man’s large hand, feeling the same kind of warmth she’d experienced from the lady.

Mrs. Daughtrey and her husband, Jim, did prove to be friends, afterall. It was the first time, Laura could remember, ever feeling like there was someone who truly cared and “loved” her. It was they who taught her the song about someone else who loved her too. Someone who would always be with her, even though He was invisible. Someone who wanted her to be. Someone who had a reason and a good purpose for her life. Someone who had once died before, but came back to life and would never die again.

Mr. and Mrs. Daughtrey had both passed away several years ago. They had been taken from her to a place where they would never know sickness or pain again. A place that sounded alot like a place that Mister O’Brian had mentioned. If this place in the darkness was the last place she would know in this waking life, the chance to go to the place were the Daughtrey’s were, was the place that gave her hope. That week of VBS was the best time of her life, even though her mother spent the evenings drinking what she had bought while out on her daily errands.

Whenever she got scared, in the tumult of her life, she often quietly whispered the song that assured her that someone with her occupying the unseen realm around her, still cared. It was the song she quietly sang now, through sobs, that helped her clear her head and find a place of peace and light, in spite of the darkness. It was the name of that someone in the comforting song, that somehow lifted the oily touches on the emotional wounds in her mind, and filled the deep and unseen scars with a healing balm. That was why He had to be present in the unseen realm. To touch and minister healing to those unseen wounds.

*Scene 14* 7:00 (Lingering Questions))

In the warmth of the escarpment caves, after we had taken our fill of the food and drink provided, we settled down for a few hours’ sleep, using the grain bins as makeshift dormitories. We slept in our clothes, knowing that we would soon have to take to the open road again. After a few hours, which felt like only moments had passed, Begglar came over and roused me.

The air had cooled, and I realized that Begglar had dampened the flames in the furnaces, preparing to close down the granary operations entirely.

“The rains have stopped. We’ll need to be leaving directly.”

“What?” I yawned, trying to clear my head and perceive what Begglar was saying. “What about what Christie told us?”

“If the Xarmnians are in the area, it will take their dogs a while to catch our scents. They’ll need reference point. We have the moist air in our favor. It dilutes our trail. At best though, it will only delay the dogs.”

“We’ve travelled most of the way by wagon, surely the dogs could not follow us if we’re not on foot.”

Begglar muttered thoughtfully, “Christie still noticed the wagon ruts, even in the rain. You can bet the Xarminians followed them too. The ground only gets rocky enough to cover the ruts when it gets near the rise to the crest of the escarpment and granary.”

“You think that is why she came down the side road? Didn’t follow the trail up to the top?”

“No, there was something else.”

“What’re you thinking?”

“Something made her turn back. I’m guessing whatever that was, will also turn those Xarmnian hunters. She was desperate to find us. Our only trail, even if it was washed away and petered out on the rock, still led to the top.”

“The noise we heard coming in. You think that whatever made that sound is still up there?”

“I do.”

“Then we have to ask her.”

“We do. And that’s not all. You know, lad, I’ll have to be asking her the other question too. If the wee girl could masquerade so convincingly, why not her?”

Remembering our most recent trek through the riverbed and the test that had revealed the imposter in our midst, the statement suddenly clarified in my mind.  “Oh, that.”  I remained quiet a moment.

She had been through so much already.  There was something she had not had a chance to tell about her journey and the degree of the storm they rode into.

“Go ahead but I don’t think we have anything to worry about with her.”

“Why not?”

“She saw the distance gleam of the Praesporous stone. No one could have told her about it. I highly doubt the Xarmnians can see it, if others in our company cannot. She willingly gave me her name and it conferred upon her that ability to see it, and I doubt that capability would transfer into a proxy.”

“I am sure you are right, but we must be certain. The others depend on it. It would not do for it to come out that an exception was made in her case, even as improbable as it might seem.”

“Should we go now and wake the girls or just Christie?”

“You’ll not be goin’ into the area where the women sleep.  That would just aggravate the tension.”

“Are you going then?”

Begglar grunted, “And get my ears boxed? Not likely! Nell is a light sleeper. She will be in the corridor, guarding the way to the sleepers.  I need only call quietly to her, and she will come. When traveling she sleeps with a blade close by.”

“Knowing you, I’m not surprised at all that she sleeps with a blade,” I quipped.

“I’ll pretend I did not just hear you say that,” Begglar growled.

We crept quietly forward to the adjoining hall and Begglar made a quick click-hiss noise from between his teeth. Momentarily, a shadow emerged, following the gleam and point of a raised blade.

“Are the girls decent?”

Nell lowered the point of her blade into the shadow, as she materialized into the dim glow of a flickering torch.

“They’ve only just been asleep these few hours. Is it time already?”

“Aye.” Begglar spoke in a low voice, “Best try to use what remains of the darkness to cover our way.  Dom and I have turned the horses and loaded the wagon with what we may carry from here that won’t slow us overmuch.  At some point, I may need you to drive the team since we did not get as much sleep as the others.  Is the miss Christie resting?”

“She is troubled, that one. Thinks of the girl Laura. Worries about her. Is afraid for what she might’ve gone back to. Wonders if she did the right thing helping her to go back.  She carries much in her heart.  Cares deeply.  We talked until she could no longer keep her eyes open. She finally seemed to rest more when little Miray came and curled down beside her and fell asleep. She’s a nurturer, and having the little one to care for, gave her a respite and a renewed purpose. Poor lass.”

Begglar sighed, “Then it will keep for now.”

“What concerns ya?” Nell probed gently.

“I’ve not asked her the question.”

Pssha. Nell clicked her tongue. “T’s not necessary dear.  The answer’s as plain as the nose on yer face.”

“But how can we know?  That Becca was a sly one.”

“I’m a Seer. Twas I who told you that there was something afoul with that girl, remember?”

“But..” Begglar protested.

“Leave her be.” Nell said firmly. “I’ll take responsibility if there are any questions to come of it.”

Suddenly there was a commotion in the hallway beyond. I drew my blade and Begglar gripped my arm, holding me back from rushing forward. Nell whirled, her stowed blade once again unsheathed from the shadows, and she bolted forward into the darkness.

Panicked voices came from beyond that I had difficulty making out, but one line clarified from among the sounds of distress and sent chills through me.

“Where is Miray?! She was just here!”

A low rumbling sound pierced the darkness, followed by a crash of stone, and a throaty roar that echoed and reverberated out of myriad dark tunnels above us.  Whatever had been on the top of the escarpment above had finally found a way into the catacombs of the granary and was making it way down to us.

*Scene 01* 4:42 (Between A Rock and A Hard Place)

As the storm surged overhead, Christie held tightly to the reins of her horse as they sheltered in the leeward shadow of a curved stone. The sky flashed with an electrified cavalcade of pyrotechnics spiderwebing the roiling clouds that strobed and pulsed. The pummelling winds had driven them off of the muddied roadside, and the sting of galeforce rains blurred the way ahead. Christie’s whole body ached from the tension of muscles flexed in flight. The wet chill of the wind poured ice into the very marrow of her bones and her head swam and throbbed with a piercing headache. She had almost blacked out from the fatigue and constant exertions, since her overland flight back from the seashore. Her horse was not fairing too well either. It snorted and blinked away the wet and the wind. Christie could feel the horse’s muscles shiver underneath her saddle. Its saddle blanket was now saturated and squished with each twitching movement. Had the storm not carried with it a cannonade of thunder, her chattering teeth, the horse’s uneasy snorts and bawling, would have easily revealed them in the rocky lay-by.

She had narrowly escaped being spotted by the Xarmnian soldiers that had brutally run down those she had seen ascending the hill to the inn. But she had no illusions. These men were not yet done with their search for others. If they had stationed themselves along the ridgeline, she would have been seen shortly after they had felled the two with spears, but the storm, as difficult as it was to endure, had masked her brief furtive flight away from the hilltop.

She wondered now if the voice and the blue light had all been a hallucination, brought about by her extreme stress and fatigue. She felt so uncertain and she hated that feeling. This place, this in-between whatever, was a land of much uncertainty. Everything felt real here, but somehow even moreso. This was no chemically induced perception. No virtual alternate reality, or sensory deprivation chamber experience, allowing her subconscious to fill in the gaps of perception. No. She felt like this Mid-World was the reality she had awakened to, and her other life in The Surface World was the presistent and recurring dream. Like she was finally on a road heading towards home, after having been away for far too long, but still having some trepidation on where or not the home she remembered would be the home she returned to find. If she was cracking up, this would be the worst possible time to do it. The spears those soldiers carried were real enough, and she had no doubt the soldiers would not hesistate to drive one through her aching body, stealing this reality from her awareness, if she gave them half the chance to do it.

Despite that, she could not shelter here for much longer. Those who had fallen were on foot, but where were the others who had been prepared to travel in Begglar’s wagon? Were the others that much farther ahead? Would she find more stragglers as she rode on? Would she find the wagon abandoned? How much of the remaining wagon ruts had been washed away by the storm? How many more bodies of her fellow travelers would she find on the road ahead? Were the three Xarmnian hunters the extent of this brutal bunch or were there others still out in the storm? The longer she waited here, the more the terrifying questions loomed into her mind, threatening to paralyze her from ever leaving the temporary shelter of the curved stone. She had to make a decision. Stay here until she was discovered? Should she turn back and ride under the ridgeline and try to angle back towards the sea road and seek a portal of her own to get back to the Surface World? Or move ahead into an unknown fate?

The rain hitting her brow and streaming down her face hid the track of her tears, as she fisted the reins of her horse, and leaned forward. The hard quivering set of her clenched jaw was the only indication that she at last had made her decision.

*Scene 02* 13:00 (To the Point)

I approached Begglar, standing under the wavering and dappled shadows of a great tree with a massive trunk. Large roots extended into the streambed, fanning out among the buried rocks, but three of the largest ones curved and came together into a wooden knot that twisted around the blade of a singular sword. High above us, the terebinth’s two broadest branches towered like the open arms welcoming the growth-march of the regiments of smaller trees that lined the banks on either side of the dry creekbed. I had assumed that the trees on either side were principly birch, and aspen, signified by their white bark, however, as I progressed further into the creekbed corridor, I noticed that my initial assumptions were incorrect.

The trees were a cross-sectional representation of many different arboreal types: Poplars, cedars, elms, firs, spruce, oaks, ash, cypress, maples, cotton-woods, palms, birches, junipers, teeks, pines, hickorys, mequites, tamaracks, larches, redbuds, neem, mahogany, beech, basswood, gums, willows, dogwoods, butternut, chestnut, nutbearing trees, floral trees, fruit-bearing trees, olive trees and redwoods. Trees of like kind were paired across the opposing banks of the stream, giving both the appearance of uniformity along with its diversity.

It appeared that this odd assemblage trees ranked here, gathered from what would have had to have been many different climate zones in the Surface World, were long ago planted at this place, along this strange stream as representation of what once was a singular source of communal life extended outward. I had a growing sense of awe that this place held more symbolic meaning than I would ever be able to plumb the full depths of, had I more time for contemplation and reflection.

My crew had aligned themselves in a sort of meandering line pointed towards a copse of darkened trees which formed a sort of oval shape into a darkening sky.  They had all passed through and down the same rocky swale that I had walked, but I wondered whether they had noticed what I had seen and perceived in my own personal passage. One by one, my fellow companions had walked towards the grove and met Begglar under the shadows of the bare trees.  The mysterious sword gleamed in the distance between the two silhouettes as Begglar asked his private and mysterious question, waited for the answer, and then, satisfied, directed each person to proceed on to an area just out of my line of sight to wait until the testing was over.

A sense of urgency pressed the import of this moment upon me. Daybreak had come only a few hours ago, and it was odd that gray dusk should be descending upon us so early and so shortly down the trail.  At this rate, the sky would soon darken into a premature nightfall, and its ominous shadow would build up to the mountain peaks in the distance. The air grew thick and heavy, feeling like a moistened and weighted blanket upon my shoulders. Almost as if something in the air around us was distressed by what was happening here.

We had not moved towards the grain bins, located in the carved out caves beneath the escarpment, but had gone directly to this site as a priority. Whatever catch release Begglar had pulled within the granary storehouse should have unlatched the hidden weapons somewhere under there. But Begglar insisted that our company be led through the copse and grove, before revealing the precise location of the cache.  There could be no other reason except to bewilder and confuse the enemy walking among us. Arming an enemy with a blade with which they would undoubtedly later use to stab us in the back was untenable.

I now met Begglar under the trees beneath the light of a gibbous moon. The sky had darkened further with the gathering of the bruised clouds, now laden with coming rain. The expression on Begglar’s face was troubled and dour. His thick eyebrows formed a scraggled-edged canopy over the shadowy canyons of his eyes. His brow folded into ploughed fields of worry lines. His skin, once ruddy and sun-baked, now appeared sallow, and ashen. A sheen of sweat glistened in droplets on his face and cheeks. His jaw-line bunched with muscular strain.

“O’Brian,” he paused, “I’ve known ye for most of our time here in this Mid-World.  You and I have faced hard tests together and common enemies. We have each met with our own failings and had to honestly look into the face of the lies we told ourselves and call out our own deceptions.  You know what you, I, my family and the rest of these travelers are facing ahead, the same as I. You and I have a history. But be that as it may, we come now to the only thing that can lift us above this current set of troubles we are facing together. What I think and feel and what you think and feel do not matter. For it is in our feeling that we are most easily deceived. I’ve asked all the others that are here standing by, and so it is that I’m now askin’ you.”

And here he took a breath and stared hard at me and asked…

“What are ye thankful for?”

For a brief second, I was taken aback. But then the import of that particular question hit me, and I knew why that question was pivotal and would be the most effective was of exposing ill intentions. Begglar had known this question would not be expected and would momentarily disarm the respondent. And brilliant it was too. This was our form of the Shibboleth Test.

It was a query that would work in the Sub-World, and I highly suspected it would be highly effective in the Surface World as well for it touched upon a vulnerability in every sentient creature stained by the curse and fall of mankind.

Everyone has lots to say about what they don’t like, but fewer and fewer take the time to say what they are grateful for.  I well knew that gratitude was becoming a lost language, in the age of protests and angry demonstrations.

I marveled at Begglar’s forethought, and could not help the smile that crept into my expression. “You astound me. I am so grateful to call you my friend. I am grateful that whenever, I am tempted to rely on my own myoptic opinion I have the blessing of you challenging me to look beyond the surface and dig deeper.”

“How did you know that this point would be the most effective approach to expose an enemy?”

Begglar’s brow softened, and his pent up breath released through his formerly clenched teeth. He cleared his throat, still not fully comfortable, but considerably more at ease from when I approached him.

“Xarmnian enemies here are incapable of expressing gratitude.  They live under the illusion of resentful entitlement.  The are generally arrogant and expect everyone’s love.  For any consideration they feign to give you, they expect to be more than compensated. In consideration of any agreement between them and we have learned the hard way that they expect to be enriched at everyone else’s expense.  They believe anyone who has what they do not, achieved it through privilege or theft and disenfranchisement.  Therefore, a Xarmnian, whose mind has been taken over by that mentality, will struggle to come up with anything that they are thankful for. Words of gratitude are not easily formed on their lips. Gratitude is a command given to the followers of The One. Those who follow Him should already have much practice in this.”

I nodded in full assent, “I very much think that applies to our other enemies as well who are less identifiably aligned to a region.” Begglar knew what I was alluding to.

“Aye,” he gravely agreed, “those fruits are lacking in the grove of infernal spirits as well.”

“You may as well know that the Surface Worlders of my day have difficulty with it too. More and more people are falling under the temptation to believe in entitlements. What they fail to recognize is that if one expects everything, then eventually they will be grateful for nothing.  No one owes us anything.  You and I walk under the dispensation of the Master’s grace, whether we acknowledge it or not.  For He holds the worlds that exist together under His will.  He owes us nothing, yet He gave us everything.”

“Tis true, tis very true,” Begglar shook his head, “But this needs to be asked before we move into the days ahead. Entitled travelers will make the road before us that much more difficult. It will get one of more of us killed. We mave to be able to rise above the difficulties of the moment. We have to work together, recognizing that our fellow travelers owe us nothing, but they owe The One everything and that is what will extend and strengthen the bonds we forge with each other.  In all things be thankful. That is how Nell, Dominic and I have survived under the occupation. If we cannot get these followers to understand that now, it is best we part company sooner rather than later.”

Finally, I broached the subject that it seemed both Begglar and I were avoiding. “So, have you learned anything more in all of your questioning?”

“I have,” Begglar was silent for a long moment, the tension returning immediately to his jaw, brow and lips.

“It’s her,” he said at last. “You will have to confront her, but you’ll need this sword to do it.”

I looked down at the weapon before us, saw its ornate carvings in a language I did not recognize. Saw a ribbon of red cloth, aged and dark-stained by sweat and blood.

“Why haven’t you already tried it?” I asked quietly. To which Begglar grunted, and placed a tentative hand on the hilt of the old sword.

“Many have tried to remove this blade and failed. Many much more stout than I even in my younger days.” Begglar patted the cross-bar tentatively. “No. This blade is held here for a far different reason than merely revealing the intentions and lifting the cloak of traitors.”

He raised his eyes to me, holding my gaze steadily, his hand resting on the hilt again.

“This blade is set here for one who is called to weild it for a specific purpose. It may very well be for the purpose you and I are even here in this Mid-World. I cannot free it from the terebinth’s grasp. A few years ago, I chanced to meet Jeremiah again, for he has remained in the Mid-World all of these years. I brought him here and he could not free it either.”

“What are you saying?” I rasped.

“That this sword has been waiting here for you to reclaim it. This is the second part of your Shibboleth test. You need to take up this sword.”

*Scene 03* 2:55 (Somewhere Below)

The darkness blinked. The shadows folded into solid form. Tons of the substrata-rock melted away, and a gaping mouth emerged. A feral gleam, sparked from a cobalt blue eye, sheathed behind a nictitating membrane that sloughed dust away from its surface with vibration and puffing jets of air, huffing out of a line of ducts hidden beneath a boney, metallic and barbed brow. The mismatched eyes of the tunneling beast, though seemingly skewed and oddly dissimilar, served a purpose unique to its particular mode of travel. One eye swept the field of the visible spectrum, the other saw into infrared and invisible fields with something akin to penetrating radar. One eye cast an invisible short wave of agitated radiation ahead of its sight path, the other acted as a receiver and picked up the bounce back like an undersea sonar mic, processing the feedback for vectoring. The cast of these rapid microbursts weakened the rock, as the beast rammed through it, engulfing scoops of its fragments, crushing the skree in monstrous jaws that crashed down upon the rubble like a hydro pneumatic press, pulverizing the shattered rock into powder and louvering and blowing the result out of air pressure baffles through gill-like slits that puffed and constricted like hardened bellows.

The beast had achieved the grade of the escarpment’s upslope, hollowing out it own path towards the precipice where its hidden agent’s feet had touched the upper surface for a brief time, leaving a barely discernable residue. Its sensory probing detected odd displacement cavities within the stacked rock ahead, that descended into vertical shafts and pits. A central shaft of fibrous material vertically penetrated the entrire rock strata, expanding spoke-like short branches into a series of stacked chambers, with porous stone floors and tunneled voids crossing the chambers. Angled tunnel chutes allowed material to slide and be pushed by gravity from pit to pit until fully separated and milled. This was both a natural and human construction devised to serve purposes that eluded the beast. Confusion prompted hesitation. It’s agent was no longer present on the surface of the upper ridge. It was now somewhere else. Somewhere lower.

*Scene 04* 4:09 (Unprotected)

The bruel’s fists were bloodied. As some point in the pitiless interrogation, the bruel had abandoned the hard leather strap and preferred to punctuate his questions with more direct contact. For the third time the old man had passed out and his tormentor could no longer get any coherent information out of him. He lay like a crumpled assemblage of flesh and bone, a slightly angular sack. The chair the old man had been seated in lay askew. Kicking the old man no longer brought him satisfaction. For over an hour, he had worked on him, but still could gain no further insight into where the inn keeper and his wife had gone. Jahaza would not be pleased.

Frustrated, the large man smashed the vacated chair across the hardwood table, flinging the splintered pieces into the roaring hearth fire. Sparks and ash coughed into the room and scattered fiery embers across the inlaid stone floor.

Two lifeless bodies, one a man, the other a woman, had been unceremoniously dumped onto the floor of the inn. Their slayers stood over them, brandishing their bloodied spears.

The broken door did little to keep out the wet and the wind of the outside storm.

“Is Aridam back yet?!” he turned growling.

“He’s just riding down from the backridge,” one of the dour men answered. “Should be here soon.”

The snort of a horse, the loud splash of pounding hooves, and the rumble of thunder preceded the sudden entrance of the man in question.

“Your late!” the head bruel barked.

“The storm makes it difficult to see, Hadeon,” the arriver retorted, shaking off the sheared wet from his oiled cloak.

“If there is nothing to see, why did you delay?!”

“I said it was difficult. Not impossible.”

“And…?”

“There is one of them on horseback. From the distance, I could not tell much, but out in this downpour,” he gestured back towards the canted door, “it could only be one of this man’s party.”

“Heading?”

“Northwest.”

The bruel pondered that a moment.

“Not much in that direction, except the old granary. I believe it is still in operation, but only during season.”

The bruel ground a fist into the palm of a leather glove he had just pulled back on to his other hand. “What interest would they have with the granary?”

He flexed his fingers into the glove and pulled on the other one over his bloodied knuckles. “No, I think they are taking the roundabout road down the highland pass. There is an old road there. It joins the road to the stench armory of Azazel, but passes through grain fields below into the Jezreel valley.”

“Should we ride out into the storm?”

“No,” the bruel answered, glaring into the crackling fire.

“No?”

“We will as soon as the storm abates. Take your ease, boys. Let this rain pass. The worst of it must be over by now. I want this place burned down. Set fires in the straw of the stables. Burn the barns. We will give this errant inn keeper no place to return to. His former life is over, now that he has inconvenienced us. Slaughter his stock. We will catch up to them soon enough. The dogs will find them out on the open road. Unprotected.”

*Scene 05* 14:43 (The Bloodline Oath)

Gratitude. There has always been something so powerful about it. Choosing that mindset is an act of obedience to the will of The One. (1 Thes. 5:18)

The language of gratitude is more akin to the mysterious speech of Excavatia than any other language spoken by mankind. Those who speak it, cannot remain bound to the threat of their circumstance no matter in what situation they find themselves. Gratitude is the language of blessing and success. The mainstay of the patriarchs and matriarchs of faith. The content of the voices of the heavenly hosts experiencing The Presence within The Kingdom of Excavatia.

It is so easy to slip and fall out of it. To choose to see the storm and the waves, rather than the rays of light that assure us of our Hope. The blue gleam on the horizon I had seen together with Miray while standing along the Hill of Skulls had almost completely escape my mind. The Praesporous Stone. The evidence was there, even though others had failed to see it. Hope is only visible to those committed to seeking it. Those who pant after it as a running deer thirsts and seeks to be refreshed by the cool waters of a hidden stream.

I had another reason to be grateful. The very fact that both Miray and I saw the gleam together was a gift and an assurance, even as much as witnessing the Golden Letters on The Marker Stone within the Hill. Both assured me that I was purposed to be here, even standing before Begglar as I was, directed towards taking and wielding this mysterious sword.

I swallowed hard, putting my hands tentatively on the hilt of the sword, sensing my own apprehension rising.

“I have not put my hand to a sword in so long,” I whispered.

Begglar nodded gravely.

“I remember your words,” Begglar grunted, “You nearly swore never to take up one again.”

I raised my eyes and focused on his serious experession.

“And yet, here I am.”

“Here you are…,” Begglar agreed. “Too often words we speak in haste are regretted in leisure. Think clearly about what you are called to do now. I cannot fully express to you how much depends on what you choose to do with this moment.”

“You are not making this any easier, you know.”

“It is not an easy thing. I cannot make it more or less so,” Begglar answered gravely.

“So what happens if I cannot lift it from this root that binds it? You say both you and Jeremiah have tried and failed, yet both of you are stronger than I.”

“Aye, us and many others. Xarmnians included.” Begglar acknowledged.

I touched the right crossbar of the handle, and slowly placed my other hand on the left bar. I moved in closer to the verticle blade, preparing to use both my arms and legs to pull the blade up and out. My feet found two flat stones on either side of the curved root.

Closing my eyes, taking slow and deep breaths I clasped the crossbar and jerked upward, my arms flexing, my thighs and calves shaking with the effort of the pull. I pulled and attempted to wrench the blade, wanting to loosen it in the wood by attempting to torque the blade. I pulled and pulled, my neck muscles corded and straining with the effort until I could bear it no longer.

Suddenly, I released the crossbar, the metal of it had left its imprint in the backs of my finger and in the palms of my hand. “I can’t…I can’t…,” I huffed, gasping for breath, feeling a dark pit open up in my stomach. “I’m sorry…I am so sorry.” I panted, falling back from the blade. I crumpled to my knees, fealing weakened by the effort I expended.

Begglar’s expression was dour and furrowed by worry.

“That is where we all failed, O’Brian. Might cannot raise the blade. At one point even a team of horses were harnessed to this sword and could not do more than strain the tethers and scar the ground. But there is a verse that later came to my mind, and I have often wondered about it. Perhaps it is not might or strength that is required here.”

Catching my breath, I felt my mind reaching for words that did not come from me, but through me and to my lips.

“Not by might,…nor by power,…but by My Spirit…” (Zechariah 4:6b), I mumbled between gasps.

“Aye. That very one,” Begglar assented.

I shakily rose to my feet, placing my hands on my thighs above my knees, gathering my breath and strength.

“Are you certain it is I who should lead this group?” I asked, not yet ready to look up at him. “Most of these suspect that I am not suited for the job. Very few have given me their names. They are not committing to anything, because I may seem to be unreliable. I doubt myself too much.”

Begglar folded his arms, “And well you should,…” I raised my head to see his eyes. “…if that is all you are placing your trust in,” Begglar concluded.

Begglar opened his arms, raising his shoulders in a concurrent shrug. “Why should they commit themselves to a role in this quest, if you will not commit to your role in it. Doubt yourself, fine. Your ability and efforts are not what is needed here. Just your willingness to be obedient to The One who brought you back here. To this place and this Joshua moment.”

“Joshua moment?” I queried standing erect again, looking at the sword once more.

“Choose you this day, whom you will serve…,” (Joshua 24:15) Begglar began.

I nodded, and completed a latter part of the verse he alluded to, “…but as for me and my house…” I trailed off, taking a full stand as I did so, again approaching the sword and placing my feet on either side of the flat stones near the pierced root of the terebinth tree.

Begglar moved forward to join me at the sword, facing me on the other side of it. His eyes searched my face, seeking evidence of what, I did not know.

“Are you ready to commit to this fully?” he asked in a low voice. “To quit looking for someone else to take this role?”

I exhaled and raised my eyes, looking up the massive trunk of the terebinth tree and the large branches that extended outward, high above us. I closed my eyes for a moment, mentally releasing all of the tension and fears I had been feeling into the high arms of the symbolic tree, mouthing a silent prayer aksing for forgiveness for my doubting.

I felt a calm come over me, and then was able to open my eyes and again look directly at Begglar. “I will need lots of help in this.”

Begglar’s expression softened, and a bit of mirth ticked at the edges of his lips and eyes, “Of course, you will. I havna doubt of that. And I must ask you again, O’Brian. What are ye thankful for?”

I extended my hands and placed them again on the crossbar of the sword handle, noticing at that moment how the crossbar was in someway similar to the two extended branches in the large tree above. “I am grateful and thankful for second chances,” I said.

Begglar reached down and took up the red sash, and began to stretch the scarlet ribbon out and loop it over my wrists.

“Do ye know what this red sash signifies?” he asked me in a conversational low voice.

I shook my head.

“This is called a lifeline,” Begglar continued, “The hilt of the sword is burnished gold and it forms a golden cross to grip the hammered and polished steel of the blade.  The red sash is symbolic. It represents a stream of shed blood from Immanuel’s veins. The wielder of this kind of sword is expected to wrap the sash around his or her forearm and bind it to themselves so that the sword might never be lost in battle.  It was to be fixed to the hand and arm that bore it forth.  The sword only falls when its bound bearer falls. Hence it is a blade that falls one when the life of the one who bears it is taken. But this too is a ceremonial sword, and not merely a battle sword. These swords, in peaceful times, were much more ornate ceremonial swords and they gleamed and shone with polish. this one had seen battle: Several conflicts from the look of it.  Its metal is burnished from handling, its blade notched and nicked in places, yet solid. You can see its inlaid designs are obscured by age and use but reticent of a spatha blade. There are still some worthy rituals that have survived antiquity here. These represent a worthy practice long since lost on the current warring factions of this sub-world.  Honor swords were used for swearing fealty, bestowing knighthood, and binding a person’s word to their promised future deeds.  With an honor sword, two parties are to stand facing each other and place their hands upon each end of the cross-guard. Then they sware an oath of commitment to each other which is binding to death if not mutually released by a similar ceremony.  The honor sword was to be used against the person who broke the commitment to the oath they had given with their hands placed upon it just so. If the persons were also committing their posterity to the same oath given. That is why the sash is traditionally called The Bloodline.

The Bloodline sash was to be wrapped around the hands of both parties swearing the oath together are they placed their hands on each side of the cross-guard.  This was called The Bloodline Oath.  Once entered into, there is no mutual agreement that could ever dissolve this kind of oath, even if both parties mutually consent to the dissolution of the pact.  Bloodline Oaths are permanent and irrevocable.  Bloodline oaths extend beyond the grave.

As I am a witness to what we together are committing to, I am bound to place my hand on this sword as well. Are you willing to be bound to this sword and to the quest you have been called to lead in observance of The Marker Stone?”

I took a deep breath, and nodded slowly, sobered to the gravity of what we were doing.

“Empowerment does not precede commitment, in The One’s way of doing things, it follows it. This is borne out in The Ancient Text. You must commit to this before you will ever be empowered to do it. Surrender precedes action. Will you now surrender your self-doubt and allow yourself to be directed by The One who calls you to this role and task?”

“I will.”

Begglar extended his hand and grasp the other end of the cross-guard, and with his free hand wrapped the remaining length of the Bloodline sash around his own wrist and hand, joining both of our hands to the binding of the sword.

“Then I, as your friend and witness, and the onlookers of our family and party standing as our witnesses in the field beyond, do commit to you to carry out the charge and responsiblity represented by our oath together, to pursue this Stone quest into whatever fate and end it might lead us. Do you also agree and bind yourself to this?”

“I do.”

“That being the case,” Begglar reached forward again and began to unwind the red sash from his own wrist, but left the sash bound to mine, “may I suggest that you take hold of the handle of this sword properly as one who would wield it, rather than one who would heft it out of the root, to see may follow.”

With the length of the sash given additional slack to my wrist, I then release the cross-guard and turned my hand into the handle. The hilt seemed to move into my grasp even as I closed my fingers around it, and in one fluid motion the blade slide cleanly out of the root of the terebinth tree, and the metal flashed for a brief second clearing the blade of tarnish and age before it gleamed as newly polished steel.

Suddenly, Begglar reached out and gripped my shoulder, his eyes widening and I mistook his surprised look as a natural reaction to what had happened to the sword.

“O’Brian,” he said, looking beyond me, “We need to get out of this river bed, and fast.”

“Why?!”

He pulled my shoulder into a turn, and nodded down the riverbed back toward the escarpment and bridge ahead. “Look yonder.”

*Scene 06* 4:26 (The Tell)

Christie rode hard through the wind and wet, not exactly sure where she was headed, but she had some strange sense that she was going in the right direction. The land rolled in a series of small hills and declivities, finally curving around to the brow of a smallish-sized hill roughly twenty meters in height, and surrounded by briars and a series of thorny hedges. It peaked sharply and was covered within by small white flowers, making the hill appear like a massive bald skull. The rudimentary markings of a long unused road led up to the strange hill, with impressions that evidenced that it had only recently been used.

Despite the wetness of the ground, Christie was able to make out the track of wagon ruts and the trampled ground evidencing the prior presence of a team of horses. A collection of jagged boulders and slabs of limestone, lined the immediate base of the hill, as if the hill itself had thrusted up through the lower layers of rock, however, the outside border seemed more deliberately circular than a formation made through natural processes. The presence of the thorny hedge, implied that access to the hill was forbidden in some way. It was then that Christie realized that this place was no mere hill, but was a manmade construction. What some might call a ‘tell²‘.

A footpath, just outside of the prohibiting hedges, encircled the mound and Christie rode cautiously around it, looking for an hidden opening within the hedgeline. Something had drawn them here, and she felt that same inexplicable tug. Was this the place that Mister Brian kept referring to? The place of the Stone Marker? It had to be. But what was so important about this place?

They had all been here, she consoled herself. Recently, judging by the track and prints left behind. But where had they gone from here, she wondered. The wagon ruts were deeper than that of the horse prints, so she was certain the full company had piled into the conveyance. Yet, the ground hardened and became rocky in places, so she knew she would have to spend some time riding in widening circles to be able to pick up more of their trail.

The hill–this tell–was set upon a promontory and giving it a full range view of the western mountains and the darkening skies to the north. The storm’s strength had passed over her, but it seemed to be gathering further vehemence ahead.

It was almost as if the storm had deliberatly skirted this strange hill-lock, but regathered itself together again, as it blew in a northwesterly direction.

She cast glances to the north, feeling a forbidding unease judging by sight alone, but also a sense that she would have to follow the track wherever it led her, if she hoped to rejoin Brian and the others.

Coming around the circumference of the tell, she suddenly drew in a breath at the sight ahead of her and off to the west. The shadowy grey brow of distant mountains sawed the lightened edge of the horizon, but there again was the gleam of the mysterious blue light coming from somewhere up in the high eyries. The beam of it shone like a beacon across the sky, joining the far horizon to this mysterious tell mound, falling upon the surface of the mound, giving the white flowers a bluish cast, but centered upon a clearing of dirt which had formed a fanned tailing, around a gaping hole and the tall surface of bare stone within. Riding closer to the hedge for a better view, Christie realized that the stone bore some sort of writing upon its excavated surface.

She dismounted and tied her horse’s reins to a small thorny branch along the hedgeline, and climbed up on one of the granite boulders along the footpath to get a better look through the sloughed pit at the lettering.

The revealed face of the inner stone was a bright white, but had a bluish tint under the cyanotic beam.

These were not merely words, but names etched in large block letters.

A list of names she immediately recognized.

One of which, was her own.

*Scene 07* 24:33 (Pound of Flesh)

When Begglar turned me, for a few seconds, I had difficulty processing what I was seeing. The floor of the riverbed was rising. Above and down the regimented columns of trees, partially obscured by the overhanging branches, a cloud burst of white reached towards us with misty, fog-like fingers.

The basin in the channel was leveling up to the riverbanks, lifting the leaves and detritus under the inexorable plough of rising water.

Somehow, the sword had been the key that reopened the water locks that formerly fed this stream.

Begglar and I scrambled up the embankment, as the rising water poured into the area we vacated. Wet leaves swirled in the twisting eddies created by the forward push of the water along the banks. Sodden shelves of wet leaves pushed up onto the walls of the river, collecting in the rakes of extended roots from the arboreal regiments.

I swept up the sword that had for so long stood within the grove and riverbed, driving its waters into seasons of drought.

I carefully wound the red sash, called the Bloodline, further around my forearm and Begglar assisted me by weaving the excess it into a knotted braid, then tying it off.

We were still breathing hard as we watched the rising water find its way further through the streambed, gurgling along with a wet rumble, cascading over and slapping the gray stones and descending down its fanning watercourses towards the deeper, thirsty basins in the lower valley.

I gripped the sword firmly, having no present means of keeping it in a scabbard. Its heft was surprisingly light and its balance felt true and sure.  The hilt felt good in my hand, and the cross-guard did not impede the fluid rotation of my wrist.  From the pommeled cross-guard, the ornate, scroll-worked, rain-guard extended partway down the fuller of the double-edge blade, tapering in swoops to long solid edges that barely hissed through the air as I tested its feel and action.

Truly, it had been some time since I had held a sword.  As Begglar had alluded, at one point in my journey, I foreswore ever holding one again, but strangely, and perhaps, fortuitously, this sword suited me. The muscle memory of having trained and fought with one long ago came back as if awakening within me from some strangely familiar dream.

“This sword feels familiar to me, but I don’t think I have ever held its equal.” I shook my head clear and turned to Begglar. “Shall we join the others?”

“In a moment. We still need to talk about the one in among us who is not what it seems to be,” Begglar said, cautiously. My eyes swept up and down the blade of the sword as I answered, “It’s the dark-haired girl, Becca, isn’t it?”

It was said in more of a statement than a question.  My gaze moved from the blade and pivoted to Begglar.  He nodded slowly, then put his hand to his chin, absently tugging at his short beard while he spoke. “When my Nell told me, I did not want to believe it, but just now…”

“What did she say when you asked her the Shibboleth question?”

Begglar scratched the back of his head, fidgeting–still unnerved by the private encounter.  “She refused the question outright. It made her visibly angry that I would dare to ask it. She thought it was insensitive of me to do so.  Said as much.”

Begglar paused again, and then blurted, “But she was not satisfied to accuse me only.  She then shifted to you.  She accused you of terrible things.  Things I cannot repeat.  She said my Nell is covering for you.  She leveled those accusations at me as well.  She said that if we were looking for a threat we should take a harder look at you.  She said you were the last one to join them on the beach when they arrived.  That you seemed to arise out of nowhere, and no one saw you come through one of the portals.  She said that you were going to kill us all if someone didn’t listen to her.  She said if anyone should be grateful for anything, that we should all be grateful to her for being the only one willing to upset everyone by trying to reveal the uncomfortable truth.  She said that you would target her and accuse her because she is the only one who truly threatens your leadership.”

I was taken aback, “She said all that?”

“For a few moments, she was almost convincing,” Begglar eyed me, “Almost.”

He cleared his throat, “You know what is happening here.  She is eroding the chain of command.  Planting doubt and questioning you before we get further into it.  Planting nihilism.”

Begglar’s eyes fell to the sword in my hand, and to the wet glistening of the stream as it clarified and rippled along its deepening course, “Aye, that’s what she’s doing.”

“You seem unsettled.  She had to have said more than that to make you feel as you do.”

“Aye,” he nodded, “she did at that.”

“What makes you so sure about her?  There are a lot of the ungrateful who are not necessarily harboring an alter ego.”

Begglar assented, “There are those, and a greater number too, as they model the ingratitude of their parents.  Fit throwers, tattlers, and tantrum-mongers.  But this one is devious about it.  She drops a hint here, a suggestion there.  No one suspects her because she presents herself as a fair innocent child.  She is ingratiating.  That is why I am having such a hard time confronting her.  I see a child before me, but my mind tells me there is a monster there too.  I keep making excuses and doubting it, but I cannot shake the internal knowing.”

“The illusion is so strong, I understand.  But the truth must be brought out.”

“Aye, I know it.  But what it might do to others could be bad.  We are already less in number than we began with.”

“We must be careful.  Is there anything else, that makes you sure that the girl is not what she seems to be?”

“She avoided the question of what she was grateful for, and distracted me with her other disparaging statements regarding you, and when she assumed the conversation was over, I spoke The Name.”

I waited.  My heartbeat rose at what Begglar would say next.

“She’s the one.”

I let out a pent-up breath. No deceit can resist The Name being spoken here.  In the Surface World fools malign The Name, ignorant of its power.  But here…the darkness flees from the spoken Word of Light.

And speaking of darkness, the sky even now begins to grow bruised and angry.  Its grey clouds are blackening and swelling with wet purposes.  The winds are gaining strength, dispelling the calm of the false twilight.

We need to get the weapons, but the enemy in our midst must be exposed.

“Has she given you, her name?”

“We believe she is called Torla. Nell was able to find out the name from the wee red-headed one, though not directly. The child spoke in her sleep, the night you and the company arrived. She had no memory of the name when awake, but somehow the mental block is not as strong when she is half-asleep.”

Our band of travelers stood just beyond the copse watching the gathering storm roil and darken the clouds about, obscuring the distant mountains.  The storm would arrive soon.  The pressure in the air around us smelled of copper and wet lime, scents carried from the granite of the mountains in the distance.  Shadowy, evanescent, gossamer forms appeared to swim through the darkening thunderheads, coalescing and dematerializing out of the roiling mists.

“We had better get this over with.  Looks like the mists from the coastlines have found a way to come inland.  We need to get to shelter soon.”

Begglar and I turned and approached the group.  “We will need to get into the grain bins, under the escarpment.  The weapons cache is there.”

“You want be to confront her now?!”

“It is not going to get any easier if we wait.  Besides, sheltering with an enemy is not a good idea.”

Steeling my resolve, I adjusted my grip on the sword and cleared my throat, moving forward with a determined strive, approaching the young one who called herself “Becca”.  The girl had been standing just beyond the gathering, uncharacteristically sullen and quiet.  When she saw me approaching her, she stood with her feet apart, eyes narrowed, arms folded, hands fisted, chin raised in contempt with a defiant sneer on her face.

“So, you’ve got yourself a new toy to poke at us with!” she growled, one dark eyebrow arched like the back of a hissing cat.  I disregarded her challenge and went straight to the point.

“Torla,” I said, “I need to speak with you.”

My use of her name caught her by surprise.  For a moment she looked down, her forehead twitching, her eyebrows knitting together forming their own dark clouds for an oncoming storm.  When she finally raised her eyes to mine, and I saw seething hatred in them.

Begglar had backed the group off a bit, knowing this confrontation was about to get ugly.

“I did not give you my name,” she said in a measurably chilled voice which seemed strangely much colder than the moistening pre-storm air pressurizing around us, “Who gave it to you?  Was it the witch?!”

Becca cast hateful glares at Miray and Nell, starting towards them with murderous intent.

I stepped into her path, interdicting her intended assault route, but did not answer right away.  She hissed at me and glared at the sword in my hand.  The aspect on her visage as she moved threateningly towards me, no longer seemed so much like a small innocent girl.  “Are you gonna cut me, big man?  Wanna let them all see you make me bleed?!  Show them you’re the fearless hero, by threatening a little girl with your pointy stick?!”

Her brows continued to furrow, and as she moved closer, I could see there was some scar line forming on her forehead, running down between her cheek and her nose cleaving her upper lip and running to her chin.

“Wound me, big man!  Wouldn’t that be a sight to see, huh?!  Cut me down in front of them and they will never forget the image of you doing it!  Never!!”

The growing wind tugged at her raven hair and whipped it about as if each strand suddenly gained a writhing life of its own.

I held my ground, and my lack of response further fueled her fury.

“Who gave it to YOU!” her fingers had become claw-like, and she raked angrily at the air, with each hissing syllable.

With a swiping motion, she reached forward into the air and with a palpably-felt yank, pulled some invisible cord mysteriously tied to me, lunging forward and shrieking, “GIVE IT BACK!”

Suddenly, as if I had been struck a hammer blow, I felt a searing pain in my forehead, and I staggered forward, temples pounding.  My vision blurred as I sagged to my knees, wincing under the pain of a severe migraine.  Silent flashes of light appeared before my eyes, nausea washed into the pit of my stomach, and I swooned.

Through tears gathering in my eyes, I struggled to clear my mind, “the girl, what was her name…?  Why can I not remember it?  It was just there…  What is happening to me?”  I felt bile rising in my throat, as the girl approached, seeming much larger than she should be.  My eyes burned and blurred, “Can this be real?”

The others had backed further away from the confrontation, unable to believe the transformation they were witnessing.  This was no longer a girl.  That illusion was far gone.  The wildness of the girl-thing’s hair formed a mad twisting curling inky and silvering nimbus about her head, and her once blue eyes had blackened to the color of the approaching storm.  Teeth once small, even, and straight were now broken and yellowed with age as her jaw slackened and her breathing became an audible prelude to the high-pitched, ear-splitting keening that followed.  The shrieks were terrible, prolonged, and gathered weight in the air, and the whole party fell to the ground as if a blast of destructive energy released a pressure wave with each terrible shriek.

This Torlah thing might have made good on her challenge if she had been able to maintain her composure and visage as a little girl, but now that illusion was breaking away in her raging.

I felt the sword still in my hand, the bloodline coiled around my forearm, holding me to it and my commitment to see this quest through.  I now knew what she was.  This being disguised as a little girl was a monster of a particular kind.  This was Begglar and our former party had called a Banshee.  A mixed creature of the wind with a body spawned by some form of a dragon.  It suddenly all made sense.  The swirling storm mix of dark wraith-like incorporeal forms overhead, the rage of the girl mirrored by the coming rage of the maelstrom.  Our situation could only worsen if whatever dragon had baked this harried form into the girl’s image came upon us out in the open.  Dragon fog seeded the storm, infusing within it the ability to cloud thoughts and fade memory.  Somehow the fogs, usually relegated to the seafront, were comprised of living colonies of malicious entities.  But the dragon’s reach had installed within our company one of its own, not reliant on the limitations of its sentient fogs alone.

My fingers felt wet wrapped loosely around the hilt of the honor sword. With a deliberate effort, I closed my fingers and held to it.  My hands and arms felt completely numb, but despite that, I felt encouraged.  If nothing else, this early threat at the start of the quest assured me that we were already following the correct course of action.  In a voice that I barely recognized as my own, I spoke the Shibboleth question again, to dispel any doubts.  “What are you grateful for?”

The keening ceased, but the echoed ringing of it did not.  The being, now revealed as a monster stood before us in the darkening twilight. Her form was dappled in roving shadows, but I could see that her face now bore cracks in it, as if she was composed of the dust of a dried lakebed.  No further illusion of the beautiful child remained.  The creature’s blackened eyes were now icy with a glaze of cataracts.  The illusion of clothes gave way to ghostly tatters of rag and old soiled cloth and gossamer spider webs.  The blond hair was now gray and white with streaks of black in it.  Her face was the face of a million nightmares.

In a sinister twist, belying her looks, the mellifluous voice of the little girl we all had shared a brief part of the journey with came from the chapped and cracked lips of the crone before us, “I have no idea what you are asking me, bloody man. There is nothing to be grateful for here or anywhere else.  Murderers cannot lead.  This cruel joke is on you all.  And you all will soon die here.  Mark my words.  This man will lead you to your deaths the same as he did those who were with him before.”

I felt an abatement from nausea and a lessening from the throbbing headache that threatened to curl me around my pain into a fetal helpless position.  The pommel of the sword brushed my wrist and the sash connecting me to it, felt warm and somehow reassuring.

I did not address her dire prediction because I would not put the power of the idea into her hands, but I felt the words come that this creature did not want to be spoken and could not refute.  I spoke The Name.  And added, “Where He is, there is always hope, and our lives are held in the palm of His hand to do with as He wills according to the calling, He has given.  Your threats have no power here.”

This monster-being visibly wilted under my spoken words, descending to her knees.  Her swirling hair obscured her malignant scowl.  Strength was returning to my legs, and slowly I found my way back up to my feet.

Begglar was near me, trying to say something to me, but the ringing in my ears dulled my ability to hear him.  He sounded as if he was speaking through water, and I was several feet down below the waves.  The growing wind from the oncoming storm completed the effect mimicking the crashing noises of waves driven by a storm surge.  Attempting to focus, I believed I could just make out his words…something like…“ward”… “fjord”… “much the bored”… “crutch her with the…”… “…SWORD!

Suddenly it came together.  “Touch her with the sword!” he was saying.  The honor sword.  I need only to touch her with it.

I lifted it, and strength and clarity returned…as did the name she did not want me to know.  Her name.  Torla.  But something in my inner spirit kept me from saying her name out loud again.  A verse from the Ancient Text sprang to my mind:

“For who is God except the LORD? Who but our God is a solid rock? God arms me with strength, and he makes my way perfect. He makes me as surefooted as a deer, enabling me to stand on mountain heights. He trains my hands for battle; he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.” [Psalm 18:31-34 NLT]

I brought the honor sword up with me as I rose to my feet.  Seeing the sword raised, the Banshee howled and scrambled away like a scuttling spider, her joints bending at odd angles, dust powdering her frantic steps.

Begglar rose to his knees, again shouting above the wind, “You need only touch her with the sword, lad.  She is made of dust.  You’ll see.”

I nodded and walked towards her, the growing wind howling around us, skeletal branches of the trees clacked and snapped as I leaned against the savage chilled gusts seeming to prevent my approach.  The nightmare face glared and hissed at me; her cataract eyes seem to glow with a sickening greenish light.  Her jaw slackened and seemed unhinged as she filled what passed for lungs with another keening wail.  My ears still rang from the first cacophonous assault, but I held my ground wincing in anticipation of the next one.  From the corner of my vision, I could see the others covering their ears, and curling up on the ground, bracing for the onslaught.

It came, but not as the first did.

There was mocking laughter in it.  Derision, scorn, and contempt.  A vile, brothy, stew of vitriol, accompanied by a putrid stench.  My gag reflex threatened to cripple me again, but I drew strength from the honor sword in my grasp, the bloodline wrapped securely to my forearm binding me to my Word.

The hag was within striking distance, and I struck her through the noise storm with the flat of the blade.

Ribbons of dust swirled about us, peeling the semblance of flesh and bone from the creature.  A whirlwind spun and lifted into the wind and circled us, grating us with sandy grit, yet spiraling off as the storm winds pulled it up into the swirl of the angry sky.

The Banshee hag was dissolving, rags dissipating into frayed threads, hair flying loose and balding the skull-like pate of her forehead.  Her screech folded into the howling of the winds, yet before the mouth was gone, she spoke these few chilling words: “I will find you again, O’Brian.  You will bleed for this.”

And then, the hiss and grate of her searing words were gone as the corporeal form she once occupied exploded like dead wind-blown leaves.  The fragments swirled away and dissolved into the blasts of dust that abraded us joining with the twisting vortex that tore and pulled at the limbs and branches of the swaying trees in the grove. Begglar and Dominic took my hand and Nell helped others to their feet as we scurried through the storm seeking shelter.  Rain began to fall in heavy, wet thudding drops that beat upon our heads and drenched our clothing.  A cry erupted from the distance to our left and we all turned at once to the direction of it, thinking that somehow the Banshee had returned seeking her owed pound-of-flesh.

*Scene 01* 8:00 (Pull of The Stones)

In the inner storeroom, beneath the upper levels of the granary, Begglar and I continued our conversation in earnest.

His face was grave and his countenance sober and disturbed.  The dire implication of the moving Builder Stones was one I had not anticipated in coming back to The Mid-World.  When the factions formed between the Mid-World kingdoms, tensions were exacerbated when their Builder Stones locked down.

“How many of the twelve stones have been impacted?”

Begglar huffed, “We believe it affected all of them, though we cannot be sure about Capitalia.  It is too remote and on the far side of the Walls of Stone mountains.  Their stone could even now be cutting its way through the mountains, but we have no way of knowing that for sure.  It has been many years since the Capitalians have come on this side of their massive gates.  Agents could be riding quietly in these lands, but they would do so unannounced.  You know how the others feel about them.  But there is no reason to believe that their stone was not affected as well.”

“How do you know this?” I countered, my uneasiness causing my voice to quaver.

“We have our people.  They have seen some very mysterious things.  You know how the kingdom leaders are when it comes to the stones.  They suspect some kind of sorcery.  Accounts from one kingdom to the next vary, but all are consistent on the timing.  Best we can account, it started happening on the first day of Sukkot, a historic feast day of temporary shelters.  On that day, twenty-one years ago, all building ceased.  The stones once light as an ash pumice stone, suddenly fell from the hands of their bearers.  They seemed to gain the weight of all the quarried stones they had borne in the building of each of the stone cities.  Arms bearing them were wrenched out of their sockets.  Some had their feet crushed beyond repair.  All those unfortunate enough to be carrying the stone at the time suffered some injury or maiming.  Some were at rest in the citadel treasuries upon pedestals that were summarily crushed to powder, as the stones crashed to the ground unable to be raised by the might of men or any device which was contrived to try to lift them once more.  Rumors spread, and the talk in the holding kingdoms reached the outer lands, until the lords of each realm agreed to meet upon neutral ground near the Capitalian stone gates, near the Walls of Stone Mountain Range in the Kidron valley.  Each kingdom suspected the others.  It was a tense few days.  Armored men were cordoned off in encampments bristling with weaponry and raw nerves.”

“There is a narrowing channel through that one passable valley.  Military soldiers were forced to narrow their ranks columns as the envoys met in the grounds where the old annual festivals were once held in times past.  When each of their representatives realized that what was happening to the stone of one kingdom was happening to all, they were first suspicious that one kingdom, might be in league with The Pan and its bizarre kinds.  That some witchcraft had arisen out of his shadowy moon kingdom, for none of his kind had been invited to the counsel, for reasons that should be obvious.

But The Pan is a suspicious one.  He has his creature agents make note of any large gathering of mankind.  Especially when it involves rival kingdoms.  He knows one day man will again move against him.  He stands to rest easy when the kingdoms of men are divided.  One or two kingdoms moving against him are not enough to succeed and he knows it.  But when all gather, that is something else altogether and he is poised to rouse his dark ones against such.

The Pan has never been one to share power or bind itself to a treaty.  Emissaries have tried in the past, but it wasn’t until the emergence of trolls coming from among the kingdoms of men, that The Pan has ever agreed to hold counsel with an envoy, without them being beaten, pursued or eaten.  The Pan has always hated mankind.  It is an unreasonable and unnatural hatred.  The sight of a human seems to enrage it.  When The Pan finally encountered a troll among a troop of men, it was the first time it and its hybrid minions allowed that company to live.  He was intrigued by the changes in the unfortunate being.  For some reason he calls them human frogs.  Seems quite pleased with these recent mockeries of humankind.  So much so that he agreed to grant counsel to mankind, only if it was conducted through emissaries of the troll kind.  That is why Xarmni has gathered to itself a community of their loathsome kind.  They are cultivated as spies and brokers between the kingdom of The Half-Men and the Xarmnian monarch.  The Xarmnians hope to be the first to secure an understanding with The Pan and his creatures.  To secretly understand what conjuring power The Pan might be using to arrest the kingdom stones.  Xarmni seems to be the only realm with a subcommunity of trolls within their midst, so the other kingdoms have grudgingly agreed to let Xarmni lead in this discovery.  But they suspect the Son of Xarm may not be as forthcoming with whatever he finds out through his troll envoys.  Other kingdoms have tries to follow the trolls on their missions into the moon kingdom, but The Pan seems to know that others not of troll kind are following, and these have all been taken captive and killed.  Only troll kind are allowed passage into and out of the realms of The Pan, and only those men or women a troll vouches for, will live to tell the tale.  It wasn’t until a few months ago that the stones of each kingdom began to move of their own accord.  Xarmni has not reported much to the other kingdoms.  Each is growing impatient.  They suspected The Pan had found a way to wield The Cordis Stone he took from you and Caleb to cause the effect in their stones, but now that their stones are on the move, they suspect that The Son of Xarm has not been straight with them about all he knows.  They are gearing up for battle.  Each kingdom is preparing to annihilate and enslave one another.  The truce has broken.  They are each following the movements of their stones.  Their anger grows with each mile their stones gain day by day.”

“What have they seen?”

“Every city is different, but they are essentially the same when it comes to those stones.  When not in use, they all kept them locked up and heavily guarded as a matter of sacred ritual.  The Xarmnians kept their stone in the Citadel vault, on the stone pedestal.  You knew they had even begun worshipping it.”

*Scene 02* 8:00 (Anchored in Awareness)

I shook my head in amazement, “How have you and Nell endured this paganism and the constant shadow of threat all this time?  The Xarmnians have been hunting you for piracy, yet you live out here under their noses, still operating as a pirate of sorts.  Why did you choose to remain here when you could have gone back to the Surface World at any time?”

“What do you mean, and leave my Nell here?  Alone? With them?” Begglar grunted.

I winced, “I know, I know there’s that.  But we are of that other world, and I am not sure it was wise to make ties here when we belong there.”

“That is not entirely true.  A part of us belongs here and you know it.  But staying away as long as you did, perhaps that has taken an awareness from you.  Be that as it may, something made you return.  A part of you knew we have unfinished business here.  In fact, if we don’t keep an awareness of here, and especially of Excavatia, then we are entirely useless living back there in the Surface World.  In whatever world you chose to remain the most in, there you are most vulnerable to what seeks your destruction.  Danger exists in both worlds since they are the most in the parallel nexis.  The Surface World is the place where your true sense of self lives in the most fog.  While there is danger here, there is more clarity than back in the Surface World.  Living here I do not lose the awareness but sharpen it, and I can still catch a glimpse of the shoreline of the home we all seek to be part of.”

“Yes, but the dangers here are real too,” I countered. “The Xarmnians will most certainly torture and kill your family, your wife, and son, and it would then only be a mercy if they kill you too.  Death guilt is not an easy burden to bear.  It crushes you and steals purpose away from you.  It overshadows everything you hope to accomplish hereafter.  Afterward, you are merely a shell, a dead man walking.”

“Then don’t carry it,” Begglar grunted.

“That’s easy enough for you to say now, while you still have Nell and Dominic under your care,” I groused.

“O’Brian, this is why, if given me own choice in the matter, you would’ve been the last one I would choose to lead this renewal of the Stone Quests.”

“I don’t follow,” I said looking away around the storeroom.

“And that is my point.  You cannot lead if you don’t follow.  The lives of others are not your burden to bear.  It is too much for any man.  It is a burden that can only be borne by The One.  You once knew that.  Jeremiah did too, but you’ve both forgotten it.  Life and death are not in your hands.  The safest place in the world is in following that Voice that seeks you…” he said tapping my chest with two fingers, “…in here.”

I met his hard gaze and faltered a bit.

“You ask me how I remain here, and knowing what I once was, you know I must answer you in seaman’s terms because it is the same way I knew my ship would be where I left it when we set ashore.  We set our anchor.”

“Your anchor?”

“I am anchored in the awareness of the Almighty.  I keep that awareness here,” he tapped his own breast with the same two fingers he had used to tap me, “…always.  The Xarmnians expect to find a seaman.  Instead, they see a baker.  An Innkeeper. The Xarmnians expect to find a brawny man.  Instead, they see a man who has sampled more of his baked goods, than he ought to ‘ave.  The Xarmnians expect to find a man hiding and on the run.  Instead, they see a man running a prominent small business in a town on the far end of the high country.  They expect to see a man of the waters, not a man of the fields.  It is all these expectations that blind them to what we’ve been right in front of them.  Their expectations cloud their vision because they are too proud to really see outside of their own perspectives.  This is the problem of all mankind.  Hubris.  We are too wedded to our own perspectives that we fail to see what is true, even if it stands before us.”

Begglar’s words were deep waters, and I knew if I waded too far into them, they would be over my head, but they could not be ignored either.

 At last, I said, “Anchored in the Almighty, huh?

“Aye,” Begglar nodded, “Tis madness to set to the seaport in any other harbor.”

Tentatively, I touched the shoreline of Begglar’s argument.

“How can I lead, if I don’t take responsibility for those who follow my leadership?”

“O’Brian, this is not about avoiding responsibility, but about assessing how best that responsibility may be carried so that you can have the freedom to move forward into the leadership for which you were called.  The One’s purposes are not achieved by following the course of a man’s reasoning.  In fact, that is the very thing that will most ensure the leader will fail in anything The One calls them to.  It is not about your capability, but about His.”

The illusion of shallow waters was dispelled, as the realization affirmed what I felt the Inner Voice had been telling me in gentle whispers all along.  My own fears and failings kept the soil of my heart in a gravel mix of stone and earth.  Now the tendrils of the roots in Begglar’s words began to penetrate deeper and curl into the dark earth beneath.

“You must drop your anchor, O’Brian.  Else you will drift about and find yourself in the breaker rocks.  It may sound counter to what one expects, but The One’s ways are higher than ours.  To move forward into your purpose, you must lower your anchor into His moving.  It is an undercurrent that does not register in the surface waters, but when you find His flow, then you will find yourself secure and those who follow you in that will also be secure because of it.  Your ability to lead depends greatly on your choice to follow.  This places the responsibility in His flow, and not in the set of your own sails.”

Quietly, I whispered, “What if I miss His guidance?”

“Courage is not the absence of fear but doing what is right in the face of it.  Fear will always be a headwind.  Whether it influences you or not, depends on the set of your sails and where you cast your anchor.  The anchor will tow you along following The One’s undercurrent, and you handle the captain’s wheel loosely, allowing your vessel to roll and pitch in the tow, letting the headwinds slip through the slack in your sails.  If you catch the headwind in a gathering sail, the ship will yaw and tilt and may swamp you.  Let the headwinds slip past the sail, but do not gather it, because it will resist the towing of your anchor.”

Fear.  He was talking about fear as wind.  The seaman’s images were not lost on me.  Instead, they affirmed me and showed me the truth of what was holding me back.

I sighed, knowing that I needed to embrace all that Begglar was saying, but still feeling some struggle to do so.  Knowing the truth is one thing, embracing it by setting your hands and feet to move into it was something else.

“So, what are we doing down here?  Why did you bring us here?”

Begglar reached down and placed his hands on the top of a wooden iron bounded barrel.

“Help me move this, will ya?”

“What’er we doing?”

“Just help me and you’ll soon find out.”

The barrel was short but thick, and it was very heavy and seemed to be filled with rocks or something that caused it to be of great weight.  We rocked it to a canted tilt and then I helped him roll it upon its staves until it was three to four feet further into the corner of the small storage room.

The walls were made of joined timber, shaved down for uniformity until they could be joined together in an even seam along the way.  Because this storage area and the subsequence rooms were cut into the ground beneath the threshing floor, the walls were thick and packed against the ground in which they provided the substructures.  As the weight of the mounds and piles of grain pressed down on the floor above, the crushed earth filled in and pressed against the substructure timbers and sealed the area off against the seasonal weather keeping these vaults dry and cool for perennial storage.  The air in the vaults, though a little stale from being sealed, was neither musty nor wet, which made it perfect for its use as storage for perishables.

Begglar had crawled down on the floor and with a small, metal instrument was prying loose one of the floorboards.  I bent down and helped him, and we set it aside.  He reached into the dark oblong cavity and tugged at a rope in the darkness until some hidden catch was released.  Then he carefully set the displaced floorboard back into its groove and thumb-pressed a wooden dowel pin back into place to secure it.  He stood up.  Brushed himself off and commenced to drag rolling the barrel back over the spot in which we had displaced it only moments ago.  I assisted him until got it done.  I followed him out of the storeroom and he pulled the planked door and leather latch shut over the set pin closing the room once more.

“Now to the weapons,” he said.

“The weapons are here?”

“Above us.  In the grain pits.  I had to release the locking pin mechanism first.  But we’ve a little weeding out to do, before we uncover them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The monster,” he said, turning.  “We’ve got to root out the monster in our midst with the Shibboleth test and, living here all these years waiting for your return, and seeing the Honor Sword show up in that dried streambed out there, I’ve learned just the way to do it.”

“How?”

Begglar looked hard at me, and then grumbled, “What makes you think I will not have to put you through the test as well?  You’ll find out when the others do.  Gather them together and lead them down the streambed to the sword.  I will address each of you privately there.  One by one.  You will be last.”

“And afterwards…?  To the weapons cache?”

“We will see what happens.”

*Scene 03* 10:40 (Edge of The Escarpment)

On the upper edge of the plateau where Begglar’s wagon and team of horses rested just beyond the edge of the escarpment and the slanted taper onto the descending roadway, the group of Surface World travelers milled about stretching their legs and looking to the west where the lands descended into a chain of hanging valleys and stepped plains. A golden grain field edged the base of the winding cut-row carved into the longer side of the plateau.

It stood to reason that over time the spilled grain seed being separated and milled would be caught and carried by the drafts passing through the hill cleft of the granary and might inadvertently reseed the plain to the leeward side of the hill. The happenstance of this reseeding process appeared useful to the Xarmnian land managers, and they ordered the locals to use their teams of oxen to plow and harrow the rolling plain beneath the escarpment for convenience. Colluvial chutes were carved and chiseled down the rockface of the cliffside. In the areas where the descending roadways impeded these channeled colluvial chutes, the road was cut away and short bridges were built to allow the emptied wagons to cross the bridge while the flowing granules passed under the bridgeways on their descent to the floor of the grain field.

Some of the seeding, not picked up by the winds were shoveled into the lower grain bins that were carved into the catcher pits at the base of the escarpment. These pits and caves were the covered and sealed by large thick ironbound wooden doors, that rests on rollers and were opened and closed by a winch and drum rig located within a hidden grotto stable. The stable was also carved out along base below a shelf of the escarpment to allow rested, fed, and readied horse stock the proximity to assist in the effort to capture the mounds of spillage and draw the grain back into the storage caves and bins.

The winding road angling down the length of the long-edge of the plateau with four switchbacks passes ending down near the open gates of the cave stables. Only the emptied wagons used this switchback descent. Loaded wagons of grain approached the granary hillock from its eastern side and made their way up the longer and more gradual lower-grade slope, while the emptied wagons then were driven down the winding cut-road to assist in the field harvesting and the transport of cut sheafs for the Xarmnian grain fields below. The leeward side of the granary hill was pale and, by sight alone, did not appear to be the same form of dark granite that made up the rest of the hill.

Five of the travelers stood with Dominick, looking down the long-edge of the hill to the winding roadside and the wind rippling grain fields at the base approximately one-thousand feet below.

A young woman asked, “Why is this side of the hill white? And those fields. Such an amazing transition from white to distant green. Why is that?”

“Grain dust,” Dominick, answered, “The granary operation does it. The winds catch the ground chaff, but it also catches the flour that comes from the crushing and separation. It forms clouds of powder, and the downside of the hill is dusted with it. When the winds get particularly high, some of the grain kernels are caught too. Much of the kernels fall down the colluvial chutes and are carried down to the berm, but the milled flour is sifted, and the pass-through winds shears out of the stone breaks.”

“Dominick, is it?” the young woman said, eyeing him with a sidelong glance, not turning her head.

“Aye.”

“My name is Lindsey,” she said simply.

Dominick smiled to himself, still observing the far distance but not the landscape alone. Perhaps there was more hope for this quest than he had first thought. The travelers were softening.

The sky was gray with billowing clouds, gathering rain that had only briefly spilled and spattered before, but were now swirling with a darkening heaviness that portended a great deal more of it to come.

A teen girl, who had been listening to them, observed solemnly, “Is that why the roads seem to glow?”

“Aye, same reason,” Dominick nodded, “The wagons carry and shake some of it off as they drive away to the west there to reach the main road, but most of the wagons circle the hillside until the end of the workday. The wagon drivers are almost ghost white by the end of the day. The grain dust cakes everything. The grain fields seem to be pale perennially. They are only green during the midseason. Near harvest they become white again. See those rain clouds, yonder?”

The watchers nodded.

“After the rainfall, that field will be rinsed from much of the powder. If there is green in the stalks and leaves, the nearer end of those fields will become pale green. Unfortunately, the flour dust coats the plants and prevents much of the sunlight from getting to the leaves, so the prospect of rain is always a welcome sight. If the rains are frequent enough during the growing season, it will yield a better harvest. For that reason, the farthest ends of those fields yield more of the grain since the dust doesn’t carry that far.”

A taller man, who had been observant and quiet spoke up. “My name is James. I am sorry for the snide remark one of the others made about your father’s wagon. You’ve done a great deal here with what you had. This system is more sophisticated than I could have imagined, and you seem to know considerable more about it than even you’ve shared with us.”

“Aye,” Dominick responded quietly, “We learn as we find. Me mother’d see this below as a lesson connected with how a new life should be lived. A second sight, she has. She’s a seer. Me father too. ‘Tis a way of seeing beyond what is there before you. A way to see the meaning in it. An attribute coming from Excavatia itself. The capacity for that sight is planted in everyone who follows in The Name of The One. Aligning to the will of The One, is why it is important to give your names to the quest. It is His will that calls us to it, not merely the calling from a man like O’Brian.”

A degree of understanding altered the expression of both Lindsey and James, the two travelers standing nearby who had offered their names to Dominick.

The three others standing near them noticed, but only one of them responded.

“My name is Gemma,” the young teen girl tugged on Dominick’s sleeve. “Please tell us what your mom would see.”

Dominick grinned, “I am but a follower of this quest too, y’know. Tis not I who you should be giving your names too on behalf of The One.  My name as well as me mother’s and me father’s already appears on The Marker Stone from long ago, before it was given a burial. We are committed. Determine for yourselves what your choices are, and you will see a lot more in this journey ahead than merely what appears before your eyes.”

One of the remaining, unnamed ones, a man who had stood silent and seemed to be observing and taking in much more by choosing to listen rather than interject, finally spoke up. “Dominick, my name is Tiernan. What do you see with that insight you speak of when you observe what is below?”

“I see a field moving from outside of its grave clothes and learning to thrive in the freshness of a cleansing rain,” Dominick said, gesturing forward.

“From this vantage point, upon the hilltop on this granary, we observe that when the harvest time comes, the grain seeds in the stalks must cut from the ground, bundled and carried up the hill for threshing. Much like a man or a woman must be in life. The value of the plant is in the head of the stalk. The head represents the soul of mankind, also referred to as the heart. Your hearts must endure the threshing and separation process from the desires of the flesh, like the valued grain must endure the separation from the dying chaff. This is not an easy process, but it is a necessary one. The grains must separate from the chaff and fall to the ground before it can be replanted. There is a verse in the Ancient Texts that says: “When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first.” (1 Corinthians 15:36b NLT) It is only through death that life is reborn and renewed. The seed that is completely crushed into powder will never bring forth life, because it does not survive the pressing of the millstone, the trials and tribulations of life and the testing we must endure. The powder of the crushed grains represents merely the death shroud of the flesh. As it flows downward and is allowed to cover the living, reborn stalks of grain, the newborns suffer in the layers that separate them from the Son. If we are given rebirth, we need the rains to wash us clean of the powder of dead seeds, before we can thrive to produce the harvest value in the field. That is why the far end of the field, furthest removed from the influence of the grave thrives the most. These are the lessons me mother and father taught me from this vantage point. To see the cycle of the seed as it reflects the cycle of our lives. The Xarmnians have no knowledge of the fields, so they remain blind to its lessons, because they cannot access the second sight in this second world.”

The four who had given their names to Dominick–Lindsey, James, Gemma, and Tiernan–looked again on the outward lands and fields below with a new appreciation, both for what it represented and for Dominick and the wisdom he had gained through the influence of his parents and a faith in someone ever-present, but yet unseen. The other, a young woman, who had remained silent but had been listening closely, had a growing sense of uneasiness about all that had been shared between Dominick and the other four. Perhaps, she thought to herself, we may have chosen the wrong side.

*Scene 04* 3:30 (Vector and Vengeance)

Thousands of feet below, in the deep darkness of a cavernous world, carved by a monstrous metallic worm boring into the flesh of the Mid-World, the sentient trans-dimensional beast calling itself ‘Sheol’, twisted and flexed in the darkness, displacing earth and rock jettisoned behind its coiled flanks, and huffed into the hollow by it pulsing and flexing scales. Its monstrous mind followed the invisible scent and signature, gaining lost ground on its Surface World prey that it had lost seeking passage around the immovable rib of stone that projected, horn-like into the hills above. The land above that unbreakable stone smelled sweetly of dead and decaying flesh. The deep soil below it anointed and drenched with saturations of human blood, untainted by the machinations of the hybrid crossbreeds.

Every movement the beast made to come from below and injest and consume the bloodied earth, its inner ears pounded with shrieks and wails that disoriented the shadow-dwelling beast. It had dug blindly about, losing its inner sense of direction, always digging frantically away from the buried Stone, but finding itselfs ramming into it, and stunning its senses further.

Finally the beast cut a wider circle and was able to distance itself far enough from the blood hallowed ground and spine of Stone, that it began to sense its way again, and pick up the northwestern trail of the travelers above.

It sent out sonic pulses to its covert agent, looking for further connections to triangulate and vector its subterranean approach.

“Where are you, (רוּחַ טִיט) titu ruah?!” it growled, its frustration and anger accompanied by flashes and electrical pulses of red light, lighting up the cut tunnels. “Do not deceive me! The body I gave you to serve me, I can take that form from you at any time, you vaporous wretch!”

A old woman’s raspy voice responded to the beast from a far distance away, muffled by the need to whisper through the energies of the ground.

“We travel by wheel and wagon. Rains have muted my ability to communicate, but they are a sign that thousands of my sisters are nearby and follow us. I am working out a way to eliminate both a Seer and the child. An opportunity is presenting itself. Please be patient, Sire. I should have them dispatched soon and then you may take their leader and dispose of the company that follows him. Your glut of blood is coming, my Lord. When my feet touch the ground you will know where I am. Come swiftly, my Lord. Come with vengeance, and power. Burst the land and take them upon the hill of grain and separation.”

*Scene 05* 5:15 (Pushed to The Precipice)

Elsewhere atop the granary plateau, beyond the dumping deck, where the sheafs of grain were typically unloaded and spread across the large, flat-stone milling plate, a further low-walled stone bin, slightly smaller in circumference, was slanted and stepped down about five-feet below the wider main deck. A large canvas tent was held up by poles and roped stakes covering the lower grinding areas. Large wooden rakes were tied in bundled lay-by racks to be used by the workers when the granary was in full operation. The furthest ring was also canopied and that lower ring, sitting another ten to twelve feet lower than the previous ring ran closer to the pointed edge of the escarpment with the more sheer cliffs dropping away with a flattened rock-faces hundreds of feet high.

Becca had refused to leave the wagon and was not responding to any effort to coax her out of it. One of the other women agreed to stay with Becca and keep an eye on her, and a young man had offered to stay and steady the team of horses, lest they spook and take off towards the edge of the escarpment with Becca still in the wagon.

Seeing that nothing further could be done with Becca, Nell and Miray walked hand in hand down under the stepped and canopied sifting decks and Cheryl followed in a limping gait.

Nell tried to calm Miray by distracting her and telling her all about the granary operations. She showed her the dropping floor where the kernels of grain that had been separated and sifted in the upper rings were finally allowed to fall downward into the bore holes to end up in the catcher pits hundreds of feet below the top of the hill. They both hunkered down on the spilling stone, which bore thousands upon thousands of dark pitted boreholes, making the stone surface appear speckled.

“This is where the kernals of grain fall through down into the catcher pits far below.”

Miray squatted further, laying prostrate and putting her eye close to one of the boreholes, looking down into the dark shadowy grooves unable to see anything but pitch darkness.

“I can’t see anything,” she seemed disappointed, “How far down do the seeds fall”

Nell tossled the young girl’s curly red fair, with a gentling hand, “If the gathering doors were opened below, you could see all the way down there into the grain bins where there are tons of grain stored in the lockers and catcher pits.”

“Do the seeds fall all the way to Hell?”

Startled, Nell asked, “What makes you say that, child?”

Miray raised up and wrinkled her nose, shrugging with her shoulders, turning a palm upward, “Well they fall into a dark pit. Isn’t that like falling to Hell.”

Nell smiled at the child’s innocence. “Oh, I see,” Nell said, helping Miray sit full upright, “Not nearly that far down, lass.”

Miray dusted the fine grain powder off of her jeans and hands, rubbing them together. “Is it far down there, then? How deep is it?”

Nell rose to her knees, but she put out her hands to Miray.

“If you will hold tight to my hands, I will give you an idea, lass,” Nell said gently, glad she had finally piqued the girl’s interest.

Carefully, Nell and Miray approached the steeper edge of the escarpment, and Cheryl hobbled up beside them. The escarpment edge jutted out from the final pit onto a promontory with a granite stone edge of jagged rock. Yellow scrub grass whipped and whirled in the updrafts as they gazed out upon the open country and valleys below. Miray was impressed by the sheer heights, and Nell smiled at the child’s wide-eyed expression as she attempted to take it all in. Miray held tightly to both Nell and Cheryl’s hands, but she strained forward a little, wanting to get closer to see over the jutting edge. “We must be up really high, huh?” Miray exclaimed, “I can see the furthest, and I am the shortest of all you guys.” Both Cheryl and Nell chuckled.

At last, Miray said, “Miss Nell?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Can you put me up on your shoulders, like my daddy does, so I can be the tallest?”

“As you wish, dear,” said Nell, bemused.

Cheryl laughed, as she helped Miray balance on Nell’s shoulders, while Nells secured both of Miray’s hands in hers, with the child seated prominently around the back of Nell’s neck.

Cheryl has almost turned away to enjoy the high vantage vista, when she caught the sight of the swift, but furtive movement of a small figure running up behind Nell and the delighted child together taking in the grand view, oblivious to all the others roaming the upper plateau.

Becca was approaching in a ducked run, almost as if she were some primate animal, and the savage and pleassured look on the young girl’s face did not appear to be that of an innocent child.

*Scene 06* 8:23 (Tensions Rising)

As Begglar and I ascended the stairway from the lower decks, a task which took much longer than it did coming down, we continued our conversation through labored breaths.

“How did your spies know they are heading this way?”

“I’ve told you before of the place I once lived in the Surface World.  It was a seafaring village.  A port of call for many boats, but fishing boats in particular.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“On the sea, a good sailor never loses a sense of the direction where land is.  His or her home port.  If you get lost at sea, chances are high that you are a landlubber, a novice, and that your journey was ill-fated before you even set sail or stepped aboard the vessel.”

He fished into his pocket and produced a small metal device with a pivoting screw hinge, a blunted point and a combination of three eye loupes.

“What is this?”

“A good luck charm.  I may be far from the sea, but seawater still flows through these veins.  That’s a device used for finding your way.  It took quite a bit of time locating one of those here.  This is a much older version.  Crude, but it works after a fashion.”

“What do you mean?”

“The problem is in the stars.”

“The stars?”

“Yes.  The sky here is all wrong.  High above it cracks and has strange fault lines.  Like a vein of silver or gold in the rock, only the marbling of the sky obscures most of it.  The clouds and fog obstruct its usage.  The moon is hard to follow and transparent at daybreak.  You’ve seen it.  It is luminous but seems muted.  If memory serves, I remember it much closer and brighter up in the Surface World.  The problem with that is the moon is not a fixed point.  The device relies on a fixed point in the heavens.  Without it, the device is useless, to a certain degree.”

“A certain degree?”

“It can be used in other ways, we’ve discovered.  Both the sun and moon follow predictable paths.  At sunrise or sunset, we can be certain of directions east and west, and by consequence north and south.  Moonrise and moonset take longer and are tricky because of the roll of the land, and the influence of the Sun.  The Sun reveals the moon as it leaves and swallows the moon in the light as it rises.  That device becomes useful when one has determined where the true points of direction lie on the horizon, from observing the passage of the Sun.  Once you can sight those fixed points, you can measure the degree or direction from your vantage point from just about anywhere you are standing.”

“And your spies have one of these?”

“Absolutely.  And they know how to use them.  We recruited them from the lake country.  They had found them useful on the boats, but also overland.”

“How did you get seamen to leave the sea?”

“That was easy. When the Xarmnians decided they wanted to regulate and control the fishing. Xarmni wields most of it power in the large cities. In the cities, people are grouped and packed closely together and are more easily controlled by regulating their access to goods and services. In the outlier communities and rural areas is where the Xarmnians have the greatest challenge to maintain their rule. Those communities tend to be more independent and self-sufficient. They are by and large agrarian communities or game hunters or fishermen. They can live off of the land and water sufficiently enough to have no need to ask from the government much of anything. They don’t like being ordered about by some distant ruler who knows little about them, their needs or their way of life. So when the soldiers moved in and started harassing them, they fought back. They valued their independence. They did not need some power-grabbing ruler to order them about. They fought long and hard until the soldiers came in larger numbers and began to quell the rebellions. Men, women, children. It did not matter to the Xarmnians. They were slaughtered by the hundreds. Marched in chains up to the Marker Stone and killed before it until the townsfolk begged them to stop and agreed to let themselves be ruled.”

I had been away too long.  So much had happened here, while I had become so preoccupied in the Surface World.  Hearing all of this, my gut tightened and turned at what these residents must have gone through.  Witnessing it happening firsthand may not have made much difference, but sometimes even the presence of a fellow in the midst of tragedy can mean so much to the one suffering through it.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head at the thoughts and implications hammering into me.

Begglar continued, “The seamen, like the rural farmers and herders, were of good hardy stock.  Muscled and grizzled, deeply tanned and weathered by a life lived in the open and earning their daily provision by the sweat of their brow.  These were the men most desired to be in the armies of the powerful, but these were the men, most averse to being conscripted.  So the Xarmnian leaders had to gain leverage over them.  Each circumstance is a little different, but by and large, the leverage taken was most likely a loved one brought back to live in the walled cities.  In a place where the Xarmnians could keep an eye on them, and a metal shackle about them, if necessary.  Needless, to say, they sought us in the Underground out and gladly volunteered to go down the lion’s throat and live within the belly of the beast, it that might serve the cause.  When the time comes, they will be within striking distance.”

“How many of the stones are being watched?”

“Ten.  And by all accounts, they started moving at the same time.  We can only assume that the same is true with the other two.”

“And they are all pointing back to The Marker?”

“Everyone that we observed, yes.”

“Then we don’t have much time.”

“No,” he shook his head, “we don’t.”

As we exited the upper stairwell onto the granary deck, we witnessed something very odd and disturbing.

Cheryl pounced on Becca and pressed her to the ground but was thrown off as if she were a mere rag doll. Nell had Miray upon her shoulders, and they were dangerously close to the edge of the steepest edge of the escarpment.

Two of the men had run up behind Becca, but they hesitated to approach her too fast for fear she might lunge at Nell and Miray and push them over the cliff.

Begglar shouted in a bold and loud voice reminiscent of his sea command days, an order brooking no argument, “Nell! Dominic! Others! To the wagon! All of you!”

Becca turned, responding instinctively to the shout, and that is when the two young men charged her and with difficulty, managed to restrain her.

Becca did not resist, this time, but only winced as if the two young men holding her were squeezing her too tightly. “You all don’t understand! You are all being fooled! You don’t know what she is!”

By this time, Nell had swung Miray down from her shoulders and Cheryl was attempting to get back up on her feet, but had hit the stone milling pit and had painfully suffered additional scratches and severe bruising.

“Who are you talking about?” one of the young men holding Becca asked.

“Her!” screamed Becca, jabbing her desperate and accusing finger at Miray.

*Scene 07* 6:02 (The Remains)

In the abandoned burg of Basia, the storm winds continued to gain in strength. Gusts raked across the face of the stone bungalow near where the Surface Worlders has first encamped, slamming the old, thick-oak door, now free of its mat covering of vines, against the jamb, almost snuffing out the stuttering fire inside the cabin still struggling to breathe light into the dusty room. Two squat-figures had emerged from the hovel, but, upon seeing the approaching horseman and the startled woman fleeing across the intervening stream, they had fled along the side of the structure scrambling over the embankment that backed the brow-built dug-out, preferring their chances out in the stormy open terrain to being trapped in the small cabin. The rider had started to give pursuit, but the two figures seemed to fade into the darkness, camouflaged by the storm-lit terrain, rustling through the whipping field grasses, blending into the mud-caked hill, and scrabbling over the rock-ridge beyond.

Coming back around to the front of the makeshift hermitage, the rider dismounted, and guided his black horse closer to the facing wall of the small domicile, allowing the hill and the intervening structure to shield them from the harsher blows of the crosswinds coming down from the upper ridge.

He patted the horse’s nose, shearing off some of the rainwater that had collected on its muzzle. “Hold here, Starlight,” he spoke calmly to the horse, as he slipped the reins into what remained of the source roots growing along the edge of the doorframe. The stubs of the vine-cover showed clear signs that the foliage covering had been recently hacked away.

The rider drew his short-blade from a scabbard tucked and hidden under the split-flap of his thick gambeson, worn beneath a hooded, rain-cloak that he’d oiled against the wet weather. The door brace bolt lay across the wet muddied floor in a puddle of water. The shadows of the small dusty room jumped and stuttered against the stone stacked wall and glinted off of the dusty pane of a small inset window. Dusty shelves covered in cobwebs, signified that the place had not been lived in for many years. Mice scurried along the top of a bracing rafter, casting enlarged and furtive shadows, along the upper ceiling. The white ash at the edge of the hearth was mixed with settled dust and had only recently been raked and scattered on the hard packed dirt floor. A wooden table predominated the interior, flanked by a single-sized bed that had not been slept in for many years. Dust covered what may have once been a bundle of blankets and a web of yellowish plants and cobwebs had tried and failed to root into the pile to add additional cover. Only a freckling of white mushrooms and fungus seemed to have found stasis in the former sleeping frame. A set of three small candles in low saucers were placed on two of the chairs and on the flat plank of the long bench that were configured along the table to provide light for something that lay across its top.

The rider lowered his blade for the room was too shallow to hold any occupant that could be concealed behind the spartan furnishings it contained. The wind drafts through the door had extinguished the candles, but the staccato of lightning allowed the man to navigate entry. He slowly squatted and retried the bracing bar from the puddle and leaned it against the door, to prevent it from closing behind him. Moving carefully to the stone bricked hearth he lifted a lightly burning ember from the fire and lit one of the candles on the stool and chair near the table. He lifted one of the sconce saucers to better examine the charred mass that lay across the table.

The light revealed a thick but short body, badly burned with its clothing flaked and charred, its flesh desiccated and blistered. Its arms were drawn into angular bends, pulled tightly into around its upper torso. Its hands were black skeletal claws, like knobby, and brittle winter branches. Flakes of its scorched clothing and flesh littered the table with sooty powder. A Troll.

Its large feet were facing the fireplace, its upper torso was pointed towards the sole window, enfolded in its grisly, struggling arms still in a frantic postmortem posture, still very much in shadow. When the man raised the candle toward the thing’s face he drew back with a sudden start.

Lightning and thunder clapped, bleaching the room with ghost light. The creature’s head had been hastily removed. A pool of oozing black blood seeped onto the tabletop and wept black droplets to the dirt floor.

The man moved the candle over the pool, examining the ragged stump of the troll neck. The black ooze seemed to ripple under the light of the candle flame, tendrils of the liquid seeming to burrow in between the slats of the table.

Suddenly, the bar plank, that he had propped against the doorframe, clattered to the floor, splashing into the shallow rain puddle. In one swift motion, the man dropped the candle, whirled to face the portal and drew out his blade as the giant shadow of a dark, massive man obscured the sole doorway. Ponderously, the giant man leaned in from outside the doorstep, ducking carefully under the top lintel, and moved slowly, filling the room and fully blocking the man’s only escape.

A voice rumbled out of the giant man, as his face was partially revealed by the firelight. “I would be very careful with that body. Despite how it may appear, …not all that is in him…is truly dead.”

*Scene 08* 4:21 (The Down Grade)

“Let me go, you bullies!  I was only trying to see what Nell was showing Miray!” Becca struggled between the two young men, as Begglar and I approached her.

Some of the others rushed over, and Nell held Miray close to her, protectively moving away from the edge back onto the sifting floor, drifting over towards Cheryl, but keeping a wary eye on Becca and the boys.

“Hold her!” I directed, and Becca glared daggers at me., and we went over to check on Cheryl.

She lay groaning on the deck of the threshing floor, struggling to get back up.  Nell knelt and helped support her into a sitting position.  Cheryl could barely speak for not only had she been thrown, but the wind had been knocked out of her.

“Are you okay?” Miray asked.

“You’re bleeding,” Nell said, dabbling at the weeping cut on her arm, and checking her other limbs for evidence of broken bones.

Cheryl wheezed, “Can’t…”

“Rest easy, dear,” Nell admonished, “Catch your wind.”

Miray looked over at Becca, and Becca seemed to snarl at her.  She moved closer to Nell and Cheryl, eyes widened, and feeling a cold shiver shimmy up her spine.

Begglar looked at Nell, “Me darlin’, are you and the wee one, okay?”

Nell looked up from her ministrations with Cheryl, “Aye, me Love, right as rain. May need yer help gettin’ this lass to the wagon, though.”

Begglar moved to lift Cheryl, and Nell admonished him, “Gently now.”

Carefully, Begglar and I moved to scoop Cheryl up, but Begglar waved me away.

“I’ll carry her, O’Brian,” he snorted, “Get them to the wagon.  We need to get off the hill and down into Jezreel.  Nell’ll drive the teams down.  She’s a steadier hand with the animals.  My hands are more suited to a wheel, a rudder, and a tall ship.”

We moved up through the five bordered ring catchers where the grains were separated under the tented canopies and gathered around the wagon.  Becca followed grudgingly, flanked by the two young men to insure she caused no more mischief or misunderstanding.  Cheryl was loaded first, under the wagon cover and moved gently towards the back of the buckboard bench.  Begglar helped Nell climb up onto the buckboard seat and sat next to her, handing her the tracer reins.  Dominic checked the horses and the tack fixing them to the harness and wagon tang.  He nodded to his parents and moved to the back of the wagon to raise and lock the loading gate.

I sat near Cheryl, making sure she was stable and okay, casting furtive glances at Becca seated between her two self-appointed guards.  The other travelers crowded between us all along the inner benches and seated with knees drawn.

I knew we couldn’t travel this way for too long, and we would soon require individual horses, but we were out of options.  Begglar and Nell, for all their planning, had never imagined that there would be twenty-three of us joining them from the Surface World on this journey.

In moments, we felt the wagon began to tilt forward as the horses pull its wheels onto the descending road.  The riders invariably shifted in the wagon bed and along the seat benches as their bodyweight began to feel the effect of the descend grade. The winding road down the side of the escarpment was very narrow and had only a makeshift low stacked-stone wall railing, separating the road’s edge from the precipitous edge.  It was a good thing Begglar, and I had pulled the canvas canopy cover over the wagon bows, obscuring our outside view.

Miray sat on the other side of me, her arms around her legs, ducking close to me, holding the back of my arm, trying to keep from looking at Becca.

Before she had been very angry at Becca, wanting to have it out with her, for daring to insinuate that there was something improper about our friendship.

Now she was scared of her, and desperately trying to stay as far away from her as humanly possible.

*Scene 09* 5:25 (The Sword in Question)

On the buckboard bench, seated along the steep-edge of the driver’s seat, Begglar whispered quietly to Nell, “It wasn’t who I thought it would be.”

His gaze was distant and disturbed. He chewed his lip unconsciously.  “I never…” he began, then broke off, finding it hard and distasteful to say the words he was thinking out loud. “I never thought enough about how evil masks itself.”

Nell sighed quietly, feeling an even greater degree of unease than that sensed by her husband.  She had perceived the truth, but her natural inclinations made her reject the idea that kept persisting in her mind and spirit.

The Seer’s sense.  A sense that she had once welcomed and had even tried to sharpen, until its honing revealed how dreadful it’s truthful revelations could be.  Some truths were hard to face, especially those involving the machinations of humanity.  Theirs had been a land where evil was mostly overt and those practicing it were emboldened enough to never feel the need to conceal their open contempt of others.  But even a heart could be deceived.  And a strong desire for the otherness of sincerity and goodness, could blind a person to the signs of a slipping mask hiding the nightmare visage of a monster beneath.

Begglar pondered his own troubling thoughts, knowing what must be done, and fearing the inevitable outcome.  He well knew from hunting in his youth upon the moors and cluains, that when a quarry is cornered along a bawn or esker, seeing no other way to escape, it will turn upon its pursuer with the savagery of desperation and fight viciously for its own life.  If the quarry is, in fact, a predator, its savagery will arise out of its anger at being cornered rather than its desperation.  And a predator was specifically designed with a natural prowess for making its killing wrath known.

Searching for words to formulate a question, he finally broached the distilled contemplative silence, “How it can take forms that seem…”  He sighed, breaking off.

Nell leaned next to him, feeling his warmth as a rising wind gust chilled the air, causing the horses to falter a bit, and grumble in protest as the weight of the wagon behind them urged them to move down the grade faster than they should.  Their hooves cut divots into the dirt roadway, resisting the insistent push into their harnesses.

“I think we knew it that night, the wee Miray stayed with us,” Nell voiced.  “But it is a hard thing.  T’will be a hard thing to reveal to the others, who don’t yet know what we know…or ‘see’ what we perceive.”

Begglar grunted, “You’ve known all along now, have you?”

“Aye.  But willin’ it away, has kept me from the truth,” Nell answered quietly.

Begglar hugged her closer to himself, feeling the rise in the winds and the beginnings of a wintery bite to it, “Seems we’ll all be havin’ ta face many truths in the days ahead.  You know you’ll have to teach them, doncha?”

“Aye. More’s the pity.” Nell sighed.  “Twill upset their sense of comfort.  Liftin’ the rock, to see the writhin’ serpents lurkin’ underneath.  The roaches scuttlin’ forth amuck.  Such a sight makes you flee to safety of the former unawares.  To pine for it.”

Begglar grunted, “We doan have tha luxury n’more, me darlin’.  I’ve no doubt of that. It we face the dangers, we faces them head on and clear-eyed now.”

“So we’re ta be tested then?  The Shibboleth, as ya call it.”

“It’s the only way,” said Begglar, resigned to the course they had agreed to.

“Are you worried?” Nell asked softly.

“Aye, there’s no denying it.  The devil cornered will bring the devil’s due.  I am thinking of that sword in the gully now.”

“We examined it b’fore, my love.  I am certain it is the very one brought to the inn in Sorrow’s Gate.  I have never seen its like before or since.  T’was a covenant sword to be sure.  An Honor sword if there ever was one.  Legend says there are only twelve of them in existence.  And I distinctly remember the Capitalian who carried it.  Kind, he was, but determined.  He would never have surrendered such a sword if there was not a good reason for’t.”

“I am only hoping that when the time comes, O’Brien will be able to draw it out and swiftly remember how to use it.”

*Scene 10* 7:24 (The Taint of Black Blood)

“I would be very careful with that body. Despite how it may appear, …not all that is in him…is truly dead.”  The large man’s voice was deep and resonant, filling the room with a strange warmth that the miserable crackling fire in the hearth had failed to provide.  But the implication of the man’s words was chilling.

The rider held his blade in a warning fashion, still unsure of the giant man’s intentions.

“I am not here to harm you,” the giant rumbled calmly.  “You can put that away.”

Slowly the man lowered the tip of his blade.  At last, returning it back to its sheath.

“What do you mean by saying this thing is not truly dead?” the man asked, gesturing back to the body on the table, his tense posture slightly easing.

The giant moved slowly closer, holding up a wax-sealed glass vial into the firelight.  Something within the vial squirmed and writhed against the flickering glow of the fire, casting a wriggling web of shadows on the inner walls of the cabin, seeming to make the immolated body of the troll wrench and flex responsively.

“What is that?!” the man reflexively reached again for the hilt of his sword.

“It is what is draining out of that unfortunate creature there on the table,” the giant responded, “The last of what remains of its ‘living’ essence.”

The man flinched at the words but stepped carefully away from where the black “essence” had been pooling on the dirt floor.  A tendril of the black puddle, suddenly followed the shuffling movement of the man’s foot, as if seeking it by some wet-oily probing.

“Slowly,” the giant cautioned. “That candle you dropped.  Its flame still embers in the wick.   Pick it up carefully, cupping it against the breeze.”

Cautiously, the man crouched and retrieved the fallen saucer. The candle had bent in the fall but was still securely fixed in the drying puddle of the wax that filled the plate.  A small orange point of light, glinted off of the blackened wick, embedded in the tallow.

The giant gently pulled the door of the cabin closed behind him, reducing the noise of the storm gusts outside of the hermitage.  With a large hand seeming to finger a small twig, the giant picked up the plank that the man had used to brace open the door.  The firelight in the hearth seemed to brighten the room, now that the cold wet wind no longer competed with its influence upon the inner chamber.

“Gently blow on the wick, and it will ignite again,” the giant instructed, now a little more revealed by the inner firelight.

The giant had a ruddy complexion, deeply tanned, yet by more than just the influence of the sun.  His large build was powerful, his hair a reddish color that looked almost bronze.  A gentle golden light seemed to emanate from the giant’s exposed skin, making it seem more like a metallic luster of polished brass.  The man’s garb was an assemblage of tanned hides, and goat’s hair weave, along with dark coverings of wool.

As the man coaxed the flame back to life with the gentle huff of his breath, a light of recognition for his erstwhile giant companion followed the brightening of the ember as it gathered back into a flame.

“I am called Ryden.  Who are you?” the man asked, still keeping a wary eye on the black liquid tendril that had extended out of the bloodied puddle near his feet.

“Who I am, is of no consequence,” the giant responded.  “What is of immediate concern is that you hold that candle down where that line of the creature’s essence approaches your foot.”

Forgetting the implied danger for that brief moment, the man, known as Ryden, looked and saw that the black oily stream had inched closer to where he had been standing.  He froze, but the giant admonished him quietly. “You not bear the enlivened flame. Lower it near the darkness and watch carefully.”

Carefully Ryden did so, squatting and holding the candle and saucer towards the wet, black tendril, and suddenly it recoiled and seemed to join back into the larger pool of black blood, from which it had arisen.  Startled the man almost feel backward from his crouched position.

“The darkness cannot abide in the presence of the light.  You would do well to remember that, my young friend.  Bear the light, and you need never fear the darkness.”

The words were comforting and strong. Reassuring.

At last, the man knew to whom he was speaking.

The giant man present in the room opposite him was the one the people in the lakeside villages of Skorlith referred to, in hushed tones, as ‘The Walker’.  A man of mysterious origin, or so the stories told.  Rumored to be an ancient Surface Worlder, whose primeval residence in the Mid-World was established long before the coming of other men and the earliest families had formed the primal settlements, then communities, and later thriving cities.  Every one of the rural communities had its own legend about him.  Some were more fanciful than others.  Some cast him as the hero.  Others as the villain of the tales.

The giant man was an enigma.  Said to be unaging.  A walking mystery, who some men feared as did the beast men that were rumored to occupy the dark forested wilds of the Moon Kingdom in the northlands. But to the old ones among the Skolithians, many had felt a certain comfort in his presence, long before the fearful tales of him took root.

Seeing the giant man now, revealed in the flickering firelight, Ryden realized that perhaps many of the fanciful rumors he had heard of this giant man since boyhood, might very well have contained many surprising elements of truth.

*Scene 11* 8:30 (The Creek Bed Graveyard)

Eventually, we felt the wagon level off and gradually ease down the final grade of the winding road. Nell drove the team and the wagon beyond the stone-cut stable gates, past the large grain bin doors, and down the frontage road at the base of the escarpment. We approached a footbridge that spanned a dry creekbed. To the left of the bridge, was a widened basin of stagnant water, beneath a steep rockface of the escarpment. The assemblage of stones around the basin was covered with blackened lichen and dead moss, where the flowing water had once poured out of a cleft in the rock escarpment higher up the rock cliff face.

Begglar dismounted the buckboard seat at the head of the wagon and steadied Nell as she gathered her skirts and pivoted out of the high seat descending to the ground. Dominic sprung from over the back gate, through the loop cover, and pulled back the wagon cover ties, securing them around the bow posts. He lowered the wagon gate again, to assist us in unloading.

“Where are we going? Are we getting out now?” one of the travelers asked me.

“We are,” I responded, “There is something we must do before we go further.”

A young man piped in, “What are we gonna do?”

“Something we call the Shibboleth test,” I answered cryptically.

“The which?”

“Shibboleth. We’ll explain more when we get out of this wagon.”

Begglar secured the horses’ reins to a hitching post near the edge of the dried streambed, just shy of the stone bridge. Dominic stood attendant as we parted the wagon canvas and crawled down the loading gate.

When I emerge from the wagon, Miray clutched my hand tightly, still hiding behind me a bit, avoiding any unchaperoned contact with Becca. She was trying to be brave, and I could feel the slight trembling in her hand as she warily moved opposite from any direct line of sight to the girl. The incident on the upper escarpment had terrified her and had sobered her to the possibility of what Becca might be capable of. If these two had been friends once, as Becca had claimed, there certainly was no sign of that affinity now.

Distracted by all that had gone on, I now noticed that the sky had darkened quite a bit, from the time we had taken to descend the winding road. There was a greenish tint to it, and that olive light bathed everything below it into a kind of a bruised cast. The rock walls of the escarpment, though carpeted in dead blackened moss, spotted with bright green blisters of lichen where the water had once flowed and splashed over their surfaces, now looked beaten and bruised.

Miray and I ambled towards the open stone railing of the short bridge.

“You okay?” I asked her.

Miray nodded but did not look up at me, careful not to be distracted from her wary marking of Becca’s visible position in relation to hers.

In a whisper, Miray pleaded quietly in words that I was not sure were meant to be heard, “Don’t let her get me.”

The winds were picking up, adding a chill to its breezy buffeting. Leafy detritus crackled and stirred across the undulating exposed stone slopes and concavities that once had been underwater, drawing my attention back into its plight. A swirling breeze teased the dead leaves scattered helter-skelter in the dried streambed, bouncing them and raking them across their headstones, as if mocking the sanctity of the graveyard and their helpless detachment from deserting the ranks of the overarching boughs above. It was very possible that these dervish winds had been the very invisible knives that had stropped and cut through the branches above, stripping the skeletal arms of their green children, while the now waterless creek dried up their exposed roots that had extended below the brow of the banks and below the former waterline. It was as if the dark roots had gripped and curled around the broken and exposed stones in the streambed, desperately trying to squeeze from them any remaining moisture to sustain their strength to resist the constant hectoring and heckling of the mocking winds. What we were witnessing was the struggling aftermath scene of a battlefield of nature.

Miray and I studied these things in a solemn sadness that choked away all comments we might have made. Miray still kept an eye out for Becca, always moving around me to an opposite side away from her vicious gaze. Becca was still flanked between her two self-appointed male guards. I was grateful to them for sensing the need to keep these two girls separate for the time being, but I knew it was something that could not always be maintained throughout the days ahead on our journey. There would be another confrontation, but I hoped it would be later rather than sooner. Whatever was wrong with Becca’s attitude towards Miray, would not be easily solved by me keeping them monitored, distracted, and apart.

The others in the group milled about, examining the dried creekbed and the stand of tall trees that framed its banks in their rustling regiments. Some of them, though not all seemed to notice the interplay of the natural struggle too. I could see it in the way they observed their surrounding, their looks drew toward those things I had noticed, resulting in solemn expressions. Four of them, in particular, appeared to be gaining an understanding of this place and its deeper import that I had not noticed in them before. When some of them noticed me watching them, they smiled, slightly, but continued in their scrutiny of the land and its conditions. I suspected they had at last given their names to at least someone in our company of Mid-Worlders, even if it was not shared with me. That was something, at least, I consoled myself. If I was not the one to lead this party and this quest and had misunderstood my inner promptings, perhaps, there was someone, yet to be revealed, who would rightfully assume that role soon.

The left side of the bridge shelved upward but had a wider and deeper pool that now was mostly filmy mud and stagnant water where a waterfall had once hollowed out its upper basin before spilling down into the stream. The stream was roughly five to six feet deep, judging from the banks and extended roots from the trees that had once been fed and nourished by the fresh water from the side of the escarpment.

Oddly, it reminded me of a verse in the Ancient Text, which seemed strangely pertinent to the imagery presented by the starved creek, now lacking the liquid flow that had once given it life.

“One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.”

John 19:34 NLT

The creekbed cut and channeled beyond the stone bridge, in the distance, did not bear a spear, but a sword, shadowed in the dappled and shifting patina of the branches and leaves of the trees that overhung the now waterless creek.

Begglar moved up to my side and muttered, “Call them together and have them step down into the dry creek. I will await each one at that sword in the distance. Dominic will usher each to stand before me there to be tested, and he will return alone to escort the next when we are done. Keep them here until they are sent for. It will not do for any of them to overhear what I have to ask them or to hear what others before their turn have responded. Nell will stand with those who have completed their test. I will signal you when to come to me at the last.”

I sighed, “They are an impatient lot. What shall I do to keep them here until they are called.”

Begglar folded his arms and a half-smile crept into the corner of his face, and he winked at me with his answer.

“My suggestion would be that you tell them the story. You were once very good at that, as I recall. And for you, cooking for them is definitely not an option.”

*Scene 12* 20:44 (The Grawplins of Xarm)

In the massive stone city, the regent capital of Xarm, the seeds of war were beginning to break the soil of the city’s monotonous daily life. The ramparts had been cleared of the recent hanging dead, and the dread monarch had not been seen on the balconies or walking the parapets for a few days now, but that did not hinder his subjects from carrying out his recent orders.

The Apothecaries had gathered their supplies, preparing their laden war wagons. Barrels and barrels of the black, mysterious water had been transported under heavily guarded Xarmnian patrolled caravans, crossing through deeply timbered backtrails winding up into the hills near the breaks of the highland escarpment close to a series of densely forested waterfalls known as “The Cascades.” These were a combination of twelve falls fed by four major rivers and tributaries, each within a rough mile of the others with some degree of variation. The Xarmnians had taken a few years to stockpile the mysterious barrel-bound waters before varying the routes and frequency of replenishment journeys.

A shrewd observer, daring speculation far from the potential ears of any Xarmnian official or potential informant, might venture to comment on the strange coincidence that the population of Trolls throughout the Mid-World countryside suddenly began to emerge and increase in direct correlation to these clandestine restocking journeys.

The priesthood of a now-defunct cult that once had occupied “The Cascades” area, had all but mysteriously disappeared, as if as a response to a shared signal. Adherents and acolytes of the strange cult eventually disperse and blended back into their respective communities, refusing to talk about their former lives and loyalties.

Oddly enough, many of the priests of the former mystic order looked very much like the haggard and bearded members of the hooded enclave sect that presently comprised the regiments of the Xarmnian Apothecaries.

The city was aswarm with activity. Merchants and stockmen loaded all manners of foodstuffs: fat grain sacks; wheels of cheese; primed churns of butter; husk-wrapped haunches of beef, deer, and elk; dried and smoked meats rolled in cheese cloths and sausage casings; canisters of spices; ropes of pepper clusters; netted garlic buds; and barrels of ale and fresh fruit and water. An army could not stand on the field of battle if it was not well-nourished.

Xarmnian armories outfitted filing ranks of soldiers in weaponry, and armaments. Destrier war horses were led through the city streets and markets, attended by fierce-looking men, both riding and leading the powerful animals. Spindly youths were conscripted and forced into the war-making efforts as squires, pages, stewards, bannerets, and vassals.

Females were corralled, cornered, and loaded into caged box wagons. They came either walking upright led by the arm of a forceful grasp or were carried like grain sacks over the shoulders of large and scarred men with a signet of the royal crest on their garments. The captives’ ages ranged from barely adolescent to just shy of the age where their comeliness and feminine attributes began to lose their carnal and sensual appeal. Silent tears wet many of the girlish faces huddled closely together in the box wagons. They knew why they were being taken and these cowed women also knew better than to resist their captors. Xarmnian command relished the challenge of breaking the spirit of any who dared. Evidently, a full stomach and bladder weren’t the only pangs of hunger to be met for the men at the end of each brutal day of fighting.

Those male youths deemed unfit for any kind of military service whether in the fighting or in the supporting efforts were considered to be wastrels and these were snatched off of the streets and clandestinely taken to an inner courtyard, called the Grawplin chamber. The large chamber occupied a courtyard set to the back of the castle keep, near the sparring fields. It was open to the sky above, but entirely closed off by high ramparts, constructed of cut, chiseled, stacked, and fitted stone. Each stone of the wall of this special inner courtyard, had been milled, grooved, and channeled, with one side especially grind-polished, and turned so that the polished inner faces of the stones formed smooth, tightly-fitted walls, allowing no risk that a tool, hook or claw might chance to find a grasp hold in a mortar groove to scale the inner well and achieve the high observing deck and thus escape through the halls of the castle. The wastrel teens were imprisoned within this chamber for no less than a full day without food or water. The noonday sun peered into the high opening of the chamber, intensifying the heat in the polished prison hold that bore neither vents nor windows that might allow cross-breezes to cool the sweltering temperatures or mitigate the heat of its fierce flaming eye.

Those captive wastrels that survived the first grueling day of these conditions were, in the evening, finally given prepared meats dropped to the floor from the upper overhead gallery, that had been laden with the elixir of the Xarmnian apothecaries. A lever opened a well in the middle of the courtyard where shielded access to a water well, allowing the captives to lower a rope and bucket into the well and draw up water to slake their cruelly cultivated thirsts.

All access portals to the inner well were controlled by iron entry gates that were locked from the outside. Inside this secured courtyard, there were a series of low strong boxes, fixed and secured to the floor, with their doors locked during the first terrible day. Once the wastrels had feasted on the meat and drank the water from the well, most summarily fell into a deep sleep.

Guards then entered the chamber and stealthily opened the ranks of boxes before the morning of the second day. Each box allowed some degree of relief from the forthcoming heat of the rising sun. A small dual vent on the bottom floor of each box provided a waste drain and a narrow air vent that allowed cooler air to arise into the box to provide shelter from the sun and heat. The second day passed for the most part without additional provision of food until the evening, yet the water well remained open. The wastrels naturally were conditioned to take shelter in the boxes, only coming out for food and water. Fatigue and lethargy, caused by these conditions, ensured that the captive wastrels were in no condition to resist the King’s servants who came in to ensure the process went smoothly. On the evening of the second day, the servants entered the chamber to ensure all of their weakened prisoners were each in their own “sleeping box”. The joint and muscle soreness would have set in by then, so the half-aware prisoners could not resist their jailers as they curled them up securely into each box.

On the morning of the third day, the wastrels would awaken to the realization that each of their sleeping boxes had been locked and sealed them in, and that something strange was happening to their bodies. They felt a searing pain, growing in their joints.

A commanding voice addressed them from the upper gallery. A voice that seemed hypnotic, and powerful. A voice that, even in their individual pain, they could not resist hearing, being in awe of, and at last loving.

“My children. You are the new order. You are my Grawplins. You are in transition. For the next three days, you will feel the fire of a new power in your body. This fire will burn away your old useless life and make you into something more than you ever could have been in your miserable lives. You are being given a gift that you did not deserve, because of the clemency of the King, The Son of Xarm. The King believes you are worth something to him. You will feel the change in your bones and sinews, your muscles and organs. You will be given physical power to combat the forces that threaten the King’s glorious empire. You will be given shares from the King’s table. You will be made useful to this Kingdom, and you will help to achieve the rule and influence of the Xarmnian empire. You will be given gifts of change and disguise, a way to elude capture and discovery. You will be given the insight to face your enemies and see into them and retrieve their greatest personal fears. You will finally be given the respect you deserve as servants of the King. Your sworn fealty is your key to freedom. Once you are willing to swear this fealty, you will each be released from your box, to join in the war effort to achieve power through might, and share in the spoils of this great empire. We shall give you a few days to think on these things. You will each be fed as you begin your change, my children. My servants will attend to your needs, as you pass this day in the darkness of your boxes. These are the graves of your former miserable lives. When you are at last freed from each of these coffins, your old life will have passed, and your new life will begin as a Troll army of spies serving our dread sovereign, The Son of Xarm. Long live The Son of Xarm! Say it with me.”

A lackluster noise arose from a scattering of prisoners within the boxes, seeming to comply with the order from the voice, in practice, if not in spirit.

“Consider well, that this phrase must enthusiastically come from your miserable lips if you expect to be fed and watered this day or the next, my reluctant children. Now let’s try this again. Long Live The Son of Xarm!”

The second response was arguably much stronger than the first. But the voice did not seem satisfied, nor did it make a further reply.

Shihor has witnessed the exchange from the gallery, three days prior.

He had been morbidly interested in the Grawplining process but was frustrated by the fact that he was unable to watch what specifically happened to the wastrels. During their transformations, they were caged individually in a locked strong box with only breathing holes and slits where food might be shoved into the box by a cringing servant who may have narrowly missed losing a few bitten fingers, in their attempt to feed those monstrous creatures. The transitions required that the wastrel remained in darkness. The resulting Trolls would be light-sensitive for a while afterward, while the process continued beyond “the extreming” of the initial days.

Now Shihor walked and stood among the boxes listening quietly, seeking some assurances on whether or not one or more of the boxes might finally be ready to be opened. Incubation (also called “the extreming” in which the most radical physical alterations occurred) was said to be slowing within five days, but that was a general estimate that did not always prove true. Their bone density was like iron, and their raging strength was equal to that of wild primates. The pain in their contorted bodies drove their savagery. Their hands grew large, and their knuckles hardened like stone. Their skulls grew thick and dense with large occipital bulbous ridges. Their faces compressed into a jowly fatness, as their spines contracted and shortened. Their thighs and shins thickened and contracted, shortening their natural height. It was only when these boxes grew quiet for a full day, that anyone might even consider opening the latches. The Grawplins were extremely dangerous if let loose too early.

Vicious tales were told about them around the campfires. Of a Grawplin that had twisted and ripped off the arm of one of its keepers and beat him with it while he bled out. Of a Grawplin that sprang out of its box and tore the head off of one of its feeders, when someone failed to secure its box latch. Of ranks of soldiers being trapped between an untimely releasing of Grawplins onto the battlefield and the soldiers fleeing into the bristling spears of their enemies, rather than being cut asunder by these berserking creatures. The military council had taken a hit on that one. Releasing Grawplins into the war theater could either prove fortuitous or disastrous. The aforementioned untimely release had caused Xarmni to suffer a humiliating defeat against an array of Skolithians, and it had emboldened them to believe that Xarmni’s forces could be successfully repelled. There were limitations to using Grawplins on the fields of battle. Each battle unit now had to allow for a new rank officer to govern them in the proper usage of Grawplins, and that officer had to be a schooled and certified Apothecary, with credentials and recommendations from that shadowy group. Grawplins could only be released at night, and only within five days of taking their first taste of the elixir. Grawplins could be converted and confined during a longer military march, however, the wastrels had to be found among the ranks of the pages and bannerets. Young enough to endure the change, yet not performing other field-essential duties that kept the soldiers supplied, dressed, and actively fighting, or waiting to relieve the moving phalanx formations.

Shihor was just angry enough to try opening a few of the boxes just so he could revel vicariously in the violence that might ensue from it. He was not a man to eschew danger. Rather, he reveled in it. Took a sinister pleasure from threatening and mocking those who sought to avoid it at all costs. Cowards were not tolerated in the outer Xarmnian scouting militias or the Protectorate Guards. Though there were plenty enough of them occupying the high ranks of leadership–Council members that were too fat to ever mount a tall horse or even a squat donkey.

He had already wasted too much time. Three days of deliberations in the royal council among those stuffed, pretentious cowards coming after seven grueling days of hard riding that had taken him from the eastern coast, across country plains, fields, down into valleys, and over mountain passes into the formidable stone and iron gates of Xarm city, was too much politics to be borne.

Jehaza could keep that pretentious rank he’d offered him, Shihor thought to himself, if such a position brought with it the expectations of enduring these bloviated councils.

He was anxious to set out again, with or without a Troll, but his last mount he had slaughtered in his haste and had it fed to some of the young street ruffians, after the butchers had quartered, bled, hide stripped, and deboned the fresh meat. The resulting steaks had been boiled in stewpots to soften the meat before slathering the result into a sickly-sweet simmering vat of the black elixir prepared by the Royal Apothecaries. It was a pity. That final mount had been a good horse. Now it served another ignoble purpose: Transition food for a pack of nascent Trolls.

The Grawplins were useful militarily or for savage sporting events where traitors were led into an arena where a few were released and men and women could make wagers on the outcomes, yes, but Shihor hated when they became full Trolls. They were more docile than in their Grawplining stage. Almost servile, yet had an infuriating proclivity towards mischief, often hiding from those seeking them, only to turn up at the last moment, pretending to have waited on the searchers to finally exhaust their efforts and capitulate to these beings’ superior craftiness at becoming inconspicuous. Such annoyances often got them beaten when they could be discovered, so the Trolls were incentivized to not let that happen very often. Still, the kingdom had a peculiar use for them as well, and their kind had been running thin as of late. They were useful in brokering deals with the mysterious creature known as The Pan who stalked the darkened forests of the north with his infernal ranks of Half-Men.

If Shihor were to go where he planned, he must suffer the journey in the company of one of these Trolls. Perhaps, he reasoned one more day was warranted, just to be sure his traveling designee in whichever of these boxes contained it was fully resolved into becoming what was needed…a slobbering servile, grunt that could be used to spy, scout, and blend in when necessary. And most importantly, get him past the shadowy wood of Pan’s Moon Kingdom.

*Scene 13* 46:08 (The Seed of Nachash)

Within the cabin at Basia, Ryden sat near the fireplace on a wooden stool opposite the giant man, revealed to be “The Walker”.

“What do we do with the body?” Ryden asked wringing his hands together, casting cautious glances back towards the blackened corpse on the table.

“The answer is beside you,” the giant rumbled, “We must complete what has already been started.”

Ryden whipped his head around, “Beside me?! Wha-What’s beside me!?”

The giant gestured with the back of his left hand towards the fire now crackling in the hearth with a healthier glow.

“The remains of that creature on the table. It was not always in the likeness as it appeared before the burning. Its once-body was overtaken. Crushed and reshaped like clay, into its present form. Its life was snuffed out by the remains of the seed that entered it. A formation of the nachash. Only light can dispel the darkness of nachash. Every living thing touched by the nachash, bears the reversal of what the nachash once was. The light-bearer and the children of its seed only bear the darkness now, for since the beginning it has rebelled against The Light.”

Ryden leaned forward, “I am not sure I understand. The body on the table appears to be that of a Troll.”

“That is your word for it. The body is only a field that has seed planted in it. The life of any creature resides in its blood and its breath. A co-mingling. A twisting strand that formulates life, between The Creator and the created. Nachash has never been able to create, but only corrupt that which is birthed with a given beginning. Nachash bites into the heart of mankind, and into the intertwining of its lifeforce. It adds itself into the co-mingled dance as a divisive strand. The union of a man and a woman is a sacred symbol of mankind’s intended relationship to The One. Its seed is a dark thread, appearing to our eyes like this…” here the giant brought forth, from a pocket, the glass vial he had shown before.

“Is that what came out of him?” Ryden asked.

“It is what got into him,” the giant responded calmly.

“Where does it come from?” Ryden asked, peering into the twisting tendrils that spun and wove within the glass cylinder.

“This is what remains of the physical form of a Nephil from the days when I lived in my father’s house in the Surface World and the beni-Elohim forcibly took from us our sisters and daughters mates as they chose. The union was an abomination to The One, but they saw it as a method of weaving themselves into the bloodline of mankind to be joint heirs of the gifts that would eventually be given to mankind in the prophecies of The One to come. The stars of The One were cursed for what they had done, and they were eternally bound into Tartarus–the place in the outer realm where no light shines. Their essence cut into the seed of men and insinuated itself coiling around its strand like a serpent as it entered the ovum. The resulting offspring were giants.”

“You’re a giant,” Ryden offered, “does that mean…?”

“No!” the large man thundered, a look of disgust on his face. The muscles in his neck corded in revulsion at the very idea.

Ryden flinched and shrank back, afraid that the giant man might strike him for the insult, but the giant’s face then flooded with sadness, that Ryden had not expected to follow.

“Young man, it is clear you have no frame to refer to what I have witnessed through the epochs of time, and through the folds and creases in the fabric that divides this veil from that former world. Though I know you meant no harm, I do understand that my size compared to yours may confuse you, into thinking we are not the same. But let me assure you, that I am just as much a man as you are.”

Ryden tried to relax but still stiffened himself in anticipation of a blow that would not come.

“When I walked the land of the Surface World, it was not as it appears in the recent accounts of men from that place. The atmosphere was lush and full of the lingering Breath. Death had not worked its way into mankind as securely as it has through the course of their time. Our bodies were strong. Our food was good for the eye as well as the form. Death and decay took time to leave their mark in our inner forms and upon the surface of our skin. The morning star was veiled under a bridal canopy of glorious clouds. The seas were contained within the land as well as in the skies above us. Our bones grew strong, and we grew tall and our hands and sinews grew rough as we worked the land and cut and hewed wood and stone for our dwellings. The strength of the Maker’s forces holding the world did not pull upon us as strongly as they do now. We walked among large beasts, but were not cowed by them, nor did they fear us, as they do now. Before I was taken to this place, I was shown what would be. That I would leave the world I had known but would leave my son as an omen for what would come after, when the world would be judged for its rebellions. At first, the shining ones had taken our sisters and daughters, and had unholy unions, producing the Nephils that were so large they killed their own mothers at their births. The giant Nephilim retained only as much of their humanity as good be given by their human fathers and mothers, but the seed of nachash dominated them, and they stood taller than I–and bore six fingers on their hands and six toes on each of their feet. Their eyes were striated with black webbing as if a spider had spread inky nets over the colors in their eyes, for darkness lived within them and came out of them. These Nephil were near twice my size, and their mouths contained double rows of teeth with which they tore and devoured flesh. Men were terrified of them, but some venerated them and brought them gifts of appeasement and began to offer them their children to ensure they could gain their favor.”

Ryden rubbed his head, trying to imagine the immensity of a being nearly twice the size of the giant man who sat across from him. The tale seemed unbelievable, but the graveness by which the giant delivered the account, bore no hint of insincerity or deception.

“The latter outrage was more grave than the former, for mankind began worshipping and currying favor with these monstrous and unnatural creatures, rather than The One who gave them both life and the promise of the restoration of their fellowship with Him. These actions and the neglect of those who had betrayed The One grieved The Giver. He determined that this line of monstrous creatures that had insinuated itself into the human bloodline would find no peace either in the Surface World or in any of those to come. They, like their progenitors, were cursed and banished, destined for the outer darkness of Tartarus, to be forever separated. The Ancient account’s book of Jude testifies to this. My great-grandson was to be the last of the race of men living in the Surface World, before The One separated the old world from the new, by breaking the barriers of the world’s waters between the land and the skies above. The land would be renewed and reborn out of the waters of the old, just as children were born out of the waters within the wombs of their mothers. But the waters were to be a force of destruction for those of unholy unions, and both the land and sea would crush them, rendering their forms inert, but separating them between the old world and the new, across even the barrier that separates this Mid-World from the Surface World. The cursed ones of the Nephilim lost their bodies. Their flesh and their blood became this blackness and was drained here, compressed by the crushing of the world they once ruled, and flowing into dark hidden pools within this world.”

“If they could not pass into the next world, what became of their spirits?” Ryden queried.

“Their spirit, their nepes was part human, so the breath that gave mankind life, cannot be unmade. Anything that was made cannot ever fully be unmade, so it passed into the between worlds, but is bound to the Surface World until their time of judgment comes. They are a plague to the race of men. They are the shedim, forever seeking the possession of a form in lieu of the one that was taken from them. Like no other, they crave form and substance. They are obsessed with it and every carnal delight they once enjoyed when they had their mighty forms among men and were worshipped by them. The shedim are bound to the Surface World and its fate, but the lost essence of flesh and what passes for their blood remain bound here. And this is why I have been on my most recent journey into these highlands. To seek the source from which these remains are being used to seed and seduce the men and women of this land. My children and grandchildren.”

Ryden shook his head. The number of incredible revelations coming from this giant man was much to process and think over.

“H-How do you know all this? Who are you? If you are as old as some say, how come you haven’t aged?”

The giant man reached forward and stirred the fire quietly, gazing into its dancing light with intensity and focus, almost as if he had not heard Ryden’s questions.

“My name is Hanokh. Although in the modern tongue it may be pronounced Enoch. My son was the oldest man to ever live upon the Surface World, yet I was here for most of his adult life. His life span was unnaturally long for men dwelling on the Surface World, but it was an attestation to the longsuffering mercy of The One towards our kind. He also had a son whose name reflected the grief he and I had over the rebellious heart of man. The One is ever merciful, but cannot abide the darkness of sin. It pierces His heart. He had to separate Himself from us, or all flesh would perish, for His physical presence is like a harbinger. It clears the way before Him, pushing the darkness away. The level of sin and darkness present in mankind began to grow to such an extent that men began to curse Him whenever He took form upon our world, for His presence seared them like the heat rising off of these flames. He could no longer embrace His children for they fled from Him and cursed His name. The dragon’s seed coiled and recoiled within them. Devouring them and tormenting them.”

The fire popped and sparked as wetness in the burning wood split and the sap inside it met with the bright fingers of the flames. The giant turned his face and sad eyes towards Ryden, and Ryden noticed the wetness of tears within them, and a sheen of wet where they had coursed down his large bearded face and pearled into the tangle of his thick wooly beard.

“Families of men were more intentional with the names they gave their children. More thoughtful. Children represented both the past and the future. Their births were either celebrations or occasions for grief. When man reverenced The One, they often sought His Purpose and blessing in the naming of their children. I know I did. My name means ‘teaching’ or ‘lesson’. My father’s name–Yared–meant ‘coming down,’ for it was in his birthing time that the ‘shining ones’ from the Heavens descended from the mountain and took our girls and women. The ‘shining ones’ have no females among them. They appear as powerful men in bright linen, but never have we ever encountered a female equivalent to our kind among them. They envied our gifting to produce direct offspring. They asked us probing questions that made many uncomfortable at first, but eventually, we became more accustomed to their questions. Some even began to pity them. Why would The One not make equivalent mates for them? They questioned His justice since they no longer pursued fellowship with Him. Both of my parents felt so unease around these golden beings. Painful though it might prove to be, they sought The One, crying out to Him to intervene, for there was talk among the councils of men that we should offer the ‘shining ones’ our sisters and daughters as wives, giving to these beings what The One had chosen not to.”

Ryden wrung his hands, feeling a coldness in them, despite the rising warmth from the fire, “Why would The One not create suitable mates for them, if they had the desire and capacity to need and express love?”

The giant squared his shoulders and leaned back, regarding Ryden with a sobering expression.

“The ‘shining ones’ were in league with the Nachash-the serpent that had deceived our mother and enticed our father to join her in the first disobedience that allowed death into the Surface World and into any world where men might go, filling the land with spiritual darkness, strangling the spirit of man, cutting off his connection to The One. These had no desire for love, despite what they claimed and led others to believe. When they were given what they wanted, they began to take more than was offered. The things done to our daughters and sisters were horrible and shameful. There was no love or care in these golden ones. The darkness within them took a while to show on them, but by then it was too late. As I said before, the ‘mighty men’ birthed out of these unnatural unions, torn their mothers asunder, and both the ‘child thing’ and their fathers, consumed the dead flesh of the mothers in celebration of what they had done. When the men of the council realized what they had done, they became infuriated but were too terrified to do anything about it. They feared ‘the shining ones’ and their fearsome and enormous offspring. The fear eventually subsided into futility and resignation. They dared not seek The One for remedy, for the shameful ways they had treated Him, but neither could they mount up a meager resistance of men against beings so powerful, so they waded into the further outrage and eventually worshipped and praised the might of these new half-human creatures, even after the Guardians took the ‘first fathers among the shining ones’ and binding them and casting them into the dark fires of Tartarus. The half-human giant beings we called Nephilim. My family resisted them from the beginning. We never surrendered our sisters or daughters to them. They were evil, and whenever one of their kind came to snatch one of our women away, invisible guardians thwarted the attempt. Our family was protected because we still held reverence and worship The One who had given all life. We were born into conflict. We trained ourselves to be ready to resist the darkness that was coming. I sought council from my fathers and his fathers, and our fathers before them, for Adam was yet living when I was coming of age. He taught me many things, for he and his wife knew what it was like to walk in the physical presence of The One. The stories he told me, mystified me and raised a craving within me to also know what it was like to walk with The Presence. I begged for it. Hungered for it, but father Adam told me that it was only possible if one rejected all sin, and continued to follow in the ordinances of annual sacrifice seeking the imperfect atonement until the prophesied One came back to redeem us. I wept greatly, for I knew it was becoming far beyond the capacity of man to live a holy and sinless life. Death was working its way into us more and more each day. Temptations and feelings of futility and hopelessness threatened to cause me to abandon what I so yearned for. To be in His presence and to fellowship directly with The One.”

“What happened?” Ryden asked.

“One day while praying and offering a lamb upon the altar, I felt heat in my body, not just from the fire I had built, but a strong persistent warmth that I could not lessen by moving away from the altar.”

“What caused this warmth? Were you sick with a fever?”

The giant filled his cheeks with air and exhaled slowly.

“A fever makes you feel cold, though your body burns. No,” the giant corrected, “This was more than that. My name was called, and the sound of it seemed to come from many places and all around me. I stood there bewildered, for I could see no one, and I had journeyed to the old altar of our fathers alone on that day to give sacrifice. I searched the sky and the fields and the trees around me, looking for the source of The Voice, wondering if I had heard it or only imagined that I had heard it by wishing for it.”

“What happened then?” Ryden leaned forward again, fascinated.

“As I turned back to the altar, a white lamb stood before me, watching me but not moving to eat grass or move away from the smoldering fire burning behind it. I stared at the small creature and it gazed back at me, its ears slightly twitching. I wondered if somehow I had only imagined having sacrificed the lamb I had brought, and that this was my mind giving me a dream even as I stood awake and shaken by the sight. I reached for my stone knife to fulfill what was required of me, if I had only dreamed the duty, I thought I had performed, but this time I hesitated, and that was when The Lamb spoke to me.”

“What did it say?”

“It spoke my name again, and its voice was like the sound of many waters crashing upon the shores of the sea. There was power in that Voice but also compassion and a gentleness that I had never experienced before, even as a babe in the arms of my mother.”

The giant took a deep breath, captured by the memory that informed his present story.

“‘Your desires have been granted, for you have sought me with all of your heart,’ The Lamb said. ‘I AM HE WHO WAS AND HE WHO IS TO COME. Remove the coverings from your feet, for the ground upon which you stand is sacred and consecrated to Me.’ Immediately I fell down before The Lamb, unsure whether I was still awake or had fallen into a deep sleep. The warmth in my body tingled and slightly stung, and I felt a numbness come over me, but as I lay prostrate before Him, I reached down and loosed the bindings from my feet. Weakness came over me and I had no strength to raise my head. Loosening my foot coverings had exhausted me. I was terrified, and wondered if I had offended The One by daring to desire His presence as a sinful man.”

In awe, Ryden found himself leaning forward, towards the giant man, quite taken with his story, almost as if he was somehow a young boy again curled under a blanket in his own childhood bed listening to his father’s bedtime stories, held again in a rapt wonder that forestalled his resistance to the encroachment of sleep. “What happened then?”

“The Voice of The Lamb told me to rise, and somehow I found strength in the warming of my body, enabling me to do so. As I lifted my head, I noticed that The Lamb was quite close to me now, and I saw that its fleece glistened with a fresh whiteness, but that down its back there was a bloodied red scar, and flecks of dried blood matted the line where the line of the wool the bordered a healed scar that should have been fatal to The Lamb, but signified that the creature had been torn through its mid-section between the shoulders and its hind flanks. With sudden recognition, I trembled and my knees went weak and knocked together and I almost fainted, but The Lamb spoke again to me. Its words gave me the power to remain standing though my body felt as though it was going to collapse. Each word seemed to bear my weight and hold me in a bowed position before Him.”

Ryden found himself holding his breath in anticipation of the words that would follow.

“I AM THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN BEFORE THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE WORLD. I AM THE LAMB THAT WAS, IS, AND IS TO COME. NO MAN COMES TO THE FATHER BUT BY ME. NO MAN NOR ANY OTHER CREATURE IN HEAVEN AND ON THE ERETZ, OR BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE ERETZ, NOR AMONG THE STARS OF THE HEAVENS STANDS BEFORE ME, BUT BY MY DESIRE ALONE. I AM THE ONE, THE ONLY SOVEREIGN, AND CREATOR OF THIS WORLD AND THOSE TO COME. I WAS THE LAMB THAT STOOD IN THE GARDEN UPON MY HOLY MOUNTAIN. I AM THE LAMB THAT WAS GIVEN TO PROVIDE A COVERING FOR THE RACE OF MEN AND THEIR BLOODLINE ALONE. THE BLOODLINE OF HUMANS HAS BEEN THREATENED AS IF MY PROPHECIES COULD EVER BE THWARTED. THE REBELLION OF MY FIRE CHILDREN WILL BE PUT DOWN BY THE SEED OF MEN. THEIR CAUSE SHALL NEVER SUCCEED UPON THE ERETZ, NOR IN ANY REALM WHERE MANKIND IS BROUGHT TO DWELL. MY WORD SHALL STAND AND BE FULFILLED IN THE COURSE OF TIME. I HAVE SEEN ITS BEGINNING AND ITS ENDING. NO WORD SPOKEN BY ME SHALL EVER FAIL. I AM THE GUARANTOR OF THE PROMISES GIVEN AND THE FULFILLMENT THEREOF. DO YOU UNDERSTAND, SON OF MAN?'”

The giant swallowed visibly trembling at having been able to repeat the words spoken by The Lamb, fear, and awe even now creasing his forehead, and working the muscles in his cheeks as his jaw bone clenched and unclenched at the memories.

“I had no voice, but to weep, as the words washed over me with a love I could feel, as I cowed in abeyance before Him. I felt my lungs fill again with a fresh breeze and a coolness that eased the warmth that burned in my bones and muscles. I croaked out an acknowledgment that came through me in a quiet whisper. The Voice spoke to me again and this time it came to my ears as the soft, calming voice of a single man. Fearfully, I lifted my eyes and beheld a man standing before me where The Lamb had stood. He was dressed in white linens with a golden sash about his waist and a purple robe of royalty draped over his shoulder. He touched me with a hand that bore a scar in his palm and wrist, and I felt strength return to my muscles and bones and flush through my blood, feeling as if I had been reborn anew at that moment, and all of the power of my youth came back in a flood of energy. The man’s eyes blazed with an inner flame, but it was as the gentle glow of this firelight, providing warmth from the outer cold of the storm that buffets this humble cabin. ‘You have been granted your heart’s desire, son of Yared, son of Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, and Seth, and son of the first Touch of My Hand and My Breath-son of Adam. You are well called, Enoch, child of ‘the lesson’, for I have called you to teach the sons of these generations what is to befall them and to instruct them even if they do not yield to My words through your lips. You will be a judgment against them and a witness. A voice calling out in the lands of their wandering, pleading them to return to Me again and hear My Words of love to them. Their end is coming, for I shall remove them from the sins of their flesh, and bathe this world anew. I shall teach you as you walk with Me until the time for words to this generation are over and they no longer choose to listen. I will spare Myself a remnant from among them, and all manner of fowl, mammal, and fish that I have chosen to remain upon the Eretz I have chosen as My Kingdom’s footstool, beneath My Holy Mountain. I will use the sins of my fire sons to scourge this unrepentant generation so that they may consider returning back to Me. Their children shall pass through the waters, and lose the flesh that they have stolen from the people of My Breath. Their bodies will descend into corruption and be buried beyond the reach of the condemned spirits which once inhabited them. They will be made mortal and shall perish in their apostasy. The ‘shining ones’ –My morning stars that I placed among the Heavens–shall forever be bound to the fate of the eretz where I gave mankind their dominion. Mankind, whom they thought to subvert shall one day judge them for their attempt to subvert their bloodline. I shall raise up a nation that I shall call My own portion. I shall use them to drive the seed of this unholy line from the lands I shall give them. I shall require that this generation and the one to follow be scourged and put down by my Holy nation. I shall give this charge to My human forerunning champion named Yeshua, and in his failing, I shall complete the scourge with My Champion to Come, The One I Have Promised to your fathers before you. Now walk with Me and I shall show you many more things that will be to come. I shall spare your line, and your children shall be the root of all mankind that will follow the judgment in the days to come. Your great-grandson, yet to be born, I have chosen for the days ahead. He shall bring the remnant to a place of rest, as the eretz is cleansed to be renewed again and drawn out of its baptismal waters. You shall witness that judgment from a place I have created for the audiences for my councils ahead. Your son soon to be born shall dwell upon this land until the day of his death and I bring the end to this obstinate people. Take heed to My Words and name him well as a testament to the other children and daughters of Adam. I will teach you in My Ways, for you are to be My First Prophet and I shall teach you how to preserve the Words of mankind that will bless all generations to come, for Death shall remain in you from the inheritance of Adam’s seed working to steal away memories. If You remain faithful to Me, I shall preserve you through all the days ahead, so that you shall even witness the fulfillment of the prophecy I shall put in your mouth, before your death to come.‘”

Ryden sat now in stunned silence. His mouth felt dry and his body ached from the tension, having flexed muscles he was unaware of during the course of the giant’s words. He blinked, trying to process all he had learned. The legends he had heard about this giant were nothing compared to the first-hand account he had just heard. This was Enoch, Hanokh of old. Living History. A man that should have been long dead by now, but wasn’t.

Ryden finally broke his silence, clearing his dry throat, “How do you still have strength?”

“I am not from this Mid-World. My time stopped when I left the Surface World. My life is still bound to the world of my birth. Any Surface Worlder coming here, for any period of time, will cease aging for the duration of the time spent here. Time is relative to place. This world is a Mid-place between the Surface World and Excavatia. The coil of time connects them, but The Sovereign One moves through human history in whatever direction He wills. He is not bound by His Creation but transcends it according to His Design. He brought me here long ago, for He knew there would be a time when the outrages of the Surface World would express themselves here. He knew that I would recognize its effect when the time came, along with its parallels in the Surface World from which I came. The days of my great-grandson Noah are returning both here and in the Surface World above. This is the inflection point. I am to fight and expose them here, while the Stone Quests proceed forward again. I have seen their signs in the skies above, even as we once read the signs of the planting and reaping seasons in the days I spent in the old world I left. The Harvesting is coming. Excavatia will be found again. And the enemies of mankind, both seen and unseen are doing everything they possibly can to stop them. This time they are targeting my children.”

Ryden raised his hand, “Wait! Didn’t you say that you left your family back in the Surface World, in the old days? Your son, Methuselah. His death signified the commencement of the judgment. Your grandson, Noah, and his family were spared, according to the accounts in the Ancient Text.”

The giant grunted, “That is true. The words have been written on The Marker Stone from the beginning of the worlds. Their human text was transcribed through the accounts of faithful men, sensing the Presence Breathing Through them onto the ancient scrolls that were copied and preserved throughout human history.”

“I don’t understand,” Ryden scratched his ear, “How is it that you say you have children here if you left your family back there?”

The giant chuckled in a deep and resonant laugh that seem to fill the hovel and push back the darkness in the corners not reached by the firelight.

“Oh, I see,” he rumbled. “How can one have had sons without having a wife to bear him children? Do the intimate ways of a man with a woman still elude you, at such an age?”

Ryden blinked, surprised that he had not already surmised this sooner, “You mean your wife was brought here also?”

Hanokh laughed again, “Of course, my young man. Did not The One say to Adam in the Ancient text, that it is not good for man to be alone? Would The One who can do no wrong and always works to the good of those who love Him, cause me to forsake or abandon my wife of sealed promise if He caused us to become one with each other?”

“But there is no record of it in the Ancient Text?”

“There also was no mention of how we sired sons, nor a full accounting of our daughters, though we did have them, and much more. The Ancient Text covers the History that is pertinent to the revealing of The One. All written words given to it are serving that Purpose. Have you not read where The One Himself said, through His penman David in the Holy line of Kings: ‘Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me’ (Psalms 40:7 & Hebrews 10:7)?”

“Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” [John 5:39 KJV]

The giant gave Ryden a moment to process those thoughts and come to a realization. “Are you saying, we are family?”

“Distant though the relations may be, we are. Though you may be related through marriage. There is another here from a later point in Surface World History, though he is not seen much and tends to shy away from large groups. He is something of a recluse, but his family still tolerates his odd eccentricities. He too was given the charge of being one of The One’s appointed prophets. You may have heard of him. He is called The Fire Prophet, though nothing in his appearance would give one cause to recognize him as such. It may be that I will have to seek him out soon, once I discover the present source of the Seed of Nachash. It seems to be traveling through the rivers that flow from these headlands down into the lower valleys. It contaminates the drinking water. I suspect The Pan and his Half-men creatures have a source for it within the deadened woods in the north, but that does not seem to be where the Xarmnians are getting it, nor where it is entering the streams that flow into the rivers. I have been scouting the headlands, tracking back to the source springs from which they originate. The springs seem to be clear, so there must be someplace further downriver, where these dark waters are entering the flow that waters these lands. I need to find the source soon or it will eventually affect everyone drinking the waters downstream. The taint is diluted enough so that it does not readily appear to affect those who drink it. But over time it will, and the results will be disastrous.”

Ryden sighed, “So what about this thing on the table? Do we set it afire?”

The giant harumphed, “For now we wait out this storm. Burning troll smells bad enough. When the storm abates we can slide it off the table into the fireplace. Then we can be on our way.”

“To the rivers then?”

The giant shook his head slowly, “Soon, but first, there is a specific place I must visit, before heading back down from the highlands.”

“The Marker Stone has been buried, if that is what you’re thinking,” Ryden offered.

“I know of that already. No, it is a bit further, next to a place where they built a granary. There is a place near the bottom of the escarpment. A dried river bed remains where fresh water once flowed. The oak tree I planted near the brook to commemorate the terebinth is there. Some called it the “Oak of Moreh”. It is one of the oldest living trees in the Mid-World. It was planted when I was first brought here. Recently a sword was driven into its roots where it extended into the brook, that no Mid-Worlder may remove. I must see for myself if the sword still remains there.”

“A sword?!” Ryden arched an eyebrow quizzically.

“A very particular one, yes,” the giant rejoined.

“And if it remains, will you take it up?”

“No,” Hanokh shook his head solemnly, “It is not for me to do so. The sword is meant only for one man called to wield it. And when he takes it up, I’ll know that the prophecy of the Stone Quests will have been rejoined once more.”

*Scene 14* 19:37 (The Terebinth)

At the base of the escarpment and hilltop granary, Begglar and I gathered our group at the sloped embankment that descended into the dried streambed.  Begglar looked at me and nodded, and I cleared my throat, not sure how to begin.

“There is a reason we stopped here.”

“So, we’ve gathered,” one of the young men snarked.

I gave him a solemn stare and he shrugged sheepishly.

“We are going down into the creek bed.  Each one of us.  I need you all to wait here with me at this bridge until you are called.  Begglar will await you at the cross-split of the stream.  From here you can see there is a sword there.  Begglar will wait for you at the sword.”

Faces turned towards Begglar, and a woman asked, “What are you planning to do with the sword?”

Begglar spoke up, “I will just be asking each of you a question privately.  It is important that you give your own answer to my question, so I need each of you far enough away from the group so that you cannot hear another’s answer.  The sword is a ceremonial sword, a symbol of truth, so it is important that you answer honestly.  The place of this juncture point is significant also.  The roots into which the sword has been placed belong to one of the oldest trees in this land.  The roots are exposed now, but they used to be under the waters of this stream.  Roots represent what your deepest beliefs are, below the surface of what you present to others.  The tree itself is perhaps one of the most significant symbols of all, for it is a Terebinth.”

“What is a terry bince?” Miray asked.

“Terebinth, dear,” Nell corrected gently.

“But what is it?  And what was that word you said, O’Brian?  Back in the wagon.  A Sibby-smeth?  What are these strange words all about?”

“The word is Shibboleth,” I answered, “and it is a good thing that you were not in the land of promise, crossing the Jordan in the days of the ancient judges, when you mispronounced that word, or you would have been struck down by a Gileadite warrior’s blade for doing so.”

“What does that mean?!” another asked, her voice rising in alarm.

“The Ancient Text records the story in the book of the Judges,” I answered calmly, trying to diffuse their uneasiness with the even timbre of my voice.

“Another obscure passage from this Ancient book?  How do you remember all these quotations, and stories?” a young man folded his arms in irritation.

I blushed, partially embarrassed, but committed to making a full account of myself, if I ever hoped to gain their trust, “Actually, it was more than just having read the stories myself, but an incident that happened at the Stone Marker, when I first came to the Mid-World.”

“What happened?”

“I tripped and fell against it, and caught myself with my hands, touching the surface of the stone and the golden letters you saw.”

They looked to Begglar for corroberation, and Begglar nodded.

“The letters touched him,” Begglar assented, “They lept from the stone and covered his body with golden light, flashing across his skin, and, instantly, he fell down to his face. We all witnessed it. O’Brian cried out, but we were afraid to touch him. He reacted as though he had seen something that terrified him.”

They all turned to me and one said, “What did you see?”

I cleared my throat, remembering the shame of that moment, and said simply, “I saw myself, as I really am. And then I saw myself as The One sees me. And then I lost my sight.”

“For three days,” Begglar added. “Jeremiah, our then leader, finally pulled him away from the Stone, but of course all of the rest of us had moved back from it. One does not touch its surface without a profound effect, coming from the experience. We weren’t sure what had happened to O’Brian. He was silent for those three days following. There were times in our journey afterward though, when he had regained both his sight and his voice, that we suggested that perhaps he might want to touch The Marker Stone once more. Kidding, of course.”

“Ha, ha,” I mock laughed.

“So what did it do to you?” a girl asked.

I closed my eyes briefly, remembering the experience. The shame of what I saw in me, and the soothing, and beckoning of what I felt from the Words of the Living Golden Letters. I opened my eyes, seeing the expectant faces, knowing that they might not understand my response.

“The Words live in me. Live through me. It is hard to describe, really,” I fumbled. “Passages of the Ancient Text leap into my thoughts when I experience something in this life. It is almost as if I am living simultaneously in two worlds, but only recently gained the insight to ‘see’ into the second one, and I have a strong sense that yet a third one remains, just outside of these two. That third promises to be grander than both of these. It is strange. It is like being deeply homesick for a place you’ve never been to, but only heard rumors of. But somehow, you know you belong there.

“My memory is like a deep, shadowy well, and when I seem to thirst, a pail of the Golden Letters seemed to rise upward from the well, like a light in a dark tunnel. The passages pour out of me, and that is why Jeremiah kept me near him for most of our journey together. The Golden Letters were what he needed to hear, and they came through me then, before I betrayed the party, when I followed Caleb into The Pan’s forest. Afterward, when Caleb was taken, Jeremiah found it hard to trust me again. And the words in me seemed to fade with his trust. I became confused and irritable. I felt like the blindness had come back to me, only this time it did not cloud my physical eyesight, but something deeper. A perception I had experienced but did not know I possessed before touching The Marker Stone. This darkness lingered in me, eventually causing me to no longer trust myself with a decision. I lacked a clear vision. I became a danger both to myself and to others, and so I eventually parted from our company and moved to that shack, I built in Basia. When I was later discovered by the enemies in this world, and they attempted, unsuccessfully to drown me, I left the Mid-World entirely. Expecting never to be allowed to return. Only the visions and the Voice would not let me stay there. I was brought back here for a purpose, and I believe it is to complete what was left unfinished. The Golden Letters compel me to. The Marker Stone has marked me, and I am now tied to both Its Fate and Its Quests.”

There was a deep and profound quiet for a moment as the group pondered my words, but above and in the distance, the silence was interrupted by the rumble of thunder amid the susurrant rustling of the leaves. The calm seemed pregnant with an ominous threat soon to be birthed in the darkening sky above us. Black and grey fleets of immense clouds skudded across the sky, a juggernaut armada that promised more winds and rains to come.

“We’d better hurry this along,” Begglar grunted, as he moved down into the creekbed, gesturing to Nell. “Bring the wee lass first.”

I released Miray’s hand and nodded reassuringly to her, “It’s okay. Go along with them. I’ll be along afterward.”

Miray seemed reluctant, but she nodded trustingly, and walked to Nell’s outstretched hand, holding fast as Nell helped her down and they made their way across the dried stones, around pits, extruded tangles of roots, washes, and gulleys of the descending creekbed.

We followed them down, taking brief shelter from the stirring winds under the bridge, and stood among the rocks that had brown traces of dried moss from when the water had once flowed over them. The team of horses and wagon were tied and secured above us along the trestle supporting the short bridge and the low walled, railings. They slightly stirred but remained relatively calm.

One of the women stood beside me as we watched Begglar, Nell, and Miray standing in the distance. Begglar on the opposite side of the mysterious sword, Miray stands before it with her back to us, like a young acolyte before a priestly altar. Nell moved to one side, off to the left. Dominic had followed them part way, awaiting his father’s signal to come to escort the next one of our company forward.

The young woman spoke quietly to me, “What do suppose he’s asking her? This Shibboleth thing?”

“I expect so. But I have no specific idea what the question might be.”

The woman cleared her throat, “Well, it clearly not her name, for you already know that already.”

I detected a bit of mirth in the statement and regarded her with a sidelong glance.

“I am familiar with the…,” here she indicated in finger quotes, “…’Shibboleth test’ passage in the Ancient Text. It’s in Judges chapter 12, isn’t it? The story of Jephthah, and the Ephraimites spies. Are you thinking we have a spy among us?”

I gave a noncommittal grunt. “There might be. Begglar seems to think it is important we find out before doing anything else. I feel it is prudent to yield to him in this. I sense something-a vague shadow-but cannot be sure what it is.”

“Considering, he is questioning the young girl, I don’t think it is necessarily a phonetics test, he is giving her, like in the Ancient Text passage. It is, perhaps, something like that in the reason it was done in the past. He is unmasking something, I think. He does seem to feel threatened, and his family stands to risk more than us by merely associating with us. Further so, by joining us and helping us. He must really trust you quite a bit, doing so.”

I remained quiet, cautiously wondering what she was leading up to.

After a moment, she sighed, like she had finally made up her mind, and then offered me her hand. “My name is Lindsey,” she said simply. “If Begglar and his family can put that much faith in you, so can I. For whatever it is worth, I am with you and will support you in your leadership of this ‘quest’ thing.”

I turned more fully toward her and took her proffered hand. My eyes moistened and threatened to reveal how profoundly moved I was by her sincere offering of support and trust.

I choked back a lump in my throat, knowing that I had not yet proven myself worthy of anything, much less her confidence.

“Thank you,” I said, unable to say much more.

“Don’t make me regret this,” she teased, lightening the moment.

“I shall strive not to,” I added, “…with help.”

We turned to watch as Nell led Miray away and up near the large oak overshadowing the copse and streambed. Its branches were large and thick– powerful. It shadowed the stream, creating a canopy and covering the juncture of the stream, where the channels branch outward and split to the right and left of where Begglar stood with the sword, creating a small transept, as if it were the branches off of the nave in a cathedral, with Begglar occupying the sacristy in the crossing. This Shibboleth test was almost like observing a ceremony, for indeed it did appear so, with all of the graveness and solemnity with which it was carried out.

Dominic turned and was coming towards our gathering, tasked with escorting the next person in our group to undergo this mysterious questioning. As Begglar had advised me before, I would be the last one called to stand before him, for even though, as Lindsey had pointed out, Begglar had already placed a great deal of trust in me as it pertained to the welfare of his own family, there might still be some doubt in his mind on whether or not I was fully committed to shoulder the responsibility that would follow in leading this band and this renewal of the quest.

If there were traitors among us, I suspected that it may prove to be more than just a single bad actor. All prior quests were reflected in the numbering of the company as well as in the elapsed time between the prior quest that had gone before it. There had also been the vague indicators along the edge of the skyline and eastern sea, that I had spotted before the encroachment of the coming fog had obscured my vision. If my count had been correct, there should only be twenty-one of us Surface Worlders, in this group, counting myself, corresponding to my twenty-one years of wandering and separation from the prior quest. Counting, Begglar, Nell, and Dominic, we were twenty-six all totaled, but Begglar had become a more permanent part of this Mid-World by marrying Nell and being made one with her in the ceremonial union. That left three persons unaccounted for. Three wild cards in the deck of the hand being dealt to us. Who were these three? Considering we were in the mysterious land of the Mid-World, I might just as well ask the question, ‘what were these three?’ For this land had beings and creatures that were adept at concealing their identities, even from those who might seem to lead and trust them. My own personal experience with Jeremiah chaffed me in that thought, as I reflected with shame on the way I had treated him placing his faith and trust in me. Considering such, I felt I deserved the sting of a reciprocal betrayal. His brother was dead because I failed to stop him from his foolishness. He had asked me, entrusted me with his confidence to look after his brother and make sure he did not get into mischief, and I had failed him in that and led him to distraction and grief, which endangered the rest of our former company. Seven of the fourteen had died that I’d heard of. Nine, if Begglar was correct. That old uneasiness stirred within me, threatening to cloud my inner sight again. The persistent shadow that I both perceived and felt moving underground and within me somehow seeking to blind me permanently from the perception and clarity I still longed for.

The winds were picking up, stirring the leaves in the creekbed more vigorously now. The stands of trees along the creekbanks began to sway as if urging the procession and progress of Begglar’s questioning to hurry and be done with it before we would be driven to take shelter again. The air around us felt agitated, as the pressure began to drop. The scent of it was slightly acrid and seemed to pinch at our nostrils. Begglar seemed to notice this too, for the procession of questionings picked up, and Dominic performed a yeoman’s service as he escorted each person down to the creekbed to stand before his father, before collecting the next one of us.

I was not able to determine which of our party might be the ones falling under suspicion, for Begglar performed his inquiries under a quickening cadence.

Lindsey spoke to me again, just before she was called to make the long walk down the dried creekbed. “Mister O’Brian, what is a terebinth?”

“A terebinth?” I asked, making sure I heard her clearly, for the wind was gathering force and fury.

“Yeah,” she said, “Isn’t that some sort of tree?”

I paused. It was in some respects, but it was more than that in others. It was a type of nut-bearing tree in the modern opinion. But in the old world understanding, and the Ancient Text context, it was a commemorative tree. A sacred tree is said to mark a memorial place where a deity was to have visited mankind. The Ancient Text referenced the Oak of Moreh, where The One appeared to the patriarch Abraham in the passage of Genesis 12:6-7 to announce the coming blessing of his line. Terebinth trees were of a type said to be sources of incense such as frankincense, balsam, and myrrh, as well as certain burning oils such as turpentine. All of these things were representative of worship. In Genesis 18, the site beneath the shade of a Terebinth tree known as the Oak of Mamre was also the place where The One met with and advised Abraham of the upcoming fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. It struck me then that this place of the ancient oak had added significance when coupled with the strange presence of the sword, and the bone dryness of the brook.

This was a place either of great blessing or of great judgment and wrath to come. The Terebinth Oak signified a place where The One touched the land to either bless it or curse it. A place where the Stone Quest I was called to would either begin or end, depending on what Begglar was asking of us.

My throat seized up and felt raw and dry, and the woman–who I now knew to be called Lindsey–had to leave with Dominic, having not received my answer to her question.

When my turn came to stand before Begglar and hear what he had to say, I knew that such a portentous moment had come. The choice to choose either the monster or the mission. Was this place beneath the shadow of a Terebinth tree to be representative of Oak of Moreh (blessing) or Oak of Mamre (cursing)?

*Scene 01* 9:46 (The Kinship & The Stone)

Disquiet lingered in the mind of the Xarmnian king.  He had walked the parapet of the palace for half the night.  The dew of the early morning had soaked his bed clothes and chilled his body, but he could not return to his bed chamber.

To do so would bring the dreams again.  And the memories.

The spectre of his father haunted him.  The kingdom was under threat.  His wealth and authority was under threat.  He legitimacy was, again, under threat.

The latter threat was the most painful.  The reason why he had insisted on changing his name to the title “Son of Xarm.”

There was a deep, dark secret.  A family secret.  A secret that his birth mother had exposed by giving him his birth name–Moab.  A name that had a dark history and a meaning that could be discovered by anyone who might have read the accursed texts that had been transcribed from the face of that accursed stone.

That was why he had ordered all transcriptions of those hateful letters to be banished, and anyone caught with any part of the Ancient Text in their possession to be executed and hung publicly from the ramparts.

No one knew the truth.  He wasn’t just a bastard.  He was a child of incest.  A man whose father had disowned him, until all of the other sons born to him in his profligate lifestyle were dead.  Moab was the last living child with any of his father’s blood left in him, and his father had been grudgingly forced to acknowledge him as his own, because of his own obsession with having a line that survived him.  The pride of progeny.  His father’s pride.  It was the one tenuous hold and claim he had on the paternity of his father, his identity as the man’s son.  He was never to mention, that his mother was actually his father’s daughter.  He had been warned to never reveal the truth.  A hidden palace assassin was personally charged to see to it that Moab never indicated otherwise.  She was just a palace concubine and nothing more.  All records of anything different were expunged from the annuals.

Three verses from the Ancient Text terrifed him.  These passages had appeared upon the face of The Marker Stone one for each or the three times he had dared visit the old country to the east.  Three times in which he had departed angrily from the site and had denied the personal message.

The first…

“…the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.” [Luke 2:35 NLT]

The second…

“The time is coming when everything that is covered up will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all.” [Luke 12:2 NLT]

The third and final straw…

“But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” [Romans 2:5 NLT]

The final passage terrified him, and from that moment he had determined to destroy the stone, and failing that, he had had it entombed, buried in bones and skulls with no jawbones.  No one would reveal his secrets.  No one. Living or dead.  He had made a vow to his father.  A father whose memory he worshipped.

But now, Xarm’s own treasury had been tapped and violated.

Twice.

Once by a seemingly worthless old beggar woman.

And shortly thereafter, by a supernatural force acting upon a hidden stone of power, pilfered by the tribal families from the site of the mysterious monolith residing on a hilltop to the east.

Twelve stones, there were.  One taken by each of the original families.  Stones which had the ability to make an object weightless and able to be carried effortlessly by a single bearer.  Even a child could wield the stone.

But now, the treasury room within the vaunted halls of Xarm City was no longer secure.  And that worried the Son of Xarm to no end.

It had been twenty-one years since the powerful stone they had used to clear and build the massive city of Xarm ceased to be moved.  It had anchored itself to the pedestal upon which it was kept so securely, that even the pedestal could not be moved.  Something had happened within the Mid-World.  Some kind of sorcery that kept it held within the chamber, but no longer useful for the purposes for which it had been taken.  It was as if the monstrous combined weight of ever monolith it had so easily moved, returned to it and was imbued within the builder stone itself.  Spies were send out to the other tribal groups, and it was eventually learned that all twelve of the builder stones had suddenly anchored themselves upon the last place they had been layed down.

But now…  Suddenly, the immovable stone began to move on its own.  A quality it did not possess before.  Drawn towards some mysterious destination by an irresistable force that nothing could deny or prevent.

The hanging of suspected traitors did little to abate his wrath.  It served as mere cover for the venting of his frustrations.  The public deaths of vague suspects could not address the true source of his disquiet–his inner terror.  The stones were somehow signifying the coming end of his reign. His day of reckoning and accounting for all of the abuses and licenses he had taken as king.

His father had warned him the day would come, and that the approach of it would be attended with mysterious signs and troubling wonders.  The signets of power would return to the source from which they arose.  The ancient stone buried upon a hill in the eastern lands.

A detachment of soldiers had cordoned off the area where the treasury wall had been breached.  The resting place of the builder stone had been crushed, as if tremendous force had bore down upon it.  The pillar had been pressed to powder, crumbling under the weight of the mysterious and hand-sized conical stone.

Upon reaching the floor, the conical builder stone had moved laterally, penetrating the wall, fracturing the lower foundational stones and causing the upper wall to sag and buckle.  Braces of iron and steel bars cold not impede it.  They bent under its determined course and then eventual fell away or were driven into the stone wall.

The builder stone had eventually crossed the outer courtyard, had pushed through an iron gate, forcing the barricade partially off its anchored hinges.

For days the mysterious stone moved through the city in a straight course, passing through buildings, houses, gardens, stables, marketyards, always shielded and concealed by palace guards until it reached the outer city walls.  For hours it was lost, pushing inward and through the thick city wall, until it ruptured the outer battlements, crumbling granite before it’s juggernaut path.

Once outside of the city wall, soldiers attempted to further conceal its determined progress by covering it in military field tents.  But nothing could conceal the damage it had done.  Nothing could impede it.  No one could raise it from the furrow it cut along the ground as it continued to plow inexplicably forward.

Within a week’s time, the builder stone had gained the outer fields.  Xarmnian soldiers covered its movements with what appeared to be field exercises and drills, anything to distract onlookers from the discovery of the stone’s mysterious progress, but to no avail.

From the point at which it had lain motionless in the treasury to the course through the city and out onto the field a line of clear direction could easily be drawn.

There was no longer any doubt in the Son of Xarm’s mind.  The builder stone was returning to The Marker Stone.  Whatever was happening at that accursed place was causing this presentl calamity and his growing unease and inability to sleep, eat or think, much less control his flashes of angry tirades.

That was why he had sent his most dangerous warrior hunters out more than a week ago, to find out what might be going on with this present sorcery.  To kill whoever or whatever was causing these things.

He was certain, that the news of the oculus, appearing on the shore of the eastern sea, had something to do with it.  And he was sure that, though they had buried The Marker Stone in the filth of bones of those who once served and believed in it’s promises.  The Stone was still very much a living thing that would ultimately bring him to ruin.

*Scene 02* 3:35 (Backsliding)

The rain came hard upon the three who had parted ways with the group–A deluge that seeming to roar over the crest of the hill and plunge downward, carving torrential grooves and streams in the hillside.  A wash of dirt and grime met their efforts to climb the brow covering them with mud, grit and misery.

“Are you sure we made the right decision?” the middle-aged man growled at the older.  “Shut up!” the older snapped, “You’ll thank me when we get back into the Inn and get a fire started to warm us all up.”

The young woman slipped and muddy water poured over her, causing her to slide down into the rain-eroded chute. She grappled with the sharp rocks and managed to slow her descent, wedging herself against a rock.

“A little help, guys!” she cried.

The younger man turned and worked his way back down to her and was able to catch her arm and pull her back out of the flume stream.

Her jeans, shirt and shoes were caked in mudd and clay.  She was soaked through and shivering.  Bone cold and wet she wept and could barely get back to her feet.  “He doesn’t really care about us.”

“I get that,” the younger man said, leaning under the woman’s arm, helping her rise. “Hold on to me.  We’ll get over that rise and it should be easier.”

The older man crested the summit amid thunder and flashes of lightning.  Below the hill the screen of showers and windgusts, hid the barnyard tableau under a miasma of rising steam.  The roof tops of the barn, stables, and Inn were barely visible, but still anchored below the driving wet.

The older man’s voice rose but was swallowed by the noise of the rain storm and winds.  Eventually the younger woman and younger man joined him at the summit.  The scouring wind threatened to push them back down the hill, but they leaned against it and grappled their way forward, from scrub brushes to buried rocks, sliding down from time to time on the wet scree, and muddied earth.  The wind pounding them in their slow progress.

Thirty feet down they could see the strobing sky reflecting in scintillations off of the large puddles covering the wagonyard.  A figure and ghostly shape moved under the staccato, like a black Rorshach image stuttering across a projecting screen.  A few more feet down and they could see a rider on horseback, barely clinging to the mount.  It moved across the yard and up onto the road as a glimmer of light shone from the Inn and three large dark shapes emerged into the storm, moving swiftly towards the barn and stable.

They pause about halfway across the puddled yard and pointed, up toward the hillside.  A few beats passed, and the figures moved swiftly toward the barn and emerged again, on large black horses.

Realization struck.  The older man’s voice had risen in pitch and volume.  He was screaming something.  Two heartbeats passed, before the young man and woman realized what he was saying.

“Run! Run!”

*Scene 03* 4:43 (Going to The Granary)

The very wet drive from the Hill of Skulls to the gradually rising highland plain plateau was uneventful.  In route, the rain eventually lessened and then abated.  The land beyond the thinning curtain of wet was stepped, cleared for fields and pastureland, but then descended precipitously on down towards a larger valley and forested lands below.  Beyond were the looming and majestic mountains, some gray and formidable stone giants blanketed with ermine coverings of snow, some heavily forested in persistent greens, some charred in fire-touched blacks and browns.  In the silvered distance, jagged cuts of rock chiseled against the gray-blue sky, framing the horizon–an ominous reminder of the missing lower jaw of the skulls of the martyrs moldering in the Hill of entombment, they had just quitted.

Each successive layer of distant climatic regions made it seem like the very land postured for dominance under the fissured heavens.  Silently crying out to the heavens for justice in the belief and hope for which they had been brutally slain and savagely disarticulated.

I groaned within my spirit.  The calling to find and carry the virtue stones to the golden crown within the crown of stone could not end here.  Not just for my sake alone, but for theirs, for all of those suffering within the Mid-World and for those in my present company who did not yet know that a part of them lived here too.  For all the blood shed in the belief that Excavatia could be found again.  For the truth to be made evident that those seeking Excavatia and hoping for the king’s return did not die in vain.

On the drive, Begglar told me a little about the granary that serviced the area fields.  The granary was built into a raised hillock, with three levels where the winds assisted the treading, threshing, winnowing floors.  A limestone channel had been naturally cutting through the hillock by the powerful winds that roared across the highland plains and cut an eroded notch into the hillock top that was deepened and layered with grooved trusses and crossbeams around a central spindle core, balastered by massive slabs of stone.  During the harvest, the cut sheaves of grain were loaded and pitched into the treading floor where a team of horses trampled the wheat and grain stalks so that the heads and kernels of grain fell through the grooves in the floor.  When the initial trampling and treading were done, a stone wheel press was lowered onto the trampling deck and drawn by the team, pressing the final bits of grain down through the grooves into the lower floor.  A sliding door was opened allowing the winds to blow out the crushed stalks between the grooved channel.  The upper floor was then raked and cleaned of all remaining stalks and vines and collected and baled for hay, loaded on wagons, and carted away to feedlots for the stabled stock.

The hillock had a low rise slope that came up to the top level deck even with the surface of the hillock plateau, but along the sides were various carved roads that allowed access to the second and third levels of the granary and gristmill operation.

The lowest section of the hillock granary was the sealed grain bins, where the final husked and winnowed grain was stored and sealed in dry stone slanted pits.  A stone furnace warmed and dried the lower grain bins built and arranged in a circular floral pattern around the lower end of the upper spindle.

The mill just below the end of the tel, beyond the granary had a sluice system fed from an underground spring that allowed the workers the ability to wash and gather water for malting grains for ale-making.  Large, sealed stone jars held ground and powdered grain mixes of wheat and rye for both bread making and malting for sweet ales and beers.

A riverbed, that used to be fed by the spring in the upper tel, was now only a dried shallow channel lined with trees.

As we drew nearer to the spot where we aligned, I was certain I saw something gleam within that arboreal corridor.  Something that looked strangely like a sword, standing point downward.  Driven into the shallow riverbed, among the twisted roots of the surrounding trees.

*Scene 04* 6:24 (Fall of The Nameless)

The rain pelted and punished Christie as she hugged and clutched the neck and reins of her mount. The horse fought for purchase as its hooves alternately slipped and dug into the flow of sucking mud sloughing off the hillside. A torrent of rain poured down the incline, flowing over buried stones, rinsing and peeling the ground away, pooling into the resulting grooves and twin streams of flooded wagon ruts.

Christie rode up and into the alternating skeins of wet and wind hoping they obscured her fleeing ascent as much as they seemed to fade the scene of the inn and barnyard below.

In the dimming, she turned and saw three men emerge from the inn as she gained the summit of the hill. Terror spurred both her and her horse away from the scene, riding hard through the swirling rain, but hiding her from the progress of her would-be pursuers.

Xarmnians.  No doubt the brutal owners of the horses she’d seen quartered in Begglar’s stable.

To her left, she thought she heard desperate shouting, mewling cries of terror, as three on foot attempted to scramble up the hillside. She could not tell who they were, but could not risk waiting to find out.

Moments later, the three men she had seen crossing the barnyard below, crested the hill coming fast upon the black horses she had encountered in the stable below. They were armed with long spears.

She kicked her horse’s flanks into a more urgent gallop trying to create as much distance between her and her pursuers as she possibly could.

Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her respiration siphoned the air from around the downpour.

She rocketed down the hill descending into a declivity, horse hooves clapping across flowstone and splashing through streams of water. Another furtive glance over her shoulder revealed the three dark horsemen cresting the hillside summit.  She stilfed a cry of terror, smothering it under her tongue, swallowing the sound before it could break free of her lips and betray her position amid the harried cries of the upper winds. 

Instead of racing towards her, the three warriors turned onto the ridgeline riding away from her secluded position.  A quick flash of light revealed their intended course of pursuit.

There were three people on foot–stumbling and fleeing, as the large horses matched pace, canting and angling towards them.  The distant shouting and cries of pursuit barely rose above the snared hiss of the falling rain. 

The horsemen brandished large spears, raised bolts of piercing lightning honed to teardrop bladed points at the end of long javelin poles.  The deadly poles bounced in a rhythmic pumping, balanced upon the gimbals of the bearer’s gloved and raised fists as the horses stamped down the slope.  The horses’ hooves clapped the rocks and wet gravel, adding further percussion to the storm’s symphony of impending slaughter.

One of the spearmen launched his lance, thrusting it downward impaling one of the runners, arresting his victim’s movement into the cold wet.  The horse and rider mercilessly rode over the body of the fallen, not merely satisfied with the brutality of his kill alone.

Another, with galloping speed, hurled his raised rod through the wash of the angry storm, striking another, felling the fleeing victim in a similar fashion.  The second Xarmnian, swung out of the saddle, planting his feet against the slope to keep from sliding.  He retrieved his spear, jerking it violently from the small back of his victim.  He knelt for a closer look and realize that his quarry was a woman.

Christie almost vomited.  She turned away from the distant scene, unable to watch any further.  The three had been members of their company.  Fellow travellers, whom she did not know personally, but had neverless journeyed with up until this point.  For the life of her, she could not remember if she had ever been told their names.  There was a third horseman she could no longer see, but she had no doubt that wherever he might be, the other victim would meet a similar end.

She closed her eyes and wept blindly, masked by the downpour of the rain.  The growl of the thunder drown out all other sounds except one still voice that somehow returned to her in the deep throes of her sorrow and terror.

“For one who has ears to hear, let them hear.“

She felt she was overhearing a repeated conversation she had been a part of…

“…my name is Christie.”

“Courage has a name, and today it goes by Christie. I am very pleased and honored to meet you, Christie.  Your name is fitting.  Reminds me of another name.”

The inner voice spoke again, “For one who has eyes to see, let them see.“

Suddenly, she felt her horse turn and angle toward the northwest. Gradually, she opened her eyes. The overhead rain was lessening, though the wind continued to persist. Something was happening. Something she had no words to explain, but a feeling arose within her.

The air around her swirled with moisture. A soft blue beam illumined a hill to the north, emanating from a mountain range barely visible in the far, far distance.

The soft blue glow calmed and reassured her.  There was meaning in the light. An ineffable feeling that drew her.  Beseeching her and assuring her that she was meant to be part of something. Something bigger and more important than she could imagine.

Her horse seemed to sense it too.

She had a purpose for being here. For enduring even the terrors of whatever this strange world might hold. A purpose for which she had been specifically called…by name.

The inner voice concluded, “The nameless will fall. But those called by name will stand.“

*Scene 05* 8:01 (Beneath the Threshing Floor)

At last, we arrived at the northern end of the granary slope, a large flat area where the winds begin to howl around us and blow downward toward the lower valleys.  Begglar slowed and halted the team just shy of crossing the threshing floor–the area where grains of wheat, alfalfa, millet, and sorghum were separated from the chaff and grated into the catcher pits for bagging and storage.

Just down from the hillock granary ran the copse of trees I had noticed upon arrival. The copse line was clean and ranked, as if the trees were planted in military precision and uniformity standing regimentally along a dried creek bed, strewn with fallen leaves. From a distance, the central creek bed was obscured by the trees, and it wasn’t until we gathered along the edge of the granary that we clearly saw the hollow tunnel within.

While the trees did form a sort of windbreak, a strong breeze rustled the peeled sheets of the channeled bed, rousing dead detritus, creating the faux-effect of stirring water whispering and shushing down the gulley along the treed corridor.

It gave the illusion of an arboreal throat, undulating, and contracting with each swallowed surge of the wind. The line of tall trees, white-barked birch and aspen among their ranks, stood as both sentry and the de facto canopy over the hollowed watercourse. Almost as if these were the backs of tall teeth lining the mouth that descended into a shadowy stomach below.

The land slightly sloped toward the west, and the creek’s original source of water appeared to have come from someplace near the granary, as if it had its source emerging from beneath the hill where the granary now lay. No other trees stood out on the sloping grassy plain, but this line of trees seemed to branch out equally at a juncture point where the creek had originally formed a central pool, before spilling over towards its central course, to run down the hill into deepening shadow.

As I looked down the throat of the tree-lined tunnel, toward the horizontal juncture, I was startled to see again the gleam of something thin and metallic planted vertically in the heart of the creek bed, rising from a web of twisted and revealed roots that would have extended into and under the waterline of the creek, had it still ran wet from its underground springs.

The sword.

“What is that?” I asked Begglar quietly, starting to point, but he caught my hand before I could draw attention to it. “Not now,” he arrested me with his gaze, even as he clamped his large paw over my arm. “We must speak in private first.”

The rain had ceased, but the winds stirred and buffeted the wagon sheets, popping loudly. Dominic held the horses stead as Begglar and I clamored out of the wagon.

Begglar and I went down to the lower area entryway on a stone stairway that ran beneath the threshing floor, to a wooden structure beneath the grated floor that was locked against entry.  This was the area called the Catcher Room– where all of the grain was stored underground in large bins and to bagged and loaded onto wagons to feed the lower occupied lands in the cities ahead.

Once inside, he led me alone to a simple storeroom chamber, insisting that the others remain outside for the time being.  He had something further to tell me which could only be done with absolute certainty of privacy.

“Be careful, what you speak of, O’Brian,” he said, not looking at me, or making himself heard above a whisper.  “I can’t be certain, yet, but I believe we have a monster hidden among us.”

“How do you know this? And what is a sword doing, standing in that dried riverbed? What has been going on here?”

“Much more than you know.” Begglar said.

“I was given a dream about seven years after you left. A dream of The Stone and others. A dream of your return, and something of the preparations that would need to be made for it.”

“I didn’t know what to make of it at first. I didn’t know if the dream was just an odd jumble of those things which trouble me in the waking hours. But that sword is a sign that this wasn’t just a dream to discount. It was a dream given to me for the purpose and an assurance that you would be drawn back here.”

“The sword was brought here in the fourteenth year after you left. A stranger whom no one knew, rode up onto the highlands and left it in the creek bed. Drove it into the root system there and soon the river dried up around it. Since then the creek bed has been dry. Water no longer flows from the rock-based spring that used to feed the lower end of the granary hillock. Water had to be carried in. The beers and ales could no longer be easily made here. Because of that, Xarmni has lost primary interest in this granary. In its production value. They view that sword with suspicion. Many have tried to rid the creek of it, and failed. It is an omen. I believe it is a symbol of something to come, and your return further confirms that for me. The sword is an Honor Sword. A symbolic sword of a city in the old traditions. For a time these were just ornamental swords serving to represent their founders and the convenant charters where a site was consecrated. But this one is different. This one had seen battle. It bears the covenant sash in the ancient traditions. Its presence here signifies both a curse and a challenge. It threatens the posterity of whoever rules these lands, and right now that is the Xarmnians. The highland has been a source for rich grains, but lately the crops have suffered blight and disease and harsher weather conditions. This place represents both food and drink. Bread and ale. But it also represents sifting and winnowing. Threshing and separation of chaff from grains. It is here where I believe we are to find out who it is that will join this journey in service to The Marker Stone. But it is also here where we need to find out who must be separated from us before we go forward. Five have left of their own accord. I fear for them, but they chose to go. Perhaps, Christie and Laura may return, but we have no assurance of that. Two others are under suspicion, but their motives are unclear as yet. One is among us that seems to be already creating dissention. A disruptor. It is disturbing to think so, but there is something we must do to test them. It believe you know to what I am referring.”

“The Shibboleth?”

“Yes. It is the only way to be certain. And that sword presents us with the best opportunity for it. Especially if it is a portent sword and even more so if it is an Honor Sword. But there is something else I was recently made aware of that impacts the entire of the Mid-World lands.”

“What is that?”

“It involves the Builder Stones, and because of them, we could be facing a war that involves all of the Mid-Worlder kingdoms who once held charge over them.”

“What do you mean who ‘once held charge over them’?”

“They are leaving the strongholds. Drawn by some mysterious force out from the possessions of the kingdoms which took them long ago. They will be followed. And when they converge…”

“Old enemies will meet again on the battlefield,” I finished.

*Scene 06* 3:43 (Seems to Be)

The threshing floor was both a place of separation and revelation.  Like kernels of grain pressed out of a husk, the others pressed and piled out of the back of the wagon.

“Why is it that we always seem to get wet following Mister O’Brian?” one of the young men complained as he and the others clamored out onto the grooved stone floor. “First the plunge into the sea, now traipsing through the rain, and riding in the back of that drafty wet wagon. Maybe the three who left us had the right idea.”

“Yeah, but notice how they too had to slog back up that hill in the rain,” another responded, following the former complaintant through the looped canvas and down the opened gate.

Dominic rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the jab about his father’s wagon.

“At least they’ll probably sleep in a warm bed tonight. Maybe find something there in the inn to eat. I am already hungry and we’ve barely even set out on this journey. I could almost kill for some hot chocolate and a blanket by the fire.”

Nell had followed, and met her son’s eyes as she stepped down.

“Is this how its going to be the whole trip?” Dominic muttered.

A teen girl offered to help the younger ones out, but Miray was having none of it. She ignored the girl’s proffered hand and scrambled down from the back and huffed, “Everybody keeps treating me like a baby! I can do this myself!”

“Let her be,” Nell counseled, putting an arm around the teen, giving her a short but patient smile. “She’s upset, but not at you.”

Nell had tried her best to keep Miray calm during the ride up to the granary hillock, but Miray wanted to pommel Becca. She stood with fists balled, arms trembling with tension. Becca had refused to look at her. Nell had interposed herself between the two girls, and spoke softly to Miray until, at last, Miray moved to the siderail.

There was something to the strange vibe she was picking up from the little girl that was so troubled. Old feelings of perception Nell had dismissed too many times until they had dulled in her repeated refusals to give them weight or place. Now there was no longer any way to ignore them.

Becca had an unexplainable cruelty about her, evidenced by her seeming intent on provoking Miray, insinuating there was something perverse in her relationship with Mister O’Brian, name calling, dismissing Miray’s assertions about the blue light gleam coming from the far mountains on the horizon imaginary. On one hand, she had claimed that Miray had been her friend and they shared a past connection, even feigned remorse over Miray’s memory loss. But on the other she had tried to jolt Miray off the wagon, and had insinuated that there was something nefarious going on between O’Brian and her “friend”. It could be jealousy, she reasoned, but that did not comport with Miray’s troubled dreams, or her aversion to being paired with her at night.

There was in fact a coldness about the little girl, and a name that Miray had whispered that seem to carry its own chill when spoken. Both she and Begglar had overheard Miray’s unconscious revelation about Beccas in her fevered dream. Perhaps, Becca was not truly who she presented herself to be.

*Scene 07* 4:59 (Battered Witness)

The Xarmnian bruel stood before an old man bound to a chair in the dining hall of the Inn. Within the last twenty minutes, the man had been pursued by a rider on horseback, brutally snatched from behind, lifted bodily by his collar, thrown across the hard horn of a saddle, carried back over the hill, and flung down into the wet muddy barnyard turnabout. He’d been kicked in the side and arms, forced to rise and crawl into the main entrance to the Inn, where the door hung oddly canted on its hinges.

Slogging into the area where earlier that morning he’d received a much more pleasant reception replete with the aromas of breakfast breads, buttered eggs, and crisp, pan-fried bacon, he now unloaded the half-digested remainder of that meal on the wet wooden planked floor. A large powerful man had seized him by the hair, and dragged him through his own vomit only to force him up into a chair.

At an angle to the large wooden service bar, he spied a spilled tankard of frothy ale, dripping wetly down the front of the bar, under flickering candlelight.

Just beyond the oaken counter, where the tapped barrels were shelved, he fearfully eyed the seeping pool of dark crimson coming from the floor pit area behind the bar and the soft white forearm and pitiable hand lying cupped and supine in the viscous wet that extended out from behind it.

He gasped recognizing by the visible part alone it must be that of the servant woman who had cheerfully worked with her mistress that morning to lay out the sumptuous fare on the long tables for their weary and awakening traveling party.

A hard leather strap with a braided knot struck him hard across the forehead.

Again and again, it fell, stinging and bruising him, lashing his cheek and brow, the top and sides of his head, and burning his swollen ears until the interior dining hall faded into watery blackness.

The old man felt himself descending into a tunnel that burned with invisible flame. Sounds were buried under a liquid susurration. Every muscle ached.

A harsh command barked loud, startled him, and brought him back.

The man with the leather strap stood over him. Big, powerful, and scarred. Leather leggings, and straps, pulled hardened hide against his body. An oiled cloak clung to his shoulders, his arms wrapped in hardened hide as well, with a leather jerkin and strapped brigandine, covering his broad chest. Above it a black tangled beard grew wild, and within the brambles, a severe mouth of yellowed teeth, mustaches parted by a thick hawkish nose, and fierce black eyes under the shadowy cowl of bush-blackened eyebrows, creating caves in which the gleaming eyes darkled. The man reeked of road sweat and exuded a breath that smelled akin to soured milk.

“There were two others with you,” he growled.

“Two…” the old man squinted, his head lolled, trying to make sense of where he was and what was happening to him. The grizzled man-beast before him grabbed a fist full of the man’s hair and leaned in, the fierce black eyes stabbing into him, the breath causing him to gag and wince.

“The two who were with you! Give me their names!”

“I can’t. I-I barely know them.”

The fist turned, pulling the hair up and out, the old man could feel it tearing away from his head, warm blood and sweat seeping into his scalp.

“Names!”

“I don’t know their names,” he cried, “I only know the name of the man who brought us from the beach. His name is…well…they call him…O’Brian. Mister O’Brian. That’s all I know… and the Inn Keeper. Bug-something. No. Burglar. Something like Burglar.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all I know. There was a woman, but I don’t remember her name.”

Three other similarly outfitted men, with hands on their swordhilts, carrying long leaf-point spears stepped up alongside the cowering man.

“Shall we kill him too?” one of the spearmen asks the interrogator.

The monstrous, gat-wielding man looked down at the old man, a snarl of contempt on his face as he spat.

“Not yet. He will lead us to the others. He may yet be of some use.”