Michael Scott Hand

Category: Stories

• Reflections of Strife

  Posted at 10:03 am by Michael, on November 11, 2020

  Begin at the beginning Isa asked: but there are so many beginnings.

  Beginnings spread out like threads of hair, like Eluria’s red braid. They twist around and through one another; memories touching, tangling. Sometimes I cannot separate one strand of hair from another; I cannot grasp one single strand of memory.

  Begin at the beginning?

  I remember one beginning. I remember the wheat and the girl and the sun reflecting on her dark hair. I remember the sun on her hair because it really only touched the edge of that darkness and it glinted like gold; like a halo. I am a young boy, a little boy. Was that the first time I saw Love?

  Soon after, I found Strife.

  The Bully Boys, sleeves rolled up, dirty faces, dirty mouths. Swearing and joking. But none of what they said was really a joke. Nothing they said was funny. They hurt the girl, they hurt her.

  Clunk clunk clunk clunk. That’s the sound of the train. It’s still around the bend. I shouted at the boys. I yelled for them to stop. The girl is on the ground, her dress is ripped.

  The tallest Bully Boy, the leader, grinned at me. I didn’t grin back. He’s not the leader because he’s the tallest, but because he’s the meanest. No matter what the rest do, it’s because he tells them to. Or that they’re trying to impress him. Or maybe some other damn fool reason I can’t fathom.

  I fight them and they beat me. They busted my lip. I can taste blood. Clunk clunk clunk. Train is closer now. Girl is yelling for them to stop. Her dress is ripped.

  I’m on the ground; I’m in the dust. The Bully Boys are standing around me and laughing. The tallest boy, the meanest boy, the leader, is closest.

  Clunk clunk clunk.

  I stand up and I push him.

  The kid’s in pieces. The train shreds him to ribbons. Two of the others are already running, but there’s one left standing there, covered in his friends guts looking scared. And he should be scared, because Strife’s not finished.

  I grab the boy and I start hitting him. All I can taste now is blood and not just my own. Love is still screaming. I hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him and hit him.

  Next thing I remember, I’m waking up in a mouldy room. Lady comes to give me medicine. I do what she says; I don’t hate her, yet. I listen to the voices in the walls. They call me “new kid”, but I don’t answer. I never answer. In spite of that they keep on talkin’. They teach me about this place where I’ve ended up.

  Quickly, I realise, I’ve gotta get out.

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• Scary Vampyre Story, Conclusion

  Posted at 10:00 am by Michael, on September 24, 2020

  Missed one? Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.  Part 4.

  Ripped from the pages of an age-yellowed penny blood, the page stained and smeared, the cover lost and the author dead to time, yet from these half-writ fragments forms a story in the mind…

  Last Time…

  “Peter,” said Manuel, returning to the tomb and standing opposite. “I’m going to need you to cut off her head.”

  Now…

  Slowly, Peter shook his head. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and grave dust stung his eyes. “This is impossible,” he said. “Impossible.”

  He looked away from Lucille, past Father McCafferty to the boy outside. “How did you know? What part have you to play in this depravity?”

  “Now is not the time, Peter,” said Father McCafferty.

  “The boy needs a doctor,” said Peter, his voice cracking on the last word of the sentence. He did not want to look down at Lucille LaFey’s bloated, undead body. He would not.

  “Peter!” hissed Manuel. “A doctor will be no help; the boy will not awaken until the job is done. We must sever him from the source.”

  Father McCafferty’s lamp began to flicker as though caught in a breeze—except that there was no breeze within the cramped confines of Lucille LaFey’s tomb. The statue of the Virgin Mary looked down on them impassively, eyes blank like the gorgon.

  Peter looked down at the oversized cleaver in his hands. The edge of the blade glinted in the light, edged with fire. “I can’t…” he said. His stomach turned over. He began to shake.

  Manuel Churchill gripped Peter by the arm and said: “For Sammael: you must.”

  The vampyre hunter released his grip and took up the mallet and the stake. Peter glanced at Father McCafferty, whose face looked lined and ancient in the shadows cast by the lamp.

  “We must strike together,” said Manuel. “Now: get into position. At my count, on one…”

  This is happening, thought Peter. In his imagination the stone lips of the Virgin Mary had twisted into something matching Lucille Lafey’s smirk. He extended his arms above the body, the sharp edge of the cleaver hovering directly above Lucille LaFey’s exposed, smooth-skinned neck.

  “Three…” Manuel took up the wooden stake and the mallet. “Two…” the vampyre hunter took a moment to align the stake above her heart. “One!”

  The mallet struck the stake with a high-pitched wooden clink. No air whispered out from Lucille LaFey’s punctured lung, for vampyres do not breathe. But there was another sound, from her lips, a whispered word: a lilting sing-song lullaby, a lover’s whisper. Peter hesitated and the vampyre’s eyes snapped open.

  “Out!” Manuel screamed. “Get out!”

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• The Fable of the Flitmice

  Posted at 9:25 am by Michael, on September 10, 2020

  Before men ruled the world it was the domain of beasts.

  All were guided by the Great and Noble Order, such that even those creatures who preyed upon one another for sustenance never took more than they needed and a long and glorious peace reigned.

  But then came Lilith, Queen of the Frozen Hells and spurned lover of Lucifer. And with her she brought a frost that stripped the earth bare.

  The beasts first began to starve and then they went mad. It was not long before they turned on each other, for desperation breeds evil; indiscriminate killing came upon the earth.

  Some of the creatures were faster to adapt than others. Among them the wolves, who became Lilith’s willing servants. The wolves roamed freely through these blighted lands they called the Frostwood and took whatever they pleased.

  It was not long, however, before game became scarce and even Lilith’s wolves grew hungry. They were forced to seek out ever smaller prey in their holes and burrows—foxes, rabbits and mice. Entire colonies were slaughtered, snatched from their homes by the jaws of the ravenous wolves.

  Some of the foxes fled, for foxes are cunning and quick-witted. Many of the rabbits fought back, with a thumping of feet and a gnashing of teeth. But the mice only cowered in their homes, uncertain of what to do and stricken with fear.

  The mice convened a council. Various suggestions were proposed and each was dismissed as more foolish or dangerous than the last. The mice debated until they could barely squeak another word. Eventually only one plan remained, but it seemed even more foolish and dangerous than all of the others had combined.

  The mice decided to seek out Ol’ Grandfather Crow, one of the oldest creatures in the Frostwood and a powerful magician. Ol’ Grandfather Crow had long been an enemy to the mice, but it was known that he had not aligned himself with the White Queen; if any could save them from the wolves, it would be he.

  And so the mice sent a delegation across the Frostwood to seek an audience with Ol’ Grandfather Crow. The adventures they had could fill several volumes. When, at last, they reached their destination they stood bravely before the magician and pleaded with him that they might be granted wings with which they could escape from the wolves as the crows were able.

  To the great surprise of the mouse delegation, Ol’ Grandfather Crow agreed. But instead of granting the mice the same shimmering feathery wings of his ilk, he instead cursed them with strange, leathery wings, such that they would never be confused with crows.

  Such is the way that Ol’ Grandfather Crow created bats—and why bats are sometimes called flitmice, by those who have lived long enough to remember the old stories.

  The flitmice were forced from their nests. Some used their new wings to flee the Frostwood and found refuge: on mountains and in caves, in distant jungles amongst the high trees. There they remain to this day.

  But others among the mice were displeased by the magician’s trickery and so, another council was convened. There they agreed to seek out an even greater enemy than Ol’ Grandfather Crow and an even more powerful magician… they sought out the Great Serpent himself and found him, at last, deep within the Frostwood, coiled up in the skull of a long-dead giant.

  Without pretence, the Great Serpent told the mice that their salvation could be found in Lilith’s garden. For although the frost had killed many of the plants in the Frostwood, there in Lilith’s garden, grew a tree heavily laden with a prickly red fruit: the vampire tree.

  In great numbers the flitmice descended upon Lilith’s garden, where they found the tree exactly as the Serpent had told them. In desperation they clutched and tore at the fruit, gorging themselves on it until their chins were stained red and dark droplets fell upon the snow.

  The Great Serpent had been right: for the fruit made the flitmice stronger and smarter… but it also made them thirsty.

  And that is the story of how mice became bats and how bats became vampires. And the moral, it is told, to never trust a magician no matter how desperate you become; for magic never comes without a cost.

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• Scary Vampyre Story, Part 4

  Posted at 8:47 am by Michael, on September 2, 2020

  Missed one? Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. 

  Ripped from the pages of an age-yellowed penny blood, the page stained and smeared, the cover lost and the author dead to time, yet from these half-writ fragments forms a story in the mind…

  Peter wedged the crowbar into the crack at the edge of the door. He leaned on it, carefully at first in case the stone decided to crumble. But the door to the tomb seemed stuck fast, for even as he leaned more heavily on the crowbar it refused to budge.

  “Shall I fetch Haldur to help?” asked Father McCafferty and like the words of a spell it seemed his mere suggestion was what finally caused the door to grumble open.

  Inch by horrible inch, Peter prised his way into the darkness. When the door was open far enough for him to put his weight behind it he leaned on it heavily, flattening soil as he pushed it aside. The rectangle of light cast by Manuel’s reflecting mirrors hit Peter firmly in the eyes when he turned back to look at them. “It is done,” he said, squinting.

  All three men stared into the confined box of the tomb. Now Peter was certain that he could smell death, although the smell seemed indistinguishable from dust and stone. The sarcophagus took up almost the entire space inside the tomb, a stone box within a stone box. There was a shelf on the back wall of the tomb upon which stood a pale statue of the Virgin Mary. As Peter moved away the light from the mirrors danced across her draping skirts.

  There was no sign of Sammael.

  They lit a gas lantern to illuminate the tomb. The priest held the lamp in one hand, while in the other he tightly clasped a crucifix that he kept pointed at all times towards the unmarked stone sarcophagus.

  Manuel and Peter moved to opposite sides of the stone box where Lucille LaFey had been laid to rest. Peter did his best to try not to imagine what awaited them beyond that heavy stone lid. His mind conjured images of skin stretched tight across old bones. It was deathly cold inside the tomb.

  Moving with almost agonising deliberateness, Manuel Churchill placed the sharpened cleaver atop the sarcophagus and instructed Peter to take it. Manuel went on to place a clove of garlic upon the shelf at the feet of the Virgin Mary. Beside the garlic he placed a sharp wooden peg and a wooden mallet with which to strike it.

  “Do not be alarmed, Peter, by what you are about to see.”

  In the doorway to the tomb Father McCafferty was shaking. The light from the lantern flickered. Behind the priest, the day seemed impossibly bright; almost painfully so. Father McCafferty was a crucifix-wielding silhouette outlined against that blinding brilliance.

  “Help me shift the lid,” said Manuel, shuffling sideways so that Peter could push it without trapping him against the wall. Peter placed the cleaver at his feet, with the sharp edge pointing away. He gripped the lid of the sarcophagus and it shifted too easily, sliding aside with the sound of stone against stone.

  “Hold up the lamp, Father,” said Manuel and Father McCafferty stepped forward to help illuminate whatever lay within the stone sarcophagus. Peter gasped at what he saw, while the priest gave voice to the boy’s name: “Sammael…”

  Peter had no idea how the boy had managed to sneak into the tomb, surely the door alone would have been too heavy for him to open. The boy lay across the Lucille LaFey’s corpse, his face against her breast. The boy lay as still as the corpse, so still in fact that Peter feared the worst. “Is he..?”

  Manuel shook his head. Reaching into the sarcophagus he lifted the boy away from the body and then dragged him out into the sunlight. The boy’s body was limp and extremely pale. There were red smears around his lips as though he had been eating berries.

  And now too was the body of Lucille LaFey revealed. The body was plump and smooth-skinned, looking as though it had been dead for no longer than hours rather than decades. Her eyes were closed and her lips were turned up in what almost appeared to be a smirk. A thin line of dried blood ran down her chin.

  “Peter,” said Manuel, stepping back inside the tomb and standing on the opposite side. “I’m going to need you to cut off her head.”

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• Scary Vampyre Story, Part 3

  Posted at 9:50 am by Michael, on August 20, 2020

  Missed Part 1? Missed Part 2?

  Ripped from the pages of an age-yellowed penny blood, the page stained and smeared, the cover lost and the author dead to time, yet from these half-writ fragments forms a story in the mind…

  Manuel Chisholm, vampyre hunter, lead the priest and the blacksmith between the graves. Peter walked slowly—it was not that he was particularly afraid of the dead, but something always compelled him to tread softly in the Chargraven. The inexorable pull of his parent’s graves called to him, but he did not so much as glance in their direction.

  Both flowers and weeds sprouted between the tombstone. A bee wobbled lazily past Peter. The gravel underfoot crunched. The sun beating down was making Peter sweat. The graveyard seemed all sharp edges of light and shadow, making it even more impossible to believe that they were supposedly hunting a creature of the night. Soon, at least, the farce would be over. One way or another.

  “There,” said Manuel stopping to point at the tomb that lay at the westernmost edge of the Chargraven. It was an unremarkable stone cube, one of less than half-dozen of them in the graveyard. Most of the residents in Easthill did not , one of less than half-dozen tombs in the graveyard. They treaded the final few steps towards the tomb extra slowly, although Peter was not sure why.

  The door to the tomb was slightly ajar—this, the vampyre hunter told them, was a tell-tale sign that it was inhabited by a vampyre. The inscription beside the door was worn down, but the name could still be read: Lucille LaFey II.

  “The second?” said Peter, turning to Father McCafferty.

  “I would have been… four or five years old when she died,” said Father McCafferty, squinting at the dates on the inscription. “I do not remember her,”

  “It’s for the best,” said Manuel. “It is far more difficult to cleave the head from someone that you recognise. Not that you’ll be cleaving any heads, Father. We’ll leave that job to Peter here.”

  It was clear by the vampyre hunter’s tone of voice that he was utterly serious and Peter felt a sudden icy chill at the words; a biting contrast to the heat of the sun.

  Peter stood away from the door to the tomb. Something had put the idea in his head that the graveyard smelt of death and now it was a feeling that he could not shake. He did not want to be here, he wanted no further part of these events, but he would not leave Father McCafferty alone with this madman. Peter should stay to protect the old man, should Manuel Churchill get any strange ideas.

  “What about the boy?” said Peter, remembering Sammael and poor Sally Norton.

  “He’s likely inside,” said Manuel, placing both of his bags on the ground and beginning to unpack them.

  Peter strode towards the door and attempted to prise it open with his fingers. If the boy was inside than there was no point wasting any more time in saving him. If he was not; than Manuel would be outed as the charlatan he surely was.

  “No!” Manuel cried shrilly. “Step away, Peter! We must make every precaution!”

  Peter did not take his hands from the stone but looked towards Father McCafferty. Grimly the old priest nodded and only then did Peter step away.

   

  The vampyre hunter took several small poles from his bag that he connected together with screw-clasps. At the top of each stick was set a polished mirror locked into place with yet another set of clasps. Manuel placed the first of the mirrors directly before the door to the tomb, tilting the mirror ever so slightly. Then he strode away a few steps and placed a second into the ground, directing it so that it reflected sunlight onto the first mirror he had placed.

  With a few more adjustments, a pale rectangle of reflected sunlight appeared on the door of the tomb. The vampyre hunter scowled and asked Father McCafferty if he wouldn’t mind helping with the adjustments. They shifted one mirror each and Peter watched the swerving rectangle of light drift back and forth across the age-stained stone of the tomb. The light was vaguely hypnotic and once or twice Peter felt his eyes drifting closed.

  “Peter!” Father McCafferty’s voice snapped his eyes open. “Sit down for a moment, you’ve come across all pale.”

  As Peter sat down the priest handed him a handful of wafers. They were communal wafers, Peter realised as he chomped down. He was eating the body of Christ.

  At last, the vampyre hunter was content with the angle of the mirrors. Once more he began rifling through his bags, taking out a crowbar, several cloves of garlic, a heavy mallet, a wooden stake and the cleaver that Peter had sharpened.

  “Are you feeling better, Peter?” Manuel asked Peter. The blacksmith nodded, although he wasn’t really feeling better at all. He felt light-headed, perhaps a consequence of barely sleeping the night before. He shrugged off the tiredness and made a conscious effort to focus his senses.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m feeling better.”

  Manuel handed Peter the crowbar and motioned towards the tomb. “Then it is time to look inside.”

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• Scary Vampyre Story, Part 2

  Posted at 9:22 am by Michael, on August 6, 2020

  If you missed Part 1 you can find it here.

  Ripped from the pages of an age-yellowed penny blood, the page stained and smeared, the cover lost and the author dead to time, yet from these half-writ fragments forms a story in the mind…

  Peter awoke a short time later with no idea of where he was. The cleaver fell loudly to the flagstones beneath his feet and the din rang in his ears. He had been having a strange dream that he could not remember; nor did he have any wish to. As ringing in his ears faded he heard birds chirping and realised that it must be morning. And then there was a second knock at the door, the first of which had startled him awake in the first place.

  Peter let Father McCafferty in. The priest could barely see in the dim light of the blacksmith’s workshop. “Peter,” he chided. “Did you sleep in here last night?”

  Peter rubbed the sleep from his eyes and nodded. He carefully placed the sharpened cleaver atop a workbench and stood away from it. “Didn’t sleep,” he said. “Not really.”

  Father McCafferty moved towards the corner of the room where the fire in the heath had burnt low and began adding logs to it. After a moment or so the room was flooded with both warmth and light. “I know you have your doubts, Peter,” the priest said to Peter.

  Peter noticed that Father McCafferty was wringing his hands together and that bothered him. For as long as the blacksmith had known the priest he had never seen him look afraid. Father McCafferty was the one who comforted those who were in pain, giving advice and blessings when needed. He had consoled Peter as his father had been lowered into the grave at Chargraven.

  “I’m no fool,” said Peter. “The man is a charlatan. Or worse.”

  “I understand why you would think so,” said Father McCafferty. “But you must listen Peter, and listen well. There are dark things in this world. There are secret things. And sometimes it is men like us—not soldiers or heroes—who must do what needs to be done.”

  “Are you telling me that you believe in vampyres?” Peter asked the priest flatly.

  “I’m saying,” said Father McCafferty. “That in the darkness, strange things for which we do not yet have proper names still squirm.”

  Peter shuddered and Father McCafferty moved to the workbench where he had placed the sharpened cleaver. It required both hands for the old man to lift comfortably.

  “Careful, Father,” said Peter. “You could take off someone’s head with that.”

   

  They met the Customer (Peter was still loathe to call the man a vampyre hunter) at mid-morning in the town square, as had previously been discussed. In hindsight they should have chosen a more private location, for serveral of the townsfolk stopped to gawk at the stranger and the priest and the blacksmith all stood together beside the lamp post.

  A fog had settled across the village, but it was not so thick and would clear soon enough. Somewhere beyond the fog, the sun shone through, brightening everything with a soft celestial halo.

  “Thank you, Peter,” said the Customer as he inspected the edge of the cleaver.

  “Hoy there!” called a voice and it was Martha Grables. She was carrying a wax paper bag that contained her shopping, but she was not one to let this opportunity for information-gathering pass her by. Whatever they told her, Peter knew, the rest of the village would know by sundown.

  “We are doing some much-needed maintenance around the graveyard, my dear woman,” said Father McCafferty. “This young fellow is the son of an old friend of mine from down south,”

  “Manuel Churchill,” the Customer, who was still holding the cleaver, introduced himself. Martha merely sniffed and nodded then shuffled away. The explanation it seemed was wholly less exciting than she had expected. Peter wondered what her response would have been had they told her they were hunting vampyres.

   

  The fog began to clear as they moved away from the village and a seeping greenness closed in around them as the reality of the dales bled into their vision. Chargraven cemetery contained several hundred graves, dating back as far as the sixteenth century. In fact, there were even older stones in the Chargraven, but they were not recognised as graves.

  By the time they reached the graveyard the fog had cleared and the sun beat down on them. Peter felt uncomfortably warm and took off his coat; he noticed the vampyre hunter did not do the same.

  A small wooden shack stood at the edge of the graveyard. This was where Haldur lived, who dug the graves and generally tended to repairs. He stood there waiting for them and spoke to the man who had introduced himself as Manuel Churchill as though they too were old friends. Haldur looked past the vampyre hunter for a moment, noting the presence of Father McCafferty and Peter the Blacksmith, and then nodded firmly.

  Peter wondered if there was anyone Manuel hadn’t deceived into believing his ruse—still he could not gather what benefit the man hoped to gain from defiling tombs and spreading stories about monsters.

  “Haldur will make sure we are not disturbed,” said the Customer as he returned to the others. “Though we should be prepared that word may still spread about our activities and—at times—townsfolk do become alarmed by the presence of a stranger in a graveyard.”

  “You’re the only stranger here,” said Peter grimly.

  “No Peter,” said Manuel Churchill, vampyre hunter. “There is another stranger within the Chargraven… one far more dangerous than I.”

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• The Sphere

  Posted at 8:22 am by Michael, on August 5, 2020

  The first thing you need to know about the Sphere is that it’s not a sphere.

  The Sphere is a geodesic polyhedron.

  Beyond the Sphere is the Blue Sky; also the Dark Sky. But the panels of the polyhedron are neither opaque nor transparent; they reflect (and do not reflect) both the interior and the exterior in equal measure and thus, it is impossible to see within the Sphere from without, or without the Sphere from within.

  The Sphere is an island, a particle, floating in that which we call the Imagination or also the No-Place. It is not real, yet it is real. It is real because I am telling you about it. It assumes a reality. It cannot not exist, for it does exist, right now in these unwieldy words.

  Unwieldy words give rise to unwieldy worlds. The multiverse is not truncated but flows out to eternity like the spilling of water and as water evaporates it does not disappear but is merely altered.

  The environment inside the Sphere might remind you of a desert. The sand is white-yellow. There is sunlight and there is darkness but they are mere simulations. It is night for one hundred minutes. It is day for one thousand. It is night again; who knows how long it will last. There is no moon or stars. There are no clouds. The sky within the Sphere is empty.

  Within the Sphere two great trees interlock, for this is the truth of Yggdrasil. Roots and branches entwine with roots and branches both downwards and upwards, the Tree is not visible. It is unknown whether it is the Cause or the Consequence. We only know it exists because of the way it shifts matter around it.

  The energy made manifest within the Sphere splits it through the centre as a great Prismatic Column. The Facility has been built around the Column in order to contain these great energies. The Facility has only one objective: avoid Event-Y.

  Event-X is inevitable and cannot be averted.

  The Facility bends beneath the gravity of the Prismata, but is not broken. The Sphere holds. The energy of creation is routed through Synaptic Switches and into vast vats of Neurochemical Reagents.

  The Facility is surrounded by 65,536 black monoliths.

  The energy of the Prismata is dispersed within these dark surfaces and within them can be seen dancing motes of colour as new universes are birthed. Yet each monolith can store only so much energy. It is the job of those who work at the Facility to ensure the balance is maintained and to adjust the flows when necessary.

  The flows are controlled by unlabelled buttons and switches. Each Department has a User Manual that is one million pages long. The people who work here are called Homunculus and they wear tan uniforms with name patches sewn on. Their consciousness is fleeting and limited; they have no back story that is not an illusion and they serve no purpose except to adjust the flows.

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• Scary Vampyre Story, Part 1

  Posted at 9:10 am by Michael, on July 24, 2020

  Ripped from the pages of an age-yellowed penny blood, the page stained and smeared, the cover lost and the author dead to time, yet from these half-writ fragments forms a story in the mind…

  Peter watched the whetstone spin. The candle on the shelf had burned low; it was early in the morning. He eased off the pedal and watched the whetstone slow.

  Peter had learned the trade from his father and, in the decades since, had sharpened many blades—but none such as this. It was a mighty cleaver, of a size you might expect to find in the kitchen of a giant. Peter did not believe in giants, of course, for Peter was no fool.

  Now, in the flickering candlelight, Peter studied the edge of the blade. He knew the most important part of his job was to ensure the tools he shaped were “fit for purpose”; he only wished that he didn’t know what purpose this blade was meant to serve.

  The Customer had told him, without hesitation, that the blade must be sharp enough to sever a human head. Furthermore, it must leave no doubt to the fact that the blade cut all the way through on the first try, for if it did not, he would not get a second chance.

  A weapon then; a tool for murder.

  A younger Peter perhaps, would have felt some pride at the idea. Such was the romantic lure of the blacksmith’s hammer, beating swords to fine points. But the military used guns now and those were manufactured downriver. The soldiers who did carry blades did so only for ceremonial reasons and thus their sharpness could not be considered essential.

  Peter’s mind spun like the whetstone and he wondered what he was going to do when the Customer returned. By sharpening it so had he become an accessory to murder? No, for surely it could not be considered murder if the victim was already dead…

   

  On the previous night, as Peter was sweeping the floor of his workshop, Father McCafferty had arrived and along with him—the Customer.

  “Listen to him, Peter,” Father McCafferty had said. “And do not rush to judgement.”

  The Customer had bustled in and set aside two heavy travelling bags, but left on his long brown coat and wide-brimmed hat. Peter offered the men tea, which they refused and then the Customer began to speak:

  “Had I not been passing your faire village, I might not have known,” the Customer began. “Yet I bore witness to a crying woman who claims her son was taken from her and was pleading for the help of whomsoever happened to be passing by.”

  “Miss Sally,” said Peter, unimpressed by the Customer’s story. Everyone knew that her son Sammael had gone missing a week ago and that Miss Sally had gone mad with grief. Peter did not know the woman well (Miss Sally Norton had little need of a blacksmith), but felt bad for her nonetheless. It was sad, yet not entirely unheard of, for people to vanish into the misty moors surrounding Easthill.

  And now: the Customer had appeared like some ghoul to prey on the woman’s sadness, insisting that the boy had been taken. He spoke in rushed, disjointed sentences, telling Peter about a strange malady that persisted even unto death. A sort of demonic possession, the Customer had attested, that dwelt in the bodies of the dead and thirsted for the blood of the living. He spoke, of course, about vampyres.

  “Do you do this often?” Peter had asked the Customer.

  The Customer’s eyes glinted. “Indeed,” he said. “I am a vampyre hunter—it is my true calling, the responsibility passed unto me from my father.”

  Peter scoffed, but the Customer ignored him. Instead he reached into one of his travelling bags and took out the cleaver. “Can you sharpen this?” he asked and then proceeded to tell Peter exactly how sharp the blade needed to be.

  “I fear Miss Sally’s son has been taken in thrall by a vampyre residing in the Chargraven,” he explained. “I have already visited the graveyard and witnessed the evidence, but if my suspicions are correct I will require aid…”

  “Of course, we will help,” said Father McCafferty, answering on Peter’s behalf. The blacksmith thought it clear  the Customer was mad, but was willing to defer to the priest for now, at least.

  “A holy man is most useful indeed,” said the Customer and then crossed the room to grip Peter by one thickly muscled arm. “Your arms Peter. A strong man like you would also be of great assistance.”

  Which was how Peter had agreed to not only sharpen the Customer’s blade but also help him slay a creature of darkness. But now: as the barest sliver of daylight turned the horizon to a thin straight line, Peter realised how foolish he had been to agree. And Peter was no fool, for he believed in vampyres even less than he did in giants.

  Giants, at least, he had seen the footprints of, preserved in peat.

  ---

  The story continues here.

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• Prologue

  Posted at 9:39 am by Michael, on July 9, 2020

  It rained in both worlds on the night Scott Dyson became the Interloper.

  The clouds above the city seemed to writhe and strike at each other like duelling serpents. Then came a thunderclap, borne from the impact of colliding worlds and Scott Dyson—not yet the Interloper—was awake.

  Lightning flashed, letting light through the arched bedroom windows and burning the shapes of the garden onto the back of his eyes with hideous intensity. He touched the bed, but his hand found only the gentle indentations that she had left; lingering warmth, already fading.

  Something shattered. Scott lurched out of bed and dressed quickly; automatically. He squashed his feet into his sneakers but didn’t tie the laces. He called her name into the darkness and pulled a jacket across his shoulders.

  “Jocelyn?”

  Scott moved into the corridor. At that moment it felt like nothing existed beyond it, except for the storm. Rain struck the roof like hoof beats: pounding, pounding, thundering. He saw a glass vase smashed on the floor, darkness pooled around it.

  Lightning flashed again, illuminating the front door. It was open and swinging. Rain sluiced in, wetting the carpet.

  Scott went to the door and looked out onto the street. The storm howled back at him. He lingered there, as though some invisible membrane prevented him from stepping through. Or perhaps he simply needed more time to summon the courage that one small step required.

  The door slammed closed behind him and there was no going back. Between the hedges the iron gate was open and screeching in the wind. Beyond the garden, the street had been dismantled and rearranged so that he could only follow in one direction.

  Rubbish bins had been overturned and cars had been tipped onto their sides. Trees were upended from the earth, their branches hopelessly tangled and bound again by electrical cables that thrashed and crackled.

  Fragments of paper whipped around Scott’s ankles; detrius of memory.

  It was as though Jocelyn had exerted some magnetic force on these objects as she’d passed, dragging and pushing them aside. And now Scott too was drawn along in her wake. He treaded through puddles and noticed that the wind carried an unlikely mixture of scents—dirt and sulphur and extravagant flowers, half-rotted. The storm pushed back at him and his clothes grew heavy as he was drenched with rain.

  Scott “Billy” Dyson—still not yet the Interloper—kept walking.

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• Wall of Tet

  Posted at 9:46 am by Michael, on July 2, 2020

  “You and your ridiculous ideas,” Alice’s voice lilted as the carriage rumbled across the rough, unpaved roads. Magnavius ignored her and instead concentrated on the other sounds: the way the carriage groaned and creaked around them as it struggled to absorb the impacts of the road.

  The carriage leaned and all three passengers were forced to bend in the opposite direction so as to stay upright on their seats. This forced Chisholm to glance up from the book he was reading and he glanced between his travelling companions with a wry smile.

  “The ruin forms part of a larger structure in honour of Asmeph,” said Alice. She didn’t add hmmpf to the end of her sentence because it was—indisputably—inferred. Asmeph was a fertility goddess worshipped long ago in the Nacreev.

  For years, the region had been closed off to foreign visitors, but thanks to a gradual thawing in tensions between the Nacreev and its surrounding nation-states (all of which were in thrall to the Great and Glorious Empire of Her Royal Highness) these restrictions had lessened. In response, universities from Caladon had started sending students in battered carriages across unpaved roads in order to study sites in the area.

  In only three years there had been several major discoveries. A stone monkey (no monkeys lived in the Nacreev now), dozens of rusted metal mechanisms (their utility unknown) and at least one shrine in honour of Asmeph.

  The first photographs of the fertility goddess had caused quite a stir when they had appeared in the newspapers; for even in blurry half-shadow on grey paper, the image of the hitherto unseen Goddess was certainly provoking: her broad shoulders, enormous breasts and erect nipples spoke of a fierce, independent sexuality.

  And although neither Magnavius or Chisholm could not wholly understand why (though, of course, Alice understood) the statue had become a sort of feminist icon back in Caladon, such that Her Majesty’s government was already in talks to “procure” the statue for the state museum. Of course, several politicians from the Nacreev region would be compensated.

  Alice had already started writing her thesis on Asmeph, which was why she was so determined that the ruins they were heading to investigate would be dedicated to the goddess. Should her wishful thinking prove accurate she would almost be guaranteed grant money in order to conduct her research.

  The lads, however, were of a different mind. Magnavius believed the newly-unearthed structure was, perhaps, a greater temple devoted to a number of different deities. Chisholm, on the other hand, well… nobody ever really knew what Chisholm thought. He spoke little and his face was usually hidden by the cover of some obscure book.

  In truth, none of them were certain what to expect from the ruins. Only a few muddy photographs had made it out from the dig site and even the descriptions had been vague: the one thing that they had in common was that they referred to the ancient structure as a wall: the Wall of Tet they called it, for Tet was the name of the village above the ruin.

  Magnavius thought back to Professor Emlin’s notes:

  A brick wall buried beneath the ground, each brick inscribed with numerous letters from a runic alphabet that is yet to be identified.

  Although the façade of the wall itself is said to be impressive, granting as it does a vision of a completed structure from another time, your studies are to focus not only on the wall and its construction, but also to seek out such signs of habitation, ritual devices, or other inscriptions within the vicinity.

  Magnavius knew at least three additional tunnels had been excavated so far—all of them leading away from the wall. Each attempt to dig in the areas directly around it had revealed only more bricks; indicating that the Wall of Tet was much larger than first suggested.

  Then, at last, the carriage stopped and they were being ushered out by men wearing rifles on their backs and ceremonial swords at their waists. A plump woman beamed at them as they exited the carriage.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “And here are the fine students from Caladon.”

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