The Telling

by Mike Duran

  A ghastly, inhuman wail pierced the air.

  They stopped and stared into the tunnel behind them. Annie looked past the acid barrels and the bodies strewn on the block. A black object had attached itself to the wall some seventy-five feet down the tunnel. It skittered sideways on spindly limbs like a monstrous horsefly. A pale smudge hovered atop its frame as it crept into the light. That smudge was becoming a face.

  “It’s one of them!” Tamra yelled. “Go! Go!”

  A covey of forms approached from behind it. In the mouth of the dark tunnel they wafted forward like fog on the subterranean air. Tittering and squealing, an insane gibbering of inhuman tongues. Wings arched in feral delight. And their faces took shape as they approached.

  “Run!” Little Weaver had removed a long, narrow blade from under his coat. “To the mine. Hurry!”

  Annie hobbled on one leg. But she knew she would never make it to Otta’s Rift. And now she did not want to.

  Insect-like chatter rose behind them, an inhuman prattle that froze her blood.

  “Don’t look!” Tamra pulled her forward.

  They reached the entryway, and Little Weaver stood guard as Tamra helped Annie through the door. As Annie passed, she noticed a length of wood used to barricade the door from inside. Nearby was the padlock she had seen last night on the outside of the door. Annie did not want to reveal the location of the lock, so she quickly looked away. She limped out and leaned against the exterior wall in exhaustion. Little Weaver passed through, followed by Zeph, who pulled the door shut behind him. He fumbled at the latch and began scanning the ground. “There must be a lock.”

  “They have taken it,” Little Weaver joined him. “Or hidden it. This was a camp for the miners. A house. It bolts from the inside.”

  “What’re we gonna do?” Zeph said. “Those things’ll be here any minute.”

  Little Weaver quickly slipped his long blade—the one she had seen in his laboratory—through the barrel of the latch and tested the door, but the blade prevented the latch from giving. “This will hold them shortly. They are still in transition, little more than foul vapors. Once they take shape, they will break free.” Then he turned and scanned the mountains.

  Little Weaver pointed to the foothills. “We must hurry. The remaining daylight will slow them. Look!”

  They followed Little Weaver’s gaze to the crimson twilight behind the shadowy foothills. The setting sun had turned the gloom into a canopy of roiling crimson.

  “The red sky gives us hope!” Little Weaver declared, as if seeking to bolster their withering resolve. “It is the fire of the Almighty.”

  As they looked there, Annie saw her chance. She quietly pushed off from the wall, slipped Weaver’s blade from the iron latch, and leaned her shoulder into the door. She clamped her jaw as the pain torched her leg, but she did not cry out. The door creaked open.

  “Nams!”

  Before Tamra realized what was happening and could reach her, Annie limped inside and slammed the door shut. It required all her effort to hoist the wooden brace and drop it into place across the door. The pain was so great, she sagged to the earth, tears springing into her eyes.

  “No!” Tamra pounded on the door. “What’re you doing? Nams! Open this door!”

  Annie did not dare to see how close the dark angels were.

  “No!” Her granddaughter shrieked, but Annie could not comply.

  Little Weaver was right—they had to go to the Rift. If the dark angels overtook her companions, they would never have a chance. Annie had to trust them. She had to trust the Branded One. She would only hold them back. Besides, she had another assignment to complete.

  “Go!” Annie yelled. “Hurry!”

  “Grandma!” She could hear Tamra weeping. “Don’t d–do this!”

  “Annie!” It was Zeph. “Open the door.”

  She could feel the presence of that dark horde bearing down on her.

  “Run!” Annie shouted. “I’ll hold them off!”

  “Grandma!”

  Annie forced herself to ignore her granddaughter’s pleas. This would be a better way. She had to believe that.

  “Grandma-a-a!”

  She prayed silently, then turned to watch as the fetch hobbled and scrambled toward her, a hideous menagerie of parts. Then she whispered to herself: “I am the remnant. I will stand in the gap.”

  Chapter 61

  He did not attempt to console Tamra. Instead Zeph walked behind, nudging her forward with vain encouragement and an occasional shove. Annie’s actions had shocked him, as they had everyone. Strangely enough Zeph sensed that her sacrifice had somehow propelled him toward the task ahead.

  “Why?” Tamra asked between sobs. “Why would she do that?”

  “It is the destiny of her choosing.” Little Weaver trudged hastily along the mule trail, leading them to Otta’s Rift. “Would that all were of such courage.”

  “Courage?” Tamra spat the words. “She’s too stubborn! And now she’s in there with all those things.”

  “Only the true of heart can withstand such darkness.” Little Weaver looked over his shoulder. “Or one with an exceptionally skilled guardian angel.”

  “She did it to help us get up there,” Zeph said. “So the least we can do is finish what we started and see how it plays out.” Despite his attempt to bolster their resolve, Zeph’s mind had already begun to recoil at the thought of the hellish mine that lay ahead of them.

  Little Weaver led them forward into the tangled woods. The red sky had paled and turned misty, and the branches formed a skeletal canopy, dripping moisture.

  “It is a different kind of battle here.” Little Weaver kneaded his gloved hands together. “Not of force, but of will. Be strong, friends. There are more who are with us than are against us. Listen!” He stopped and put his hand to his ear. “Can you hear them?”

  Tamra and Zeph skidded in the gravel. They exchanged puzzled glances and strained to listen.

  “Of course not!” Little Weaver’s laughter echoed through the gloomy foothills. “They are of the First Column.”

  Zeph scowled. “Is this really a time for jokes, Weaver?”

  “Ha! There is always a time for laughter, Brother Walker. Perhaps more of it would do you good.”

  Zeph could not deny that, so he curled his lip and resumed their forward march.

  Little Weaver turned off the fire trail into the thicket. He hummed a soft, sad tune as they walked through the mat of leaves and tinder. Finally they crested the ridge. Birch leaves gently clattered behind them as they stood at the barbed-wire fence. A faint phosphorescence seemed to sprinkle the ravine, a toxic sheen just above the range of seeing. Zeph stared down on the charred gash in the mountainside, sweating from the climb. Approaching that cursed ground for a second time left his insides churning, as did the memory of Pearl’s ghostly presence.

  “Big Weaver was there,” the Indian said solemnly, staring into the canyon. “The gates of hell could not prevail.”

  Zeph squinted at the Indian. “What do you mean, he was there?”

  “At the Madness, my friend.”

  Tamra seemed to share Zeph’s perplexity. “That was, like, a hundred and forty years ago.”

  “Bah! Barely enough time to tell a good tale.”

  Tamra shook her head. “Yeah, but that would make your father … no way.”

  “My father?” Little Weaver turned and, with a wry smile, said, “Big Weaver was my brother.”

  Zeph and Tamra stood speechless.

  Somewhere in the foggy woods ravens cawed out a discordant warning. The smell of mulch and mud thickened around them. They remained mute, studying Little Weaver as if he were an alien species. What manner of man was this, wielding crossbows, javelins, and an odd sense of humor?

  “Then it was you at the cemetery.” Zeph peered at the Indian.

  “It was like yesterday, was it not?”

  Tamra spoke as if skeptical of his story. “Then your brother, he witnessed t
he suicide?”

  “It was not a suicide that cleansed the land, Warrior Soul.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Little Weaver said matter-of-factly, “It was an extermination.”

  Zeph cleared his throat. “You’re saying that those miners, that all those people, were …”

  “Murdered?” Tamra said.

  “No.” Little Weaver straightened. “People were not murdered. They had been overshadowed long before, their souls leeched of life. Silverton—the entire city—had been swapped. Just as Endurance will be if we are unsuccessful. Yet before the dark angels could summon the black cherub, Big Weaver drew them to the Rift. No, the Madness was not a suicide. It was a genocide.”

  Weaver pushed down the barbed wire with his gloved hand and held it for them.

  Zeph stared at the man, his mind staggering under the weight of this new information. He helped Tamra over and followed. Little Weaver took the lead, descending the switchback. Tendrils of mist had already begun to seep from the soil. A cool blanket seemed to envelop them. Finally they reached the base of the gorge and stood gazing at the Rift.

  Facing shipwreck and starvation was bad, but Robinson Crusoe never faced anything quite like this.

  Zeph said nervously, “I’ve never encountered a real, live gateway to hell.”

  “Be thankful, Brother Walker.”

  “So, uh, how am I supposed to close it?”

  Little Weaver looked surprised. “You have the wild magic. I don’t know how it works.”

  Zeph scratched his head. “Well, maybe that’s why it’s wild, because I’m not sure how it works, either.”

  Little Weaver peered at him. “You are a peculiar person, Brother Walker.”

  Strangely enough Little Weaver’s assessment bolstered Zeph’s heart.

  Shadows loomed in the thickets, and rivulets of water traced the rock face. They stood in anxious anticipation of their descent into Otta’s Rift. Although his mental faculties had been dulled by years of rationalization and poor judgment, Zeph forced himself to focus on the task ahead. Tamra stood behind him, and Zeph could tell her thoughts were pitching.

  She said, “He’s in there, isn’t he?”

  Little Weaver nodded and turned to them. “Such is the unfolding. The seraph is terrible to look upon, the deformation of all that was once good. Yet what lies inside this cavern—” He touched Zeph’s chest. “—the cavern of the heart, is even more monstrous. Steel your minds.” His eyes sparkled with a strange gaiety, as if preparing to plunge into the gates of hell was exhilarating. “And take heart. We are friends of the land. In that company there is much power.”

  Zeph was not sure if he should shout a rousing “Amen!” So he simply nodded in agreement.

  They worked their way over several logs, and the walls of the ravine loomed overhead, black swaths disappearing into the misty gray. As they crunched over the blighted meadow to the mouth of the cavern, Zeph could make out splinters of bone and charcoal showing through the gravel.

  Plink.

  Smoke rising on the subterranean air.

  Pa-pa-plink.

  He froze at the sound. Pearl was in it, and the rotting remains of his strangled brother, and the moldy cellar, and—

  “The werevane.” Weaver pointed at more bone chimes dangling inside the tunnel. “Do not heed its charm. Bah!”

  Zeph shook himself from the encroaching panic.

  They reached the mouth of the mine. A claustrophobic dread jabbed at Zeph, and his breathing turned choppy. Tamra was behind him, and he wanted to turn and ask her if she was doing all right. But fearing he may startle her by his own paranoia, Zeph just swallowed hard and peered into the dark.

  Little Weaver led the way, and they began their descent. The mysterious Indian had to duck to keep from scraping the ceiling. His hulking silhouette nearly blotted Zeph’s entire field of vision. Crude symbols etched the walls, demented graffiti issuing crude epithets and bad tidings. It stunk of urine and mold. The light from the entrance dimmed, yet as it did, an orange glow became apparent below. Kerosene smoke wafted up the tunnel, turning Zeph’s halted breathing even more erratic, and with the smell came a warble, a voice, dirge-like and doleful, echoing in the dank tunnel.

  “There’s someone down there,” Tamra whispered.

  Zeph did not answer. He knew it was another prophet. That’s what this was—a showdown. Like Elijah and the prophets of Baal, or Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians. Only this one involved a modified realist and a snaky something from the Third Column. However, if Zeph was the good guy in this story, they were in deep trouble.

  The railroad track disappeared under loose gravel. Several shafts intersected the tunnel, but Little Weaver passed them and continued forward, tools clanking dully under his jacket. The only light now was the flickering glow from somewhere inside the mine. Musty roots fingered through the tunnel walls, and water seeped into muddy pools. Something round and glassy peered from one of those stagnant puddles, bringing Zeph to an abrupt stop. A lidless eye rolled back and forth in the murk, watching the intruders.

  “Brother Walker!”

  Zeph caught himself breathless and inhaled.

  He snapped to attention. Little Weaver had turned around and was tapping his temple with his fingertip. Think, Walker! Think! Zeph looked back to the murky pool, but the eyeball was gone. He had been hallucinating.

  The tunnel dipped and then opened into a larger chamber. The Indian came to a stop. The light was brighter here, and the voice that had sounded moments ago was silent. Little Weaver stood on the edge of what appeared to be a sunken shaft.

  This was the end of the tunnel.

  This is where it would all go down.

  Zeph wiped sweat from his forehead. The mine reawakened memories of the old cellar. All those nights and days locked in that subterranean vault, just him and his dead brother. Waiting. Waiting for the Telling. Waiting for his mother’s intervention. But Belle was gone, his father had disowned him, and the Telling had abandoned him. Now, just like then, Zeph felt completely alone.

  Tamra stepped to his side. She seemed captivated by the cavern. What type of girl would follow a disfigured prophet, an avowed recluse, and virtual stranger into a haunted mine? Perhaps he would need to rethink that part about being completely alone.

  Zeph approached, but it took him a moment to make out what he was seeing. The mine ended in a natural chamber. Symbols and splattered discolorations marred the flume, amidst images of winged creatures notched into the rock. Pallid fingers of light shown from overhead vents. Odd roots traced the wall here, like tentacles from some primeval entity choking the granite shaft. A lantern hung from a beam, swaying and sputtering, illuminating crude steps, which ended below at a massive stone monument.

  It was a megalith, a dolmen, comprised of three large stones. Behind it, in the granite wall, rose a cleft or fissure. And Zeph knew this was the portal of summoning.

  Bats squealed somewhere in another tunnel, yet Zeph was fixed on the figure perched near the megalith. Fergus, or whatever he had become, sat leisurely on a rock shelf before a pool of crystalline water. The lantern illuminated his livid, misshapen body. His head was tilted forward, swollen and bulbous, as if too heavy to be sustained by his torso. His face was sunken, and inside that bilious crater two beady eyes blazed. Behind him winged bat-like appendages slumped.

  “Oh, my father.” Fergus’s jaw slung drool, his voice echoed in the chamber. “Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies. Receive these offerings.” He motioned to Zeph’s company. “Complete thy power. Thy kingdom come.”

  And as he spoke those words, Zeph could feel his windpipe constricting.

  Chapter 62

  Guard your minds!” Little Weaver yelled. “The tome of darkness seeks root!”

  But Zeph was too busy grappling at his collar, struggling to breathe, to guard his mind.

  “Cheth, iod.” Fergus turned his gaze upon Zeph, eyes radiating hatred. “Grimel, nun ixle.”

  “Sil
ence, devil!” Little Weaver descended the stone stairwell, eyes trained on the inhuman figure.

  The dark angel sprung to its feet, reared back, and brayed like a goat.

  Zeph’s breathing returned, and he sunk to the ground, gasping for air.

  The hideous sound of Fergus’s cry echoed through the mine. So disconcerting was it to hear such a sound emerge from something this humanlike that Zeph fought to keep from fleeing and abandoning his mission on the spot.

  Something moved beside him, and he lurched upright and strafed to avoid it. Tamra had fallen to her knees with her hands clasped over her ears to drown out the goatish cackle. Zeph bent and put his arm around her shoulder.

  Little Weaver reached the base of the steps and slowly approached the dark angel. It stepped to the megalith and stood like some pagan priest, its wings arched in what appeared a defensive posture. The appendages were feeble, scabbed, and mottled, looking far more reptilian than angelic. Yet its eyes glowed like nuclear pinholes in infinite space.

  “You are the damned!” Little Weaver’s voice was almost a growl. “And to damnation you shall return.”

  “Shut your pie hole!” Fergus bellowed and stretched his hand toward Little Weaver.

  The Indian stopped. His face grew taut, and the tendons in his neck strained. He could not advance farther and seemed to be laboring against an invisible current.

  “You’re a coward!” Fergus bellowed at Little Weaver. “A traitor! And you’ll pay for it, Weaver. You and the rest of your kind.”

  Zeph watched, dumbstruck by the standoff between these two beings.

  “They ain’t worth it!” Fergus’s gaze rolled toward Zeph and Tamra, a hate-filled stare that would have surely vaporized them had he not returned it to Little Weaver. “It’s their fault. All of it! The land. The heavens. Rent for their wrong!” Spittle flung from his rancid gray jaw.