Snippets II - The Ice of the Northwest

Snippets are small pieces I am considering expanding into larger works.

I know nothing of ritual or any eldritch pattern of tongues long dead with the passing of innumerable centuries.  The mysteries of life and death remain tangled threads to my mind.  What I do know, what I can clearly recount to these borrowed tattered pages is that the world, the night, and the darkestplaces therein hold their secrets clutched fiercely to their breast and only release those terrible wonders to the bold, the foolish, or the doomed.  I have certainly been accused of all three in the recent past, however, as I hope these letters can somehow convincingly relate, insane is an unwarranted moniker.

The happenings of the weeks prior to my internment in this miserable abode are imprinted fresh on my mind each night when my eyes at last close.  And although my eyes burn with those wretched sights, my tongue falls dry and freezes stiff whenever I attempt to recount the tale to what few visitors I receive.  My hope is that the icy spectres of fear and memory will fail to find purchasewithin the hand that wields this pen.  But enough, now, of prevarication through the abstract retelling of the terror lodged firmly in my core.  Although eventually doomed, the path of this tale, that first thread dealt into that first stitch by the fates themselves, begins in the wilds of the great Northwest.


There are three of us on this adventure, the Goodman Kemper, the ubiquitous Smith, and myself whom the other two have taken to addressing as, quite plainly, Doctor.  We let loose our guide several days ago, but kept most of the dogs, trusting Kemper and his uncanny ability at orientation.  So far we have seen little beyond the ebb and flow of ancient forest and the perpetual roll of unbroken hillocks and bumps snow coated by the hand of a master confectioner.  The dogs are dire things standing nearly as tall as a man's waist and crafted by the surrounding winter into frost hounds pulled from an ancient Norse legend; at once steaming with energy and coated in saber rattling wind chimes of jagged ice.  It is easily ten long days since last we huddled beneath a civil structure and sipped a piping hot tea.

Rising above the unending wall of trees to the north are crags of white capped rock, rough edges of violently upturned crust peaking through on sheer faces and outlined with snow at each wrinkle.  We travel a north easterly line.  A part of me wishes it was northwest instead if only to hold the future promise of the eventual Pacific as some measure of an end to this quest.  We are each left alone to thoughts of this sort.  At least, this is a common path my mind takes to divest itself from the constant battle against glare and cold and the continuous whuffing and yipping of the dogs.  I know not how the wheels turn for my companions.  Kemper is meticulous to a fault and it is ever a wonder to me that he can leave aside his planning, maps, and calculations to actually embark on adventure.  Smith is older than both Kemper and myself.  He has seen places and events that make familiar border with the unmentionable.  He is a survivor although I have yet to determine if that makes him especially lucky or unlucky.

  

Snippets I - Pearson Was A Fool

Snippets are small pieces I am considering expanding into larger works.


Where to begin?  Pearson was a fool; brash, arrogant and filled with the unyielding conviction of his own mortality.  That we followed him, that we ourselves were filled with the same, well...we should have seen the hypocrisy sooner.  The fact remains - Pearson was a fool and too few of us survived that discovery...


Beyond the white-stone wonders of the capitol the loyal state of Virginia stretches to the west and the south.  The touch of man fades as a late summer sun dwindling slowly through the evening without care or worry.  Suddenly discovering the lateness of the hour, it hastens through its final arc and beyond to plunge all in ever deepening dark.  Buildings fade from monumental to stately and from stately to service, service to functional, then homes, then farms, until even the farms are swallowed by the forest.  The forests of Virginia are alive.  They breathe and swell with the wind and water poured over them by low clouds tripped on fog and pierced by ancient mountains toppled low.

It is into this rolling verdant maelstrom of nature that I find myself, riding out the last moments of wind and rain as the steam engine relentlessly pulls its train of rusting cars into station.  With a slow grating screech and a final light lurch, the cars settle into hissing stillness.  The locks are thrown.  In minutes my companion and I find ourselves on the platform - the only passengers to step off.  The brakeman are already making to continue their westward voyage.  The station is so small that I doubt it would have seen a stop was it not our specific destination.

We are not alone on the tracks, but the group waiting has made no move toward the slumbering metal beast.  There is a tense moment.  I am mentally combing through my possessions.  Is the pistol in the coat I am wearing or is that reassuring weight some other similarly bulky trinket?  The group moves toward us.

"Smith?  Is one of you Smith?" one of them calls.  There is a small click from the man at my right.  The whereabouts of his pistol, at least, is not a subject of debate.

"And if I am?" my companion calls back.  It is an interesting tactic as, truth be told, I am Smith.  His name, through some curious twist of fate and dark humor, is Merlin.  And Merlin is an extraordinarily dangerous man.

There are three of them, all long coats and hats pulled low.  We are, both groups that is, cagey to a fault.  Ours is not a mild profession of simple service for meager fare.

"That will do," Merlin instructs the three.  Something in his voice signals to them that the business end of something is likely pointed in their direction.

"We...we are not your enemies, Smith."  The man in the lead whispers something else caught only by his companions.  "I...we...are taking our hands out of our pockets.  Empty save for the paper in my left, a timepiece, and slowly on all counts."

And they do - in an eerie unison, not in to any form of submission or admission of fear, merely cautious as one would show a great cat caged at meat time.

"My name is Heinrich.  I was instructed to meet a misters Smith and Merlin out from the capitol on a matter of urgency."  Heinrich hesitates and then continues, "and some delicacy which is at risk the longer these introductions take.  By your watch what is the hour?"

For the first time I speak up.  "By my watch I make it twelve minutes before the hour of ten.  And by yours?"

The man turns to me after clicking closed a small pocket clock.  "Nearly a full eighteen before the bells."

I think for a moment, juggling codes and numbers in my head.  "Then we shall have but the bells to decide who is right."  I reply.  All parties relax.  "I am Smith.  This is Merlin.  Perhaps we should adjourn to somewhere more discreet?"

"Indeed." says Heinrich. "We have a car waiting.  Right this way."