Land of Midnight - crossing

Chapter Two: Searchers

david — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:33:44 -0500

Breakfast was uncommonly quiet and reflective in the Mathiasan home on their first morning in the Crossing. After four days of traveling preceded by a week of packing settling into their new home would be nothing short of restful.

Pata was certainly the most excited. From his seat at the table he saw his new workshop - a large barn three times the size of his old shop and a place where he could teach his children the woodworking skills his father had taught him.

Pata’s wife Martia had other ideas for the barn. She was planning on buying animals for their farm to provide food for their family. And a garden. She would plant a garden. She smiled at the thought of a garden; back in Sparr they lived in the city and having a garden - let alone any space outside to call their own - was only a dream. But now a garden and animals right outside! She smiled at Pata who smiled back.

Jahan, the oldest child at fourteen, was the least happy with the move. Only months away from finishing his formal schooling and beginning a job working for a merchant, he was taken away from the life he knew, from his friends, and from his future and he angry. He knew that more than a little bit of himself was still in Sparr. So he sat at the breakfast table in silent anger as he did during the four day journey away from what he knew would always be his home.

Tim, the youngest, also sat and ate quietly, still shaken from the dream he just awoke from. He could still see the creatures in his mind and he felt them in dark corners of the room. He couldn’t tell his parents about them; they’d say it was just a dream. But he knew it was more. Jahan would make fun of him if he told; being scared wasn’t acceptable. So Tim sat quietly hoping the day would dissolve the images from his mind and that the night would bring peace.

And when Tim heard a knock on the door he jumped out of his chair and fell on the floor and had everyone watching him he knew he hated this place.

* * *

The Tratria Tavern had always been the center of social life in the Crossing. The ale, warm. The food, inedible. The conversations, engrossing. And in the few days since a body was fished out of the Sellajan River, Macuh, the town’s mayor, sequestered himself in a dark corner of the Tratria. He conducted official business slouched in his corner and his wife would pull him away when she thought it best he be home. Overall the drinking and the hiding worked for him.

In the days that passed since the body was found Macuh followed the directions his friend Ma’Tahn gave him about telling the Chromatta and he hoped that they would soon walk into the tavern in their flowing red habiliments, give him a cryptic speech, and take care of the problem. But if that were to happen Ma’Tahn would have told him. And Ma’Tahn seemed to know things…

Outside Macuh heard horses whinnying and then voices of strangers giving orders to a young Elfkin. Then three Humans dressed in dusty riding clothes burst through the door and stopped, looked around, and the man in the middle pointed a finger at Macuh and the three walked over.

"You’re the man in charge?" the Human asked.

"Elfkin."

"Good. I need you to do the following. Take us to the body you found; bring your old friend, the traveller, to us; and then we need to see this Midnight person. Can you do that?" As he spoke the woman with him stared at the mayor and the other man glanced around the room taking the space in for some untold reason.

"The body." Macuh straightened up in his chair to appear larger. "It’s in the jail. Safe." He knew that sounded stupid. "As for Ma’Tahn, I don’t know where he is. He left and I’m not sure where he went."

"I see," the Human sounded annoyed. "You don’t know where he is?"

"I don’t know where he lives."

"And Midnight?"

"I don’t know."

The man in the middle looked at this companions and shook his head. "Of course not. Anything you can in fact help us with?"

"Who are you?"

The man smiled. "We’re from the Chromatta. We’re searchers. Something odd is happening and not just here. And the quicker we find out what the better off you’ll be. Understand?"

"What do you mean? Better off?"

The smile faded from the mans face. "I don’t know how to say this…"

The woman put her hand on the man’s shoulder. "Best to lay it all out." She looked right into Macuh’s eyes and calmly said, "An army is coming and they’ll kill all of you.

"Now," she continued, "can we see the body?"

Chapter One: Of Dreams and Fear

admin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:20:11 -0500

Tim dreamed.

In his short life of eleven years, he never experienced sheer terror. He never felt that a present moment would be his last. Never felt that soon he would be experiencing a slow and very painful death.

His mother, as is the custom of mothers, would tell stories to him and his brother to frighten them into behaving. There were countless stories of Bogeymen; ones that lived in the walls, others in the dark of the cities. He could recall a few stories that she told that happened in a forest. Then there was the story of the Faery of Glennis who lured children away from their parents and brought them to the ClearingWay, only to remove their hearts while they slept. But none of the stories prepared him for the evil that confronted him as he slept.

Atop the Watcher Gallery, amidst the old stone ruins, Tim faced death. His back was to a wall of stone that extended around him and formed a nearly complete circle. In the circle were four of the creatures that haunted his day. Their putrid smell made Tim nauseous, and their cacophony tore at his very soul. They were wolves at their very heart, he knew, but they stood on their hind legs without any thought of getting on all fours; and on two legs, they towered over him. Their dark gray fur, splattered with bits of dried blood, was mangled and mangy. The heads of these beasts were indeed more frightening; dark, hallow eyes, inset into a large face; ears erect, as if listening for his cries; snout protruding with teeth bared and the beast’s saliva dripping from the canines. They paced side to side and back and forth not two meters from Tim. Uneasiness tempered their steps but not their bellows.

Tim’s legs began to shake. He placed his hands on the wall behind him, and shuffled his feet out from the wall. Slowly, ever so slowly, he leaned his back on the wall and slid down to the ground. He looked up at the sky and noticed it was getting darker; night would soon come, and his parents would start looking for him. But he knew they wouldn’t know where to look. He looked out beyond the Beasts and saw some lights in the village. And he began to cry. A tear fell as he thought of all things he should have said and done today. And at his feet he saw a medallion, a necklace trinket, a prized possession. And he wondered how he got into this predicament. And he realized it was them. Those creatures he met just a few days ago. Like the one that stood behind the Beasts and watched without fear or pity.

The Elfkin.

And he awoke. Streams of light entered his room and lit his face; the smell of food wafting in from the kitchen where his mother was quietly singing. His father and brother outside making a fuss.

It was Tim’s first day in the Crossing. And he was scared.

Prelude

admin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:54:22 -0500

The Ma’Tahn stood on the riverbank in the early morning sun and waited as he had done a dozen times before. He knew the scene and what was to come. He knew when the deer would appear on the opposite bank and knew when the fawns would look up at him curiously and then return to grazing on the grass. He knew that after a hawk flew above him a rabbit would hop in front of him and nibble on the grass before hopping away. And he was comforted by these simple things.

What he found disconcerting was the river itself. While he could predict with absolute certainty what would happen on dry land - the deer, birds, rabbits - what happened in the river defied him. After the fawns looked at him, a fish would jump in the water. Or not. Or the fish would wait until the rabbit ran away. Or a hawk would fly down to the river and grab a fish with its talons. Or not.

The river was cursed. At least, he thought it was cursed. Growing up the Ma’Tahn heard the stories of the Surijan River flowing red with blood on many occasions. Was this the time? he wondered.

The river still perplexed him. Rivers changed. Rivers were not constant as this one had proved. And maybe this river had called him here, to this location, time after time. Twelve times he came, twelve times nothing changed. But the river.

He walked down to the edge and knelt. He put his hand into the cold water held it down.

Nothing happened.

He took his hand out and stood on the bank. He shook the water off his hand and wiped the remaining drops on his pants.

He felt no difference. No cosmic answers. No great inspirations. Just one hand colder than the other.

He heard voices behind him, but he knew they would come. An Elfkin family, a father and two children going to fish.

When they passed by him on the trail near the bank the father looked at the Ma’Tahn and smiled. "Good day," he said. Looking closer at the man he added, "Haven’t seen you here before."

But he had and the Ma’Tahn smiled back. "Fishing’s better down at the crossing."

The Elfkin nodded and took his kids downstream. They would catch four fish.

As the sun reached meridian Ma’Tahn walked downstream to a rock that overlooked the river, climbed it and had his midday meal. This was the first time he did this. After he ate he stayed on the rock and watched the water flow by. Passers by, both Human and Elfkin, greeted him, but he gave no response; they assumed, he thought, that he was meditating. Which he almost was.

After an hour of sitting on the rock he grew restless. Thirteen trips to this river on this day for nothing. The prophesies and the histories were wrong. He started telling himself that on this sixth trip to this spot but now he believed it. He decided to go home and embark on a new misbegotten adventure that would actually have a result.

When restlessness grew into frustration and then to anger, something changed.

He saw something floating in the river. A body.

The body was floating face down in the middle of the river and as it came closer to Ma’Tahn he saw it was wearing armor. He jumped off the rock and followed the body, trying to make out the markings on the helmet to confirm his suspicions. He knew what army the man belonged to, he read the account in a history text, but was hoping nevertheless that he was wrong.

As he followed the body down the river he wondered if the legend was true. The Crossing was named for two rivers, the Surijan and the Sellajan that flowed down from the Pyara Mountains and when they met near the Crossing, instead of merging, the rivers continued as if the other river didn’t exist. Debris floating down one river never flowed into the other; fish would stay in their river. But a body? This body?

The body continued to float in the middle of its river as it approached the crossing. Ma’Tahn thought about doing something to stop the body; up ahead Elfkin were fishing and this development would cause a panic. He could retrieve the body from the river and hide it in the forest and then perhaps nothing would change. But he was also curious about what was to come. Even at the expense of his son.

Ma’Tahn heard the other river grow louder and he realized the crossing was close. He heard someone cry out and some gasps and saw Elfkin running to the river, pointing at the body. He heard his heart beat louder as he ran ahead of the body to the point where the two rivers met. And there he stood watching and waiting as a marble guard at the ancient palaces of his youth.

"Old friend, what have you done to us?" Behind Ma’Tahn the Crossing’s Elfkin mayor, portly but half the height of the man, stood with arms folded watching the human and ignoring the scene around him.

"I haven’t done anything, Macuh." He lied. The body came into view and Ma’Tahn pointed at it. "That," he said, "isn’t my doing. Something else is happening, something…"

"Evil?"

"Evil."

And it happened. The body, floating down the Surijan River changed course into the Sellajan. Ma’Tahn stood silently and expressionless; his world had just collapsed around him and he knew it was because of him. Macuh gasped and pointed at the body muttering "Impossible."

"Fish him out," Ma’Tahn ordered. "Call in your constable and tell the Chromatta about this. It’s best they hear it first hand than through idle gossip. And find that crazy old man that lives around here…"

"Midnight?"

"Him. Tell him to expect people." He looked down at the Elfkin. "And you, have your people prepare."

"Prepare for what?"

"War."

Ma’Tahn put his hand on Macuh’s shoulder and gently squeezed. "My friend, everything has changed." He smiled at the Elfkin and walked off.

"Where are you going?" the mayor asked.

"Home."