Abasement of the Remorseful

-Kaleb worked with window fixture repair and installation. A twenty four inch plate of glass streaked with morning rain trapped between its brother pane in the track. The sun rose. Purple clouds looked like looming spacecraft. He set the glass, and sealed it. The owner of the home watched over his shoulder. A surgeon, with his arms crossed, his mind contemplating, wanting to help, no doubt wondering if he could do this work himself, but Kaleb set the glass so quick and so immaculately flush that his troubles eased and his inspection harvested no complaints. Kaleb ran through the usual business and wasted no time being idle. Six more appointments waited. He never arrived late.

-Across town, Imogen sat in the back. The kitchen smelled like onions. The waiters sat idle and bored. She put the paperwork down and confronted them. The floor manager among the waiters, fifteen years older than the teenagers and young ladies that worked below him. He begged Imogen to see for herself. Only one person entered the whole day. He sat in the back, and waited. “He has his water, the floor manager explained, “and he wants nothing more.”

The customer wore a black suit. A silver cross around his neck. When he drank water, Imogen saw his wrist. Tattoos sleeved his flesh, and she imagined they ran all the way down his form. He wore a high white collar that reached to his sharp, raptor jaw. A buckled hat covered his head. Imogen went back to her paperwork. When she came out to steal a shot of whiskey from the bartender she saw the back table empty. Not even a ring left from his glass. No empty sweetener packets. No spilled liquid. She looked at the clock. Four more hours, provided she finished the paperwork.

-Hildegard walked from school everyday. Alone. She kept her silence among her peers, lowered her head, preferred to remain unnoticed, yet felt no fear nor remorse in her actions. If one did call on Hildegard, she politely ignored them, though some of the kids felt her capable of damning tricks due to her antisocial nature. In truth she wasn’t antisocial, she was anti fool. And fools never believe they are capable of making bad decisions when their entire existence serves to leave a warning behind for those fearless, unremorseful spirits that walk among us in the quiet lanes. She loved them for that. Her teachers too, hard skinned individuals whose profession is to wrestle with these fools, and force them to learn something they believe will not enrich their character. Hildegard understood at a young age, due to her long walks with no company other than her own thoughts, that there are two kinds of people in small towns. There are the people with a lot of money that move away from big cities, but don’t want to live in the country. Or fools that simply never left. Hildegard dreamed all day of places she wished to see. Foreign places where the roads are gardens, and thriving with wildlife to accompany her. She liked animals. They bit and scratched things that came too close. Just like her. She looked forward to turning twelve at the end of the month. She figured her party would be just like the others. At least there would be a pie. She hated cake. She walked in the middle of the street, imagining that the world ended and she needed to rebuild this ghost of a town. No cars on the road. No people. The fantasy could be reality if only a strong disease wiped the humans away but for the ones without friends.

A single car waited on the railroad tracks. A Mercedes. A man in a black suit and high collar sat there on the trunk. He smiled at Hildegard with a beakish mouth. His eyes buried under the shade of his hat. Silver cross glowed. He asked her for help.

“By the Christ, am I glad you came by. My engine died. I need someone to help me push it.”

Hildegard ignored him.

“Now, little girl, you won’t leave me here to get crushed by a train. Will you?”

Shy walked by.

“Okay, then. You don't know I seen you before. What about I offer you something? I know what it's like to have not a friend in the world. Help me out, and I show you.”

“I like being alone.”

“Me too- been alone my whole life. It’s your birthday coming up? It’s no fun to celebrate one's birthday by themselves, hear me speak truth. Let me give you a present! It's the least a friend can do.”

She went over to him, wary of strangers, but intrigued by the proposition. What manner of gift do men such as these provide? She wanted to know.

“Now, why not give this car a push. And I will give you your gift.”

She lay her palms on the sun baked steel of the rear bumper. The preacher went back to the front, and took the brake off. . She pushed with her legs, digging her toes into the gravel between the rail ties. The preacher pulled a tire iron from the front seat, but slid it back under after feeling the car shift an inch. The preacher smiled, impressed.

     The trunk popped open. Hildegard screamed at her discovery as curiosity furrowed into revolt. Blood soaked dresses and numerous pairs of lady’s footwear poked up from the fabric like fish heads. She pushed away , her body still that of a little girl, but her mind she was a sprinter. But the preacher already had her trapped. She felt her skin adhered to the steel just like glue. She pulled until flesh peeled away, but before she could work herself loose the preacher pierced her chubby sides with twelve fingers tipped with toxic claws. She tried to get a look because he no longer sounded like the same man- or a man at all. His voice now that of another being. He smelled too! Like pure copper. A leathery hand clasped over her mouth. Her vocal chords strained. Foam dripped from between his fingers. They tasted like rubber chalk. She kicked and scratched but nothing she did injured the preacher. Even as she took a hold of his ear. She dug her nails in and tore the tip away. She hurled it to the ground while he wrestled with her. In a glimpse she saw that his ears weren't round, but sharp and pointed. Blood dripped down the side of the preacher’s face. Though he smiled just like before, but this time with a jubilant sprite dancing on his tongue. His teeth, she noticed, all flat, and long like nail files that extended from his deformed features. He hurled the girl into the trunk, and slammed it shut on her. He picked his ear back up. It almost twitched out of his hand, but caught it by pinching the pointed tip between his sixth finger and the index finger. He noticed it changing color and hurriedly jammed it back on his head. The girl still screamed and beat on the trunk. The preacher couldn't wait for his ear to re attach. He jogged back into the mercedes and drove off.

-Ulysses walked into town. He found the silence heavy like a tidal wave hung suspended. Strange, even for a small town. Not one car drove down the road. He knocked on the door. His mother opened it and she gleefully embraced him. He changed from his road greased rags, and into nice clothes from his closet. Then he came back into the kitchen where mom watched the sunset with troubled eyes.

“Did you hear about what happened?”

“No, mother.”

“A little girl’s disappeared. Kaleb and Imogen’s little girl. Been listening to it on the radio.”

“That’s a shame... A damn shame.”

“She didn’t come home. They found her school bag by the railroad tracks.”

“Don’t worry. Nothing stays lost forever.”

That night, Ulysses laid in bed without sleep. He climbed from bed and left the house with a rusted piece of jewelry dangling before him. He followed its whispers around the old shilohs, and the abandoned loading dock by the river, and then around the trailers. He wrote down the noises he heard. An old man smoking on his porch waved at Ulysses with two fingers. He waved back. Along the river bed he walked, then up onto a shelf of trees he hiked. Thunder brewed in the distance. But the rain would go south and miss the town, he hoped.

Kaleb saw his daughter every night. Sometimes walking in the halls, sometimes riding her bike up and down the street. Sometimes eating at the kitchen table with her elbows on the surface- the way He and Hildegard scolded her not to do  at every meal. It didn’t make him angry anymore. Only made him miss her more. Yet still, if he called to her to be careful, to mind her manners, to brush her hair or teeth, she vanished. Imogen saw her too. Near as much as she saw her husband, because she spent most of her time at the restaurant ever since the disappearance. They saw someone else too. A preacher in black with bleeding fangs and starving, desperate eyes bulging from his skull. His steps echoed at night. He held a night claw hammer in one hand, and nails in another. He spike in latin verses while Imogen bathed. He stood in the corner and counted to one thousand while Kaleb read in the living room.

One day, Kaleb woke up and found the marital bed empty, and three suitcases missing, Imogen’s closet cleaned out, the bathroom sink cleared, and twelve thousand dollars missing from the bank account. She took the car too. No note, but he knew where she went. She left weeks before, but every morning it felt like a fresh development.

“Even if you find him, there’s bringing her back.” Kaleb recited to his steaming coffee. His only prayer in the world. Morning fog covered the streets. He waited for Hildegard's likeness. Even if he couldn’t touch her, at least he could hear her bare feet against the hardwood. He neglected his appointments, sitting around, listening and watching. But she didn’t come. The searches recovered no body. The river flooded and kept searchers away from much of the land they would otherwise be able to transverse. Rain storm after rainstorm came. The search is delayed, the search is delayed. Eventually, it's been weeks. Not even a sign of the girl. Before Kaleb knew it, the day ended and night fell. He wasted the light away, and didn’t even feel tired enough to fall asleep. He sat in a lounge chair, the ticking clock lost. A glass in his hand. Eighty proof. He hoped he’d find it a sleep aide, but all it did was make him wish for sobriety. No fun or ease came from the booze, only a feverish feeling that he could not kill. A knock disturbed his drunken trance. Small raps, two at at time. Ulysses, he knew- the town weirdo, a former classmate. Harmless, but a nocturnal animal with "obscene hobbies". Naturally, many suspected Ulysses of the disappearance. Most in town blamed him whenever someone ran away or died. Kaleb encouraged them all to stop treating poor Ulysses like a witch, issuing that they mind their own business and let the wierdo be weird if it's not hurting anyone. Still, no one knew what this man did in his spare time, but none liked the family he hailed from because of their scandalous history. One great ancestor was a slave catcher. Ulysses’father a con artist. His mother now too old to continue her drug habit, but in her  younger days she hustled fools in the bar. Ulysses, as much as Kaleb knew, nothing like them. In fact, he realized why he liked Ulysses so much- he reminded him of Hildegard.

He got up, calling for the visitor to stop because the knocking drove bolts into his brain. Kaleb turned on the porch light. Ulysses wearing a raincoat and boots stood outside. He looked like a ghillie suit, covered in all manner of growth, as if he’d spent these few weeks living in a bog. Kaleb opened the door, exhausted and sad, he told Ulysses to go home but the town weirdo insisted. “I know where she is.”

Ulysses lay out five cards in a cross, two in the middle he overturned them. The lights flicked. Kaleb neglected to pay the power bill. And the water bill. And the cable bill.

“You saw her?” Kaleb asked again.

“Yes. Shall we go to the police?”

“No…. they’ll take her away.”

“Then, I will show you.”

Ulysses held his hand out for Kaleb to grab, and then they set out. Ulysses asked Kaleb to wear boots at least, pointing to Kaleb’s bare feet, but he ignored Ulysses and left the house. They crossed down a stone stairway through the foliage down to leafy hills where pioneer cabins once stood. Kaleb knew it will. He used to walk through these trees everyday. Ulysses held a dangling piece of metal, and he watched its every movement like a hunter watching a doe. He even held it to his ear, and stopped moving until he collected some new information, and pointed a new way forward. They marched through a flooded woodland. Branches and rocks stabbed his feet, but Kaleb didn’t care. Even as the water rose to his knees, and the thick mud clasped his feet. The cold! Despite his wounds, he felt no pain. The mud and water numbed his lower body. Mist floated on top of the water. Before long, Kaleb did not recognize the land. The trees each looked ancient as if composed by secrets. They reached up, the autumn claiming their coats, but with black bark against the moonlight they appeared as horrid spirits reaching for the moon as if it were fleeting hope. The branches swooped and dripped. He feared they searched for him, hungered for his bones to be splintered and flesh removed, replaced with the blackened bark, and he would live as one of their cursid selves. But the metal that Ulysses held caught his attention as if glowed in the moonlight, without rust, a silvery luster sparkled.

   “We’re near.”

    “I need a minute…” Kaleb leaned on Ulysses. He took rapid breathes. Anxiety shook his spine. “Just to breathe.”

    “I came to you the minute I found her. I warn you-”

   “What happened to her?”

   “It looks like…” Ulysses pulled a flashlight out from his pocket, hit the switch, but no light came on. He shook it, opened the back panel and started fumbling with batteries.

“Looks like what?” A poison syrup flowed into his guts.

“Someone experimented on her.”

“What? Experiment?”

“You won’t believe me until you see I’m afraid.”

“What did they do? What did they do?” Kaleb knocked the flashlight from Ulysses’ hand and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“They tested magic on her.”

    Kaleb let go of Ulysses, but stared at him with conjecture, until the silence between them indicated to Kaleb that Ulysses believed what he said. Ulysses reached down into the mud. The flashlight landed with the source faced down, the mechanism standing upright. He picked it like a flower, and scraped the mud off with his thumb. He turned it on. Kaleb never saw him insert the batteries. The light cut through the dark, and focused on one tree not twenty feet away, yet hidden under a veil of vines and swamp smog. Ulysses focused the light on what looked like a darkened star. Her narrow limbs bound to the tree trunk. A bag over her lopsided head. The light revealed her lifeless body, and the inflictions taking her to judgement. Kaleb covered his mouth, his teeth nibbling on the fat of his hand. His attention unbreakable. He and Ulysses marched until they stood mere inches from the tree. Kaleb reached upwards, but could not reach her. He asked Ulysses for help getting her down-

“And what do you intend on doing with her? Not bury her, or you would've called the police. So what happens once you have her down?”

“I… I don't know, I only want to look at her.”

Ulysses shined the light on the stones growing from her thighs. Each one a different color, though each shined like a piece of  silicon, and shaped like a network of cubes interconnected like a chain.

“That’s from overcharging the body with alteration energies. These are from the body draining the excess.”

“Is it painful?”

“Life a truck being squeezed into your skin. The bag kept her screams quiet. See that marking? No matter how much she screamed, the sound echoed only in the fibers of the canvas. Resilient girl, looks like she almost fought her way free…” he shined the light on a small hole in the middle of her chest. No blood, nor burns- a perfect ring cut into her clothes and flesh. Ulysses walked around the tree with the light to show that the hole exited the opposite end of het tree. “So they killed her with that.”

Kaleb vomited. No matter how much he purged, the noxious syrup stayed in his gut. He wiped his mouth and stood back up, but kept his view away from the corpse of his spawn pinned above him. What  unknowable horrors inflicted onto the girl remained both fascinating, and heart wrenching. Ulysses kept inspecting the body, writing down notes.

“I can bring her back, Kaleb. If you wish for me to do it.”

“Will she be the same as before?”

“No. She will remember everything that happened to her before she died, and she will take everything she gained from the afterlife with her. Do you want me to go through with this?”

“Yes. Yes, Please do so.”

“As you request. Go home. Rest. I won’t promise perfect results. I’ve only done this one other time. But I’ll need to be alone for the ritual.” He began producing artifacts from his pockets. Kaleb remained, looking at Ulysses with disbelieving concern of a lost child. “You don’t want to see this. Go home. I’ll tell you if I am successful in the morning.”

“You expect me to leave?”

“I don't want you to see this. I don't know what you will do. Go home.”

“I want to see her…”

“No, you don’t.” Kaleb looked again at Ulysses, this time his eyes glowed in the dark a faint blue. Mist and ice flakes dropped from his lashes. Ulysses no longer minded Kaleb. He already begun.

Kaleb watched some. His heart raced, but his stomach ached like a ticking bomb. A strange affection warmed his shoulder, an invisible hand. Betrayal is leaving this place, he thought, struggling to watch, too afraid to intervene because the voice of Ulysses’ was no longer his own- he spoke to someone, a stranger in his throat. The tree dropped. Not a thundering collapse, but as if lowered by suspension cables, it leaned over slowly, landing in the mud without a sound, stirring no mist and disturbing no life. Ulysses climbed on the trunk, and unwound the bindings about Hildegard. He took the canvas away, and gagged at what he saw. What the perpetrator hoped to achieve from her Ulysses would never reveal to Kaleb, but Kaleb saw Ulysses put the bag back on and swear. Kaleb felt curious, so he approached. Ulysses’ whole body misted, and cold blossoms of air exhausted from his nostrils and mouth, but also ears and hair. He produced a mason jar filled with a homemade concoction. A dark, but sweet looking solution. Ulysses pulled out a paint brush, dipped it in, and began to coat Hildegard, clothes, hair, bag, and all. Kaleb figured his toes must be blue by now because he didn’t know if he was sinking or just collapsing under his own fatigue. A wandering hand lifted towards Hildegard, Kaleb had no control of his body. He wanted to see her, to see her sugar sweet face just once more, he’d give anything, anything… he reached, Ulysses concentrated on his work and did not noticed the wandering hand until the bag had slid part way down, where a mouth should have been. Kaleb gasped. His spine shook. His genitals lifted and his ears twitched as bodily fluids rioted inside his body. She had no mouth, but instead the proboscis of a mosquito. He fell back into the mud. As Ulysses attempted his spell- the body remained still, but wings- transparent, paper thin wings far too small to carry even a small human, flapped against the trunk from behind her shoulders.

Kaleb heeded the advice of Ulysses, and disappeared from the scene as fast as his condition allowed. He walked like a drunk, though the alcohol already passed. Even as he stepped out from the chilled swamp of flooded river and stepped on hard ground. He felt like a walking dream. Until he came home. He saw the car. And a light on. He wandered inside, finding the door wide open. Inside he walked, seeing Imogen there at the kitchen table, every pore of her body filled with blood and mud. He recognized her by her steel glance, those black pearls in her sea of blue. She held something for him to see. He tip toed closer, a great happiness reborn, but along with it, a dire sense of regret for he knew what Ulysses was doing, but began to fear that he made the wrong decision.  In fact, deep in his heart, he knew it to be a terrible idea…. But he couldn’t leave her alone, once she was dead.

He stood at the opposite end of the table. Imogen held in her filthy palms a severed ear. Kaleb took a closer look. Imogen anticipated Kaleb’s disgust, but he looked at it with a matter of understanding. A pointed ear.

He told her nothing of Ulysses and Hildegard. They bathed, and went to sleep. At sunup, both found themselves deep in the wonderland of all powerful sleep. But the house was cold. The front door hung open, and autumn drafts chilled the house. Muddy footprints lead up the stairs, a rain coat dragged against the wooden steps. His cargo slept soundly. He carried her wrapped in a wool blanket to the top of the stairs, and then silently through the hall. The room at the end, he determined to be hers because it was the only one locked. With a quick whisper, the lock undid itself, and Ulysses entered. He felt uncomfortable in this house, in this room. He did not intend to idle, so he lay the girl down, and tucked her in. Ulysses left her door open, but shut the front door as he left. Feeling his work done, Ulysses re entered obscurity where someone might need his talents.

Brina the Victorious

We read often

as the scholars best know how to write

of old songs by our forlorn ancestors

from the lost epoch.

Some of war, some of grief,

some of mirth and glee

some of adventure and deceit

and some of jokes and ribaldry

and many of enchantment.

In the far north this song was written

In a time of kings and roving barbarians

composed among frozen mountains

discovered in frost bitten ruins.

Of all these old songs I can tell maybe some

but not all.

But Listen, true lords and noble ladies!

I will tell you of “Hemford and Brina the Victorious”.

Hemford was known from the deserts of ebony to the coasts of Ivory

An adventurer ordained with a wealth of treasures, knowledge, and wisdom.

From a miner’s camp he started, but only in wandering, never in work, did he find his greatest pleasures. Great deeds spreads by mouth gossip of slayn giants, drowned sea monsters, and fallen castles to the south. Taken by his hand alone.

In the far countries deep inland, they whispered of famined villages' soil revitalized

by his invention. Of crumbling bridges reconstructed, of clean water filtered from brackish, soiled water.

But few know of his later years when he grew disenchanted of questing for idle things like riches or reputation, and became enamoured with a deep yearning to share his wealth and experiences among great mountains and open skies, maps of lost cities, tombs of ancestors, this is what compelled him to take a journey to the cold land. Up a northern path he treaded. His greatest days long  passed.

His flesh sagged from the bone. Brittle hairs hid his scars. He moved slower. The slope lifted over tree tops. The hawks watched the old adventurer. But he stood up straight in his chainmail. An axe on his hip. He entered a hamlet along the road as the sun dropped among four shacks in the middle of feeble fields of frosted dirt and runt crops budding with a single leaf. The peasants returned home from the fields in a group, and as they passed they recognized Hemford by his attire and fabled weapon. The fur cape and the Shield-Splitter. They flocked around him, some begging, some holding their children for a blessing, some asked for stories of the outside world.

some offered him gifts- money, daughters, livestock, all of which he rejected without casting a noticing glance. Apart from a cloak provided to him by a small child to cover his bald head from the falling snow.

Hemford denied his fame, claiming that travelers and songsingers over time exaggerated his greatest glories- but that he would tell the true stories to anyone that might accommodate him for a night and he only wanted to stay with whoever was the hardest worker in the village.

Many lived collected under four sod longhouses. A scant minority lived in shackles around the outskirts of the village. The town appeared leaderless, without a smith, without a healer, without a jarl or landlord.

Brina, son of Arnhoir the Honest, boasted to the embarrassment of his father, that it was he that  works from before the sun rises to well past its descent. Arnhoir grabbed the boy, his face red and ashamed. Arnhoir the Honest, the smallest property of the village- a mere shack with frigid dirt flooring, goats as housemates, a humble fire pit, with hay for the small clan to sleep on in the corner. He farmed a weak plot. Yet he and his sole son worked hard to cultivate the land. Hemford read the hardship in their color drained faces, the worn and tired eyes, the deep wrinkles and hardened flesh, and recognized the misery from his own time in and among poverty.

Hemford pointed his battle toughened finger at Arnhoir and asked him the name of his clan. Arnhoir admitted that his clan had no name. His wife died of madness, two first sons died of plague. Arnhoir pulled his only son to his side to declare that the boy was the only thing he had, and thus was not worthy to host such a legendary idol.

But Hemford already made his decision, and he declared thus:  “Anyone who labors  hard is a hero to me”.  Arnhoir's son smiled as a great joy ignited in his heart.

Hemford entered their shamble of a shack. He ate there, and retold stories of his adventures, companions, enemies until the wolves howled at the emerging moon. Hemford showed them the scars on his body, the knicks taken out from his armour, and where he found the weapons he decorated his belt with. Never once did Hemford purchase any of these- he either made them himself or recovered them from the tomb of a long dead tyrant. Brina's eyes lit up like lighting following a passing storm. The boy stood again proud and as tall as he could make himself, and implored Hemford to adopt him as a colleague, perhaps a squire- anything that Hemford needed, Brina claimed to possess the ability to do. Polish armor, sharpened weapons, saddle horses, tell jokes, sing songs- but Arnhoir recoiled in horror. He ordered his son to be quiet, and turned to Hemford, petrified to see the old adventurer with an expression of deep consideration. Arnhoir explained to Hemford: “If you had any children you would understand. He can't leave. He doesn't know what's out there. Doesn't know of the dangers. He doesn't even have a sword, or armour! And I'm too poor to provide him with any equipment.”

Hemford slapped his knee. “Then I shall! There is no expense too great for me. Your son is at the age when I first set out to find fortune. I'd hate to be the one who might refuse such a chance to experience the miracles of our world.”

“Where are you off too?” asked Arnhoir.

“To find the ruins of AzkurKoatza, sire.”

“Nay! I will never submit my only son to such an errand. No one knows if that

city even exists.”

“I found this map on the body of a crusader floating down the river. If the map is accurate, then it shows the way to the ruins.”

He showed Arnhoir the map. He studied it, but handed it back admitting to Hemford that he was not literate. Hemford pointed to the scribbles, showing him the village they currently rested in, and then showing him the path northwards just under the cliffs of the frozen coast. Some forty miles away.

“What if your wrong, and it isn't there?”

“A warlock in the desert wrote a book about the lost cities, and in this book he tells that the city is lost under the glaciers of the frozen coast. Something is there, and I'm going to find it.”

“I've never been apart from my son, sir. I don't know if I can go without him for long.”

“If that's your decision, sire.” Hemford said, but felt crushed as the Brina's lightning eyes sunk, and he slumped defeated.

Hemford went off the next morning, waking up just as light appeared over the horizon. He noticed Brina absent from the shack, but he took his leave believing the boy to be working as he claimed to. However as he crossed from the town and crossed over the fence of mountains, the young Brina intercepted him. Hemford asked him to explain how he caught up so fast, and Brina explained that he never went to sleep, and left once his father and Hemford dozed off he took his leave, knowing from the map which way Hemford would travel.

Hemford shook his head, though deeply impressed with the boy's determination, expressed his wish that Brina mind his father, as the farmer was right. Dangers are abound in this world. But Brina refused to listen. He began to emotionally plead with Hemford, asking him to take him from the back breaking work that never amounts to a thing, from the small hamlet of daily routine that he could only escape through imaginary treks. For years, he claimed, he wanted to see the frozen coasts, for years, he longed for his chance to depart from the hamlet and never return.

Hemford took the boy by the collar, looked at him with conviction, and told the Brina: “We stop at the city on our way, and get you a weapon and something to protect yourself. We go to the frozen coasts, and I take you back. What your father does to you or me is up to him.”

Brina lost his dreary demeanor and danced like a merrymaker, and joked like a jester the whole week and a half it took them to reach the city gates. There, Hemford purchased for the Brina a bow and arrows so he could hunt for himself, a fishing pole to catch fish, a net to catch bugs if he became desperate for food. He took Brina to an armorer, and paid the man to make for Brina a cuirass of leather since iron he feared would be too heavy. He purchased also a barbuda helmet, the only pre made one small enough to fit the boy’s head. He then bought a saber for the boy to use. Hemford spent the rest of the journey sharing everything he know about the art of sword fighting, surviving in the wilderness, and ways to avoid death in general.

When they arrived to the frozen coasts, Brina was so amazed by the magnitude of the glaciers that Hemford worried that the boy stopped listening to his lesson. Hemford lead the way down the cliff, lowering himself down by rope, and Brina following just behind him. Once on the rocky shore, Brina looked determined and focused. He practiced all that Hemford taught him along their search. He dug out fish trapped in ice, he shot a big crab, and they ate its meat for days. Brina and Hemford dueled to keep their skills sharpened, and to Hemford's suspense Brina  kept up with him and even countered his strikes. They found each other laughing as they dueled, losing idle time as their practice became enjoyment.

After two weeks, Hemford showed Brina on the map where they were, and pointed to the cave before them. “That's it. It's what the warlock writes about. Looks just as he describes, and smells the same too. Be prepared, and stay close to me.”

The two went inside, Hemford leading and Brina behind. Glowing ice cycles illuminated the frost bitten walls. Vines of ivy hung from the ceiling. Rats squeaked, and water dripped into frigid puddle, freezing once it met contact. The deeper in they went, the darker the cave became. The glowing ice worked only where it met sunlight to absorb. Hemford lit a lantern and held it out. The oil smelled like whale and cast moving shadows onto the walls. Brina felt himself growing nervous and more nervous as the path tilted downwards into a stream of moist,warm air.

“Something is down here.” Hemford slid down and pulled Brina with him. They tumbled over rocks and frightened away the rodents with their clanking of equipment. Other sounds emerged from deeper in the cave. Ferral sighs and groans. Hemford pulled Brina up, and told him to be ready for anything. The lantern shattered, and the oil burned, revealing the rest of the way impassible due to a collapse. Hemford pushed against the blockage, removed loose stones, but he found that the blockage went on for miles and sealed the passage shut. The feral groans arose once more. Hemford came away from the earth rubble and told Brina to remain by the fire. Something came for them. A dozen groans darted along the walls, snarls and smacking of flesh as tiny eyes emerged in the fire light, holding small but sharp razors cut from unmeltable ice. The creatures pounced, and the two fought them back as they retreated back up the incline. Halfway up, Hemford looked around. Blood on his weapon, and dead feral creatures littering his path, but Brina was gone. Hemford hurried back down, slashing and hacking at the creatures . Brina's sword lay against a rock on the incline. His helmet down further way, and the rest of his supplies scattered down. At last he found Brina laying in the dirt, face down, arms and legs twisted, the creatures prodding his body with their spears. Hemford released a rage he thought only possible for a younger man, and cut the rest of the creatures into ribbons, chopping the little devils apart even after death before going to Brina with a heavy dread filling his heart.

He rolled Brina over, and saw the boy died when one of the creatures nicked his thigh. Brina probably didn't even feel it,or was too proud to say anything, and when he lost too much blood he tumbled down the incline. Hemford scooped the boy up, and carried him out of the cave.

Hemford lived for two more decades. In that time he refused to return to the far north, his memories and shame too great. However when an old companion from the northern city called on him, Hemford was compelled to head northwards once more. He took the same path as before over the mountains, but didn't stand up straight like a legendary adventurer- more as the old man he felt he had become. He pulled a hood over his head as he crossed through the hamlet. He hoped none would notice him, so he moved at night, silently, hiding his armour and weapons beneath a cloak. Unfortunately he forgot where he acquired the cloak, and one of the villagers recognized the gift they bestowed to the hero, and they cried to the rest of the hamlet- only fifteen people lived there then, and they all just as before assembled to once again meet the famous adventurer. They didn't ask him this time about his own journeys or stories, but about Brina- what became of Brina? And Hemford began to fill with tears, much to the grave concern of the villagers. Among the crowd stood Arnhoir the Honest. Hemford hung still, wordless, motionless, Hemford he dropped his head, swallowed, and turned to the hamlet. He told them about Brina- how the boy caught him as he travelled, about his resourcefulness in nature, and how the boy kept Hemford alive after the rope broke as they descended the cliffs. He told them that Brina nursed him, aided his healing, and searched for the cave as well as brought food to nourish Hemford until at last the boy came back to camp with the news of his discovery. Limping, and on crutches, they went into the cave, deep inside, only to be ambushed by monsters in the dark. The villages held their breaths. Arnhoir looked like a statue about to tip over. But Hemford told them if Brian hadn't been there with him, that he would have died in that cave or on the rocky beach, and that he was honored to have such a companion. The villages came closer. They wanted to hear more about their great hero, and so he told them all about the adventures and treasures recovered by the stalwart farmboy. How Brina slew more brutal monsters than he ever had, and braved far worse challenges than Hemford dreamed of accepting. Hemford looked above the villagers at the aurora burning in the night sky, and suggested that he believed Brina to be a king by now. These stories captivated the villager's imaginations for years to come, and as the generations developed, these stories became embellished- Brina the Victorious became a word greater than the entire life of the meager hamlet. Long after the village became a ghost's wail in the wind, the stories remained.

Hemford left the next morning, awaking from an old woman's chicken coup and moving on, but along the way out he saw Arnhoir the Honest toiling. Lifting a worn out hoe with a labored grunt over his back and wedging it in the cold, barren soil. He stopped to rest, looking tired, but with a light in his eyes. “I'm glad my son is out there doing great things, sir.” he said to Hemford. “But if you run into him, just tell him that his father wishes he would come visit. Just one time."

The Crawlspace

The real estate developer stopped his truck on the side of the road. The Nissan Titan he drove still smelled like new car. The paint still shined like fresh glue. He set the brake. The vehicle adjusted with a clank. He opened the door, shielding his eyes from the unchallenged tyranny of the sun. Dusty wind blew thin hair over his sunburned scalp. He wondered about moving his car. He looked up the road and down, but saw nothing but simmering heat waves. He left the door open, and checked out a rusted shiloh nested by wild animals before the field. The land smelled arid and of kindling. Tall yellow grass swayed from neglected irrigation ditches. Dirt mounds piled up around the fossils of dead trees. No path led to the hamlet. As he stepped closer through the bush a flock of Sandhill Cranes flocked from the grass. A garter snake ran between his shoes. Pieces of foliage and burrs stuck to his pant legs. The heat waves over the town subsided as he came nearer. He kept his eyes shielded. The sun punished the land, and all who live on it. His gut swayed past his belt. His thighs rubbed together. He looked at his watch. Less than ten minutes and sweat dripped down his back and soaked his neck. He wiped sweat away from his forehead, and squinted to make out the town in front of him. The smallest place he ever saw. Three roads assembled in the shape of a C-clamp. Buildings with signs that faded long ago with wooden siding and roof shingles that peeled from structure. Dark windows stared lifelessly. Abandoned cars wasted away beneath crumbling lean twos. The scars of a railroad long since removed impressed the dirt. A church stood at the far end, its walls gone, leaving only the bell tower, the pews, the pulpit on top of small gardens of re emerging weeds. Dark birds sat on these buildings and squawked at the land developer. He tossed his coat over his shoulder and tugged at his collar. A single power line strung over the lake of grass to the town. He saw the line connect to a single building. An iron fence impeded him. He hopped over the top into an alley filled with trashed signs, broken glass, and pieces of building. He peeked through holes in the wall, noticing it completely deserted. Pushing away from the wall and surveying the building. An iron ladder with loose bolts led to the roof where he could see over the land. The ladder shifted and adjusted against his feet. The land developer's sweaty palms slid against the iron bars. Once at the top, he watched the power line go on over the field to a roof one mile away. He followed the power line from the building to a lonely house. The black birds lifted from their watch towers and glided along towards the house. Some settled on the roof, others in the branches of a twisted ash tree.

The land developer's heart pounded and his ankles ached. He stopped in the shade, leaning on the trunk. Taking a minute to breath, he lifted an eyebrow and looked back to the hamlet as if someone called his name. He then looked back at the house, as if it fell from the sky. A fresh, untarnished coat of pink paint covered the siding. Fogged designs of butterflies and flowers stained the windows. The land developer stomped up to shade of the porch, he wiped sweat from his brow and peered through the windows of the front door. Hard wood floors, deep red paint, flooded with sunlight. The land developer took the knob and twisted it. Through a small crack he called for any residents. No one responded but his echo. He didn't know what to expect. The county office insisted the property was unowned and for sale. Yet the paperwork he saw in that office implicated that someone lived there.

He looked back towards the yard. Tall grass, wild weeds, but no vehicles or tire impressions. Biting his tongue he pushed open the door and entered, walking on the balls of his feet. Grains of dust floated through the window light like bugs. The interior welcomed him. It looked finished and sharp. Clean, and well maintained. He entered, feeling alone, taking heavy, confident steps. From the main room he looked to his left. No door covered the kitchen. To the right, he could see the banister of the parlor above a fireplace. Ashes scattered in the bed. He went in. Glass doors hung open, the compartments along the walls empty. Staples from a carpet removed poked from the floor into his shoes. He knelt before the fire place, holding his palms above the black ashes. He sensed no heat. With a pen from his pocket he poked the ash but the substance burned away long ago. The ash came apart into brittle flakes. He leaned in and looked up the chimney. He squinted to see in the dark but with a light from his phone he saw the limestone maintained its white luster without marks of smoke or heat. He exited the parlor and entered the kitchen.

Faded stains marked where the appliances once stood. Only the sink remained. The land developer tried the water but nothing ran. In the cupboards he found patches of shedded fur, but nothing else. He looked in the pantry. No food. But he heard something. It sounded distant, and quiet. He lost interest and went back to the main room. He ascended the staircase. Each step creaked and whined but to his relief nothing collapsed from under him. He tried a light switch at the top of the stairs but the buttons effected nothing. A hallway ran down from the top of the stairs with two bedrooms and another bathroom. He inspected both bedrooms but sighed, finding nothing but old blankets and moth eaten suits stored away in the closet. He felt bad for the house. Such a pretty little gem in the dust of Sioux county. But places like this didn't sell. Not like what he planned to build.

He turned down the stairs deciding not to waste anytime getting the bulldozers running. His fat fingers dialed the digits, but he stopped in the main room. A library of curiosities struck. A door stood in the corner. He felt certain that he checked all over. Something inside him wound like stretching tendons. The land developer took the knob, but a lock kept it in place. A horrendous odor seeped from under the door. He liked it at first. Sweet like blueberry syrup. But it became too sweet for even his appetites.He preparred to exit, with the knob dropped to the floor and the door swung open.

He told the demolition manager about it in the air conditioning of the foreman's trailer. They came in together, covered in dust. The room temperature chilled them like a deep freezer. Through the window both could continue monitoring progress. The backhoe used its scoop to pull down flooring on the second floor. A bulldozer pushed away what came down.

“So that's where the old man was hiding? Poor old bastard. What did you tell the police?”

“Same thing anyone would tell them. Got my project delayed by two days for what it's worth.”

“It's really a shame.” The demolition manager watched from the window. “it was a lovely home. Don't see much woodwork on houses nowadays. Can't believe you wouldn't find a buyer.”

“Of course I could get a buyer. But I prefer to look at the big picture.”

“What do you think he was doing in the closet?”

“I don't know. Old man went in to change the light, had a stroke or something.”

“Or someone killed him and stuffed him in there.”

“I like to think he went in there happy. Maybe he wanted to die in the closet.”

The southern wall collapsed. A cloud of dust swallowed the machinery but wind blew the cloud away. The machines roared. Bit by bit they broke the house apart and swept the lot clean.

“Looks like this is going faster than anticipated. We might be able to start construction tomorrow if we can get the land all cleared today.”

“Good.” The land developer said.

The machines finished. A flat, dirt lot now rested where the house and the overgrown grass did before. The land developer went to bed early, but his mind raced. The home in his mind excited him. He turned on a lamp, and sketched page after page of his architectural fantasies. This stimulated him further. He looked at the clock. He told the crew he wanted construction to begin at six am. A few hours away. He climbed out of bed, slid into baggy jeans and threw on a golf polo. He got into his luxury truck, and took it to the hamlet. The bulldozers flattened a path through the grass which he followed to the square lot of dirt. He took the keys out of the ignition, shut door and entered the gentle warmth of a summer night. He looked up at the stars. A flurry more than what can be seen in Omaha. In truth he hated that polluted jungle of poverty, crime, and worst of all- concrete. He stepped onto the dirt wishing he lived out in the open air, but his feelings halted. A familiar sound. The land developer put his soft hand by his ear, and he listened. It took a bit of concentration. He tried to remember where, and then he recalled hearing this faint sound in the pantry of the farm house. He stepped further into the dirt. The sound developed. He couldn't mistake it. A woman cried. He looked around, and called out for anyone that might need help. No one responded. He walked deeper. The crying sounded muffled, like behind a locked door. In the dark his foot found a block of concrete. The land developer cussed and knew for certain because he personally oversaw the process that everything was cleared. The moon shined through the clouds and revealed something that he failed to notice when he first saw the farm house. A cellar door. He took hold of the handle. The sobbing vibrated against the plywood. The door budged, but something caught it. Squatting low, and using his thighs, the door opened with a pop. The crying emitted from beneath. He stood above the short stairway. Cold air pushed up his pant legs. Nails stabbed through support beams where the stairs left the pale impressions on the wood. The land developer hollered into the dark, asking if anyone needed help but the weeping darkened into grinding of vocal cords, choking on tears. With light from his phone, he inspected the bottom. Rubble of the stairs piled in a dangerous heap. As if the steps collapsed on top of each other all at once. He dropped himself down, sitting on the ledge and lowering his body and watching the dirt disappear behind the limestone wall.

The weeping sunk into the limestone and muffled bashing slapped against the rocks. The land developer touched the wall and let his hand guide him to the first corner. Hushed. He stayed close to the wall and bent his knees to spring away if need be. Cobwebs covered the adjacent corner. He felt the voice vibrate against the wall. The structure changed. His fingertips slid across smooth stone to rough, red brick. A centipede crawled from a gap between bricks and crawled over his hand. He shook it off, and when his palm came away from the wall the intensity of the bleating enhanced. It sounded violent. Fearful anticipation… a harrowed gasp- as if recoiling from attack, then dumbfounded mumbles and suicidal moans- interrupted by the muffled bashes that sounded sweeter, and meatier each time the vibration startled the brick. The voice rose again to the peak of beastial alarm- this time the land developer heard the crack of bone. The wall tensed like a cramped muscle. It felt like the handle of a push mower. He thought he would be sucked inside. He figured where the source came from. The power behind the wall told him as much. He rose the light and it revealed the crawlspace. A rectangular window, wide as a bench, tall as the wheels of a Saturn. The space blasted the sound like a speaker. The land developer took hold of the edge. He wondered if something inside waited for a chance to bite him. He put his phone in his mouth with the light source facing down. He wished he brought a flashlight as he took the end with his free hand and kicking against the cracks he elevated himself to the crawlspace. He inserted his head. The wretching agony crushed his ear drums like headphones. All other sounds muted. He heard the stretching of the windpipe and the tearing of the lingual frenulum. A crow must be crawling up their throat, the land developer thought. He stuck his hand in and took hold of cracks in the cement and pulled his bovine gut inside. He crawled until he could squeeze his fat knees in. Saliva gargled. He could hear it boil in the throat. Tilting his head up he could see with one eye beyond the phone. He moved slow, and the sound of the crying slowed too. Drawn out, so that each tremble of vocal chords became its own song. The gust of despair rose on a draft. The land developer took slow breaths. The air tasted like mold. Spit dripped from the corners of his mouth. He crawled further until his hands left the cement and found raw earth. Roots tickled his forehead, and swept into his eye. He paused to turn the phone to the other side of his mouth. He tilted his head downward. A shallow halo of light cast down the tunnel. He made out words from the strained cries. “What have you done... what have you done...”. He crawled further. He felt the roots brush his back. He panted. Sweat poured down the side of his head. The musk of his arm pits smothered his breathing. A sweater of heat covered him. His bladder pressed against his pelvis. His slow breathes. Faster breathes made him anxious as if a giant rat crawled in behind him with its plagued teeth. His palms landed in what felt like syrup. The tunnel heated up. Everything he touched felt sticky. The light revealed a curve. The tunnel twisted. His shoulders brushed against dirt. When he moved his head dirt crushed his nose. Dirt filled his nostrils until he sneezed. He stopped for a minute fearing the ceiling gave way behind him. The crying ordered his attention. The ceiling pressed against his spine. He dropped the arch in his back. His spine popped. A few meager feet forward, the ceiling constricted further until he could feel moist soil filled in the valley of his spine. He dropped to a prone position. Swaying his hips, he moved inch by inch. The crying warred. Like a jet flying overhead. His ear drums rang. His elbows cut through dirt like hoe blades. His wrists crossed under his chin. His gut dragged over every sharp rock waiting for him. Dirt soaked in sweat caked his navel. His lungs starved. A vacuum stuffed down his throat sucked up the oxygen. Inch by inch he crawled.The crying exploded.
The sweater steamed into a suit of armor. His bladder filled up. His phone shoveled dirt. He snaked over a curve. A root scraped ribs. He felt bitter grains on his tongue. His skin, every inch, suited in earth. Moving forward. His rib cage peeling against the limits of the tunnel. Pieces of the ceiling sprinkled down. The lamenting paused, as if they heard him coming and wanted to speak to him, but only nonsense emitted from the end of the tunnel. Progress slowed. His hips felt screwed into the walls. His shoes flapped without space to stretch. His knees only bent when he crossed his feet, and putting both feet together like a fin, he kicked from the curving wall and pulled with claws forward. His bladder felt like a cracking dam. His teeth bit into the phone screen. Deeper. Deeper.

Something scratching at his leg, and delicate pods began beating up his pant leg, and over his back. A mouse. The rodent scampered further down, and jumped into a hole. The land developer wanted to go backwards, but to have one of his buildings put over a trapped person enticed a harrowing feeling. He clawed further to the mouse hole. The sobbing halted. They held their breath. Played dead. The land developer crawled closer to the hole locating the source of weeping and to his revulsion once the light revealed it, he found not a mouse hole but the empty pits of a skull with a mouse tail dangling out, like a tear. He tried to move backwards. But a crash erupted and dusty air filled the tunnel. The stream of cold air behind him stopped. He shook, feeling like the most foolish thing living on this planet. He dialed on his phone. He tried to explain his problem, but tortured cries interrupted him. He tapped the hang up key, but the crying kept on. As did a skeletal hand over the glowing screen, crushing it, and leaving the land developer in darkness. He screamed and kicked. The crying began self satisfied giggles. He pounded against the tunnel with his fat hands. Breath becoming short, he stopped, saving his air. He wanted to sleep. Never did a nice, long sleep appeal to him, but he understood what falling asleep meant. He kept thinking to himself. The crew will find the cellar. They will rescue me. Until the roar of machinery began to shake the ground. He started to cry, his weeping going from pitiful to fanatical.

The workers got started. The sun just rose. The music of power tools, and trucks carrying supplies. The crane stood by. The manager looked at his watch. “He should be here by now.” he told the foreman. “oh well. He'll show up eventually.”