Ayden knew he was losing his mind. He knew something was stealing it from him. He knew that it was of the Other, from the far side of the Veil, but he could not see it, was not strong enough to fight it, and no longer had the faith and trust necessary to cast the rituals that could banish it back to its rightful place. So he slowly and assuredly slipped into madness.
Hasil had disappeared eighteen months ago. Every time Ayden thought of the boy, emotion swelled within him, trying to burst free. Sometimes he let it, allowing the wracking sobs and angry violence of helplessness to overwhelm him. The objective part of his mind knew he had no right to claim Hasil as a son, but Ayden knew he loved the young man and had hoped his ascent to adulthood would have been the type of story the town needed. A leader raised from nothing, a stable member of society formed from the chaos of orphanhood, Hasil represented his generation and the hope they symbolized for the future of Temperance.
“The future of Temperance be damned,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands free of the blood that caked them.
“You condemned him, Ayden. You were not there. You let him go into the Depths. You failed him. You failed yourself. You failed the Sacred Texts, you failed Christ-life, you are a worm and no man.”
Ayden looked up from scrubbing his hands to see the twisted face of a small child. Glowing green sap dropped from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Her hair was moss, her skin the mottled roughness of bark, her eyes glowed amber. As she talked, filed teeth punched holes in her lips, drawing blood that spittled across the wash table in front of Ayden.
“Be gone, demon!” He screamed, up-ending the washbasin and casting the evil eye at the thing that was not human. “I cast you back through the Veil!”
The rising laughter was unnerving as the creature’s form heaved with mirth. Blindingly fast, the Verdant Daughter, as Ayden had come to call her, leapt over the washstand. Ayden could see the white bone of her fingers reach out to his neck. The flesh had been removed and the bones filed to razor points. Cackling, the form came at him. He leapt back, crashing into the sick-bed, nearly falling on the woman it contained. Ayden raised his arms in defense, cowering, waiting for the punch and tear of bone-knives flaying his precious blood. But nothing happened. He opened his eyes and she was gone. The blood stained water of the washbasin covered the wood floor of the cabin, and Owen Strickland stood in the doorway with his mouth agape and his hands wrapped defensively around his mining pick.
“Father, you ain’t right. My family thanks you for what you did this morning, but you need to move on.” Owen’s voice belied his fear at the former monk’s outburst.
“I’m sorry, Owen. I haven’t been myself in sometime,“ Ayden replied with his best, most confident voice.
Owen wasn’t buying it. “Time to go, sir.”
Ayden sighed. “Wash the wound three times a day, replacing dressings each time. Clean the cloth dressings in boiling water, not hot—boiling! Each evening. If there is a smell, or puss, call for help immediately, as it means she is already losing a battle against infection. And for the love of Sacred Mother, tell her to be more careful.”
“She was chopping wood, Father. There ain’t no rhyme nor reason for a perfectly sound ax handle breaking mid swing and rebounding off a pine log. It ain’t natural. It ain’t right. Take yourself and your religious fascinations to those what believe.”
Ayden gathered his tools, nodded to the young man, and made his exit, casting one last glance at Mrs. Verna Strickland, the bandage across her abdomen marking the point of entry for the errant ax head.
The afternoon sun was a comfort after the heat of the cabin. Ever since his expulsion from the Brothers of the Holiness Redemption and Sanctuary of Divine Majesty, Ayden had made a life as a wandering healer and minister, tending to the myriad wounds of human and beast that came without warning to the farms and homesteads of Franklin County. Climbing up onto his horse, he raised his head, filled his lungs with clear mountain air, and was immediately drawn back to a similar moment so many years ago.
—-
“What do you mean— the Majesty of Grace, Pa? I mean, if Creator-Maker is the king of all things, why give us freedom but say we need the grace to live free? Makes no sense.” A teenage Hasil had just finished his study for the day.
“It is the Eternal Father’s love that gives us freedom and his grace that sets us free,” Ayden had replied.
“Horse Buns.”
“Hasil!”
“Your Eternal Father is a dang liar, Pa. He told them that first came, ‘Eat that tree and you’ll die.’ Well they ate. They didn’t die, did they? He should have said, ‘Eat that fruit and I’ll kill you.’ At least that’d been honest.”
“Hasil, you remember the Murray house? That girl who was tormented by a haint-wight?”
“Don’t change the subject, Pa. You and your Brothers walk around acting like Eternal Father and Christ-life give you magic, but it ain’t real magic.”
“Hasil, you saw the haint come out of that girl, you helped me fight it off, you saw me cast it beyond the Veil. You were there. You witnessed the Eternal Father’s majesty, the Christ-Life’s power, Sacred Mother’s healing touch afterward. Why are we having this conversation again? Have the whispers come back?”
“No! I ain’t crazy, Pa. I don’t hear voices.” Hasil sat quietly for a long moment. “I just don’t see how some all-powerful, loving God made a world that is anything but loving. I don’t make sense from three people being one person. I don’t understand how prayers and hoodoo cast out demons and heal bodies. It’s all horse buns.”
“Watch your mouth, son.” Ayden was patient, his voice level and calm. “There are many forces in this world. The Book says ‘Have no other gods before me,’ yeah? It doesn’t say, ‘I am all that there is.’ It only says ‘I will be what I will be.’ Our faith is one of many in this world. And in the time before, when there was only Luna above,” Ayden gestured up to the double moons rising above the horizon, “There were probably more faiths, and the Old Ones, and wonders we can’t imagine.”
“Majesty of Grace done wiped out humanity. Big love there, Pa.”
“But Majesty of Grace is what gives us followers of the way the power to confront the shadow, Hasil. It’s what makes it possible to send the haints, wights, gray men, faceless ones, grims, and whatever other boogers come down from the mountains back to the far side of the Veil.”
“I don’t think an all-powerful God of love and life would make a world with nothing but death and blood, Pa. There’s something else going on. Your Book is wrong.”
Ayden sighed. “Seek and you will find, son. Keep seeking. The truth will reveal itself and set you free.” Ayden knew Hasil was lying about the whispers. He knew Hasil had a Gift, maybe even multiple gifts, but one for sure was hearing the Other. Hasil knew when the spirits stirred, revealing some small part of their intention to him, through their unending whispers. The boy was Touched, for sure, and as he entered adulthood, more and more of his power would manifest. Harnessing it for the good of the Church was Ayden’s work, just like he had countless other children over the years. Ayden knew the Gift when he saw it. He ruffled the boy’s hair, drew him into a side hug, and whispered, “Faith is not about making sense and the mechanics of science, Hasil. It’s about trust that in the end, good will win, no matter how evil this world gets.”
“That’s the first thing I heard today what makes sense, Pa.” Hasil mounted his pony. “We need to get on to your next call. Some booger got some other sap-sucker in its jaws for you to unclench.”
Ayden chuckled, “It’s a healing next time. Benjin’s apprentice smashed his hand with a hammer and we need to go reset bones if he ever expects to work the smithy again.” Ayden mounted his own horse, raised his head, filled his lungs with clear mountain air, and was immediately drawn back to the present.
—-
“It’s a healing, Hasil. Although this time we need the whole earth to rise up to fight back what Jeremiah Vane welcomed in.” He looked to his right, where Hasil usually rode, and frowned at the scruffy cat staring back at him from the hitching post. It turned its head, pondering the old man.
“You see it too, eh Old Tom?” The cat bared its teeth and, one by one, its eyes rolled back into its head, coming back around the other side. The cat shook itself, and sprays of color slid off its coat to fall in shimmering drops that coalesced into little white figures that turned their black eyes to Ayden before disappearing into the green. Ayden chuckled again–this time a loose, maddening thing–and kicked the horse into motion.
—
Three days later, Ayden was back to the trapper cabin Hasil had discovered on Cawled Creek. The wards he set on the house were still intact, and as he went inside, he primed the fascinations that would warn him of any intruder or eavesdropper.
Ayden setup his altar. The three beeswax candles lit from the spark of earth and iron gave light to the childlike drawing of the Sacred Mother Hasil had created for him from class one day. Around the sacred fire was Ayden’s anamnesis: those things that brought forth the memory of his faith and life into the present—the pectoral cross of the Brothers of the Holiness Redemption and Sanctuary of Divine Majesty, a lock of golden hair from the wife he lost before taking vows, a vial of water from a holy spring he had collected on Easter morning in the Great Mountains, various stones collected from distinct memories of his life. He went through the rituals, reconciling his sins to Eternal Father, seeking guidance from Christ-life, and begging the blessing of Sacred Mother. The prayer he cast was a scrying. It would reveal to him those that needed his Gifts. After moments of meditation, he was clear on his direction and knew where he would begin tomorrow. Extinguishing the altar and collecting his anamnesis back to his medicine pouch, Ayden slipped to his makeshift bed, doing his best to ignore the dozens of figures lining the walls of the shack, their glowing red eyes and multicolored caps setting them apart from the gray tones of nighttime. As Ayden pulled his furs over him to sleep, he could feel the weight of the Grim settle on top of him, covering him, protecting him from the worse Shadows and terrors of the hollows and wells and the ancient thick trees that had already lived four human lifetimes. Amongst the Verdant Deep of the forest, Ayden slept as well as a madman could.
—-
The next morning, Ayden rode up to the MacGregory farmstead. Nestled in the foothills at the mouth of Hawkins Cove, the MacGregorys were goat and sheep farmers that tended to the very verge of the Great Mountains. No one came out this far unless they were on their way to the mines and trapping creeks beyond the towering bluffs. As usual, Ayden had no idea why he was here, only that the scrying had told him to come. Sprites and orbs danced around the farmstead and left Ayden curiously wondering if they were real or just another symptom of his losing battle against the Veil.
Out this far from Temperance, the effects of Jeremiah Vane’s deal with the Other were minimal. (Ayden was convinced such a deal was the only explanation for the explosion of wealth and population in the now troubled county.) The ailments and wounds here were of the corporeal type, excepting those caused by the unknown powers of the Deep Woods. As he dismounted, Brigid MacGregory stepped out of the cabin gateway with all the confidence and fire of the Master of a place.
“What right do ye come by here, disgraced one?” Her faint Eyrish accent still sounded so exotic to Ayden’s ears.
“The scry called me here at the behest of the Holy Fathers, Lady.” Ayden long ago learned the proper way to address one such as Brigid MacGregory. “I come with the Majesty of Grace to answer whatever unspoken call your people have. I ask for nothing, yet I offer you all I am in service to Christ-life. What darkness covers this place?”
“Nothing we can’t handle here ourselves, Brother of Holiness Redemption. Yer scry was incomplete. Yer welcome is not needed here, and me grandmothers still protect us with the Majesty of Grace. Yer fallen grief has disconnected ye from the Way, Ayden, and whatever that maniac is doing in town makes ye stink of the Old Ones and their insanity.” When Brigid muttered the phrase “Old Ones,” a crash and a moan came from inside the cabin. Brigid’s body tensed, and she muttered, “Leave here, Ayden, lest ye lose the last of that once beautiful, kindness-driven mind of yers. This is beyond ye Ken, and ye’ll die for sure.”
Ayden stepped right up to the MacGregory Lychgate, the boundary of their homestead. Placing his hands on the posts, he could feel the warmth of their wards responding to his presence. He could tell they were generations old, maybe even older than the Breaking itself. But they did not feel hostile to his Gifts.
“Lady, here in this place, between one world and another, I invoke the rule of hospitality, by the old Ways and the ways of the Book. I mean no harm, but I have come a long way, and if I cannot help you, at least allow me to refresh for the journey home so that I may rest well knowing I responded to the scry and to the Holy Mother.” He leaned into the gate, testing the ward’s response to his presence.
Again, the sounds of torment arose from within the cabin. Brigid turned back to the log and earth structure and then back to Ayden, conflict easily displayed on her face.
“Its Da, Ayden. He came down from the Top with something on him. He came with a sack of gemstones and some forsaken booger on his soul. It’s too much for ye, and we have a healer already come down from the Verdant to help us.”
Ayden could barely contain his shock. A healer from the Verdant? No one had heard from the First Nations in years–not since the Federation lost the war for territory and signed a peace treaty with the Ancients who had lived in the Great Mountains since before the Breaking.
“The…the Verdant, Brigid? Here?” From behind Brigid stepped the Verdant Daughter. Ayden watched in horror as the child climbed up an oblivious Brigid’s body to sit atop her head, making vulgar gestures at Ayden and laughing so loud he could hardly focus on the woman’s words.
“Like ye, he appeared today. This morning. He said the Deep Woods called him to us from the Top. He’s in there now and he-”
The crash this time was audible. Some wooden furniture inside had just broken, and a muffled voice shouted, “Tarnating Linny Gobcock” from within.
Ayden froze. He knew that voice. He corrected it for uttering those foul-mouthed words hundreds of times. Muttering a prayer of forgiveness to Brigid’s grandmothers, Ayden stepped through the Lychgate, risking their wrath. If the wards held, he’d be dead. But they granted him passage, and as he walked purposefully to the house, a wide-eyed Brigid MacGregory cast the evil eye at him. As he walked past, he heard her telltale whisper, “Granny praise and bless.” He ignored her.
Opening the door, Ayden saw a warzone. Moon-Eyes, dozens of them, stood on every surface of the room. Their diminutive figures, seemingly sculpted from white fluorescent clay, turned their misshapen, pupil-less, black eyes to the intruder. The Verdant Daughter cackled behind him. Wights hung from the rafters, their shadow forms swaying like creek grass in water currents. Da MacGregory was strapped to a broken, splintered bed, frothing at the mouth, eyes bulging, neck tendons and muscles rippling against the bonds of braided leather keeping him in place. His body shifted and rippled like summer heatwaves, and once every couple heartbeats, his arms divided like a mist, the human arm going one way, and a twisted, bulbous, blistered thing going the other.
But there on top of Da, struggling with a ferocious effort was Hasil Angeline. His body glowed a faint blue and Ayden could see his rippling, muscled arms were covered in tattoos. The demon in Da MacGregory plunged a hand up to the wrist into Hasil’s abdomen. The old man started cackling, bearing broken, rotted teeth.
Without thought and without hesitation, Ayden lept into action. Pulling the pouch of salt from his courier bag, he salt-circled the bed. Immediately the wights fled from the mineral. Pulling a handful of cut nails, each one carefully inscribed with prayers of warding, Ayden pounded one into the four posts of the shattered bed with a small mallet. The Moon-Eyes scattered, the iron and prayer having broken their connection to the demon. Immediately the old man quieted, and Ayden stood beside his son.
“What is needed?” Ayden muttered.
“Calm and stability,” Hasil replied without pause.
Ayden gathered his medicine bag, the source of his anamnestic power, and slammed it onto Da’s forehead. With two remaining nails, he deftly positioned them into the sign of Christ-life in the palm of his other hand and slammed it onto Da’s chest above his heart. The old words came to him in well-practiced cadence, and as Ayden chanted, the demon within the man froze, captured and contained by the powers of the Book and the Eternal Father.
Hasil relaxed, centered his breathing, and began tracing the tattoos on his arms. Ayden shook with terror. He had not seen sorcery in years. The Brothers… the whole church… had outlawed its practice generations ago. Deftly making signs, uttering some unknown language, Hasil completed a casting of his own and his hands glowed with golden light. As Ayden watched, Hasil gently pushed his hands into the old man’s chest, passing into it like dipping into a pail of water. Under the iron sign of Ayden’s right hand, Hasil massaged and strained, sweat dripping from some arcane exertion. With a sound like a lightning crack, Hasil’s hands tore free of Da’s chest and re-appeared with a blackened, burnt crust of what looked like the fetus of some wild animal. Hasil brought the thing closer to his own chest and right before Ayden could cry out a warning, more light, a brilliant Verdant green, broke out from more tattoos on Hasil’s chest and like vines of light, wrapped around the thing that came from Da MacGregory. Slowly, the Verdant vines tightened around the thing, crushing it. Ayden could hear the small yelps of it, crying out in rhythm to Hasil’s measured, labored breathing. Slowly, nothing remained but light and green and a knotwork of vines.
Hasil dropped the ball of green and when it hit Da’s chest, it fell apart like wood ash. But where once was the black corrupted evil, now erupted dozens of white butterflies that promptly danced their way to the Moon-Eyes. Upon landing on the tiny creatures, both butterfly and humanoid disappeared into nothing.
Ayden returned his hands and objects of power to their safe spaces.
“Hasil, how? What?”
“Hello, Pa. There is a lot to explain. But we have to do it along the way. The Old Ones are awake, and unless we stop them, the world will break again. We don’t have time.” Hasil met Ayden’s eyes for the first time. Ayden could see that where before cobalt blue irises met his gaze now glowed an otherworldly cerulean that sent shivers down his spine.
“We need to overcome them before they overcome you, Pa, and there isn’t much time before you are lost to the Veil forever. The Verdant is coming in water and fire.
Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed.”
Ealdsmyth Tabletop Role Playing System 