Light in the Darkness

My weathered hands began to shake as I reached out, slowly, towards the old wooden door, creaking lazily in the light, pre-dawn breeze. This has to be the place, I thought while checking diligently over each shoulder for any sign of approaching danger. Despite the dark, almost black, goggles covering my eyes I still had to squint as the sun hit that perfect, piercing point over the silent, vast horizon. The eerie quiet of the barren hills I had spent three nights traversing, now seemed to reach out hungrily toward me. Was that a whisper..? I felt a sudden unease from what I had, at first, thought was a benign gust of wind. I felt like prey being watched. Turning to face the drystone shack, which was beginning to crumble and lean away from decades of neglect and the slow march of crusading weeds, I took a deep breath and pulled.

The hinges of the old, creaky door had rusted so badly without anyone to oil and buff them that, as I made contact with the decrepit iron ring serving as a handle, it dropped off and clattered to the dry, dusty ground. My heart was beating like a war drum in my chest as I leapt backwards to avoid being hit by the door or whatever my mind conjured was bursting through it! One thing about this new world was that it, at least, heightened your reflexes. My old, but well honed, Kukri knife was out of its sheath and in my hand by pure instinct. I clutched my locket; the heart shaped one my mother had given to me as a child. My breathing began to slow and, detecting the stench of death emanating from the shack, I wrapped my thick desert scarf around my mouth and nose. With a final steely breath, I entered the shack.

The interior seemed unnaturally dark, in spite of the rapidly encroaching light of dawn already finding its way through the, now door-less, portal. A hole in the rusted tin roof seemed to try, in vain, to slightly illuminate the meagre furnishings but the overbearing darkness seemed to cling to the structure like a parasite. What could they feed off in a place like this? The thought rang through my head like the peal of a bell as my suspicions were confirmed; the inhabitants were dead. My mind was like a sage companion these days; a helpful entity dedicated to my survival; It’s probably residual, It whispered to me, prompting my heart to finally slow its absurd rhythm to the more usual, practiced crawl. I was glad, though I tried not to feel it too deeply. They were always there, somewhere, and they were somehow able to track your heartbeat, among other things; some of which we knew about and others we still did not. It was a learning curve, and the few of us still around to ride it were trying desperately to figure out the mysteries of this new and dangerous world.

As I settled in to spend the day avoiding the intense radiation caused by the gradual heating of the Sun, my eyes were drawn to the skeletal figure slumped in the corner of the, now fully illuminated, shack. I knew not, at first, who they had been or what they had done in life, but I realised when I saw the ancient looking tome clutched under an almost fully decomposed arm, that this was indeed the place I had been searching for! I fought to contain my excitement once again, lest I be detected, though I couldn’t check a smile that was creeping across my lips. It was one of the Guardians of the Aether; a group of mystics and shamans I had heard could, using their wealth of spiritual knowledge, shed some light on the dark fog that shrouded the truth of this terrible corruption which had all but destroyed us. I would pore over what I could understand later, but I had been informed by a, now deceased, friend that they had been on a mission of the utmost importance. With his last, gasping breath he had told me of their heading and some powerful artefact they were relentlessly combing the earth looking for. I wanted to help them, any way I could, to find a way back to normality. The fate of the world was at stake and an intrinsic sense had told me that I had a part to play in its salvation. The terrified darting of my friend’s eyes had stilled as I made my heartfelt promise to find them and that his death would not be in vain. A single tear rolled, almost knowingly, down my cheek in his memory as I found the pages that I needed and began to read. It was a journal and it read thusly:

Day 404, waxing of the new Moon.

Things are much worse now. Since the Spire of Pazuzu erupted from the Desert and began feeding off the Planet’s energy, the storms have become much more violent and almost constant. The world is teeming, now, with nightmarish creatures preying upon anyone who failed to escape the cities and hide. The Shade pours through the rifts created by the Spire with a sentient thirst for life energy, granting existence and supernatural abilities to the fiends that hunt us. The Earth’s atmosphere grows thinner as she dies, making the Sun an ever growing and deadly risk. We are the Guardians of the Aether and we must stop this demonic plague from devouring the planet! Our numbers are thin, now, but we think we may have located the Herz Arcana. The power contained within that crystal is the only thing that can destroy the Spire. Not only the planet but the entire known universe is at risk if we fail! Soliel is terrified and now they have found us. They are coming! Night has fallen, thank the Spirit, and we must press on..

The wind hissed through the bones of the shack as I finished the first notable entry and looked up towards the exposed doorway, the rhythm of my heart beginning to steadily increase with the rising pace of a sonnet, as I innately grasped its ethereal nature. The Fiends were whispering their curses, reaching out with them as with the tendrils of some terrifying sea creature searching for its prey. I knew this process. I had survived it many times. These ‘tendrils’ would soon manifest in the form of an acrid, black mist which could be deadly to breathe. I couldn’t run. I knew, from experience, about the supernatural abilities of the Fiends and I knew as well, therefore, that they would catch me and tear me apart; a gruesome fate I had witnessed too many times to count. I had one option; slow my breathing, steady my heartbeat and feign death. They never fed on corpses. Slowly, I slid from the rickety chair and under the table, clutching the Tome to my chest as I closed my eyes and once again wrapped my scarf around my face.

I couldn’t see them, but the haunting sounds they made as they manifested inside and around the shack invaded my ears like a menacing battle cry. My life depended upon my having no reaction to them or to the probing black mist which was now swirling about the debris littered floor. Like a mass of snakes, it crawled over my body, searching for the irresistible nectar of precious life energy. I felt, like so many times before, as though I had entered a state of suspended animation; all at once aware, yet unaware, of my immediate surroundings. The baleful whispering of the Fiends rose in an almost deafening cacophony and then all at once it was gone. The mist was gone. The Fiends were gone. My ruse had met with success and a short-lived sense of relief as I slipped into an almost instant and much needed sleep.

It was pitch black when I awoke. Night had evidently fallen, which was a double-edged sword, in that I had no reason to fear the Sun, yet demonic activity was, naturally, more concentrated and relentless. They have no reason to come back here, my mental watcher told me as I slowly rose from under the table. I felt sure I had dreamt but, at the same time, my waking mind was, troublingly, not privy to the knowledge of it. I had always felt close to the ‘Otherworld’ as my mother had called it; a connection which had gradually intensified since the Spire had arrived. At once her words filled my ears; a disembodied voice which was racked with a pain unseen and unfelt except in the, once again, rising rhythm of my heart. I took a deep breath to steady it and strained my heightened aural senses to hear her. You must survive my love. Searing pain slammed into my head like a high calibre bullet. I hadn’t heard her voice for many years, at least not with such intensity and conviction. I had no doubt she was here with me now, though, having found her way through my dreams and back into this realm to deliver an urgent message. The Guardians are searching for you my love, their blood, OUR blood. You must make contact with them, they seek the.. Her voice evaporated as I fell to my knees and vomited, my eyes burning from the pressure of the Otherworld on my mind. I was shaking. I had to collect myself and slow my vibrational energy. I couldn’t risk another incursion of the Shade and the Fiends that resided within it, not at night. For the first time I knew; she had always been with me, my mother, guiding me and protecting me. I realised I had been clutching her Locket, so tightly that I couldn’t feel my hand. Something had stopped her, I realised, from delivering her message; a message I now knew was also contained in the pages of the Tome! With clear and, what felt like, divine purpose I opened the Tome to another of the sporadic journal entries and activated my headlight. It felt as though my hands and my eyes were being guided by the forces of the Otherworld as I stopped instinctively on the passage that would set me on my true course. It read as follows:

Day 434, the Moon wanes.

They killed Soliel. The screams as they devoured her will haunt me ‘til the end of my days. However, I thank the Spirit that they were distracted long enough for the incantation to shield me from their demonic senses. I am dying now; my lungs are filled with that ghastly mist, and it slowly poisons my body. I know this shack will be my tomb but before I relent to the cold darkness of its embrace, I must reach out, through the annals of the Otherworld. You must find this Tome, Descendant. The Herz Arcana is in your possession, it always was. You must study the pages, absorb the knowledge and learn to use it! Seek out other members of our order, wherever you can, the preservation of life depends upon it!

I closed the Tome. As the realisation that I was an integral part in humanity’s redemption washed over me, with a clarity that I had never felt before, I snatched the Locket from around my neck and studied every inch of it. I had never been able to open it and, as the icy hand of despair gripped my stomach, I realised I still couldn’t. I knew instinctively that the Herz Arcana was contained within it but how could I retrieve it!? The Guardian had instructed me to find the others, perhaps they could open the Locket? Perhaps they could help me understand the ancient knowledge contained within the Tome?

Perhaps there was a light now, however faint, that could finally banish this impenetrable darkness..