Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Four
Verse Two: Threshold Guardian
Harley listened to
Maia as she sat on the dirt by the cold campfire quietly crying. He
couldn't blame her, she hadn't even hit puberty, and now her mother
was dead, her brother was catatonic. She was running for her life
from her father on the advice of some possibly mythical witchdoctor,
and the one her protectors was unconscious and mumbling prophetic
nonsense while the other was clueless. Marion had said he preferred
this life to their old lives. Harley didn't agree. Harley liked the
world to make sense, and maybe if he could make this world make
sense, maybe then he would agree with Marion. But not until then.
Maia wiped her eyes
and looked up at Harley, "Mr. Harley. Mr. Walker. What do we
do?"
Harley shook his
head and gently put a hand upon Maia's shoulder, "When you fall
down, get up." He said, "When you can't stand, rise to
kneeling."
Maia wiped her eyes
and looked up at Harley.
He stood and gently
pulled her back to her feet, "When you can't rise, face skyward.
And never admit you've been beaten."
"But we did
stand." Maia said to him.
"Precisely."
Harley answered, "We always think we're beaten long before we
really are. When our minds and our hearts tell us that we're finished
we need to train ourselves not to listen and to carry on."
"Mr. Harley,
you talk about being reasonable and I don't understand. That doesn't
sound reasonable."
Harley smiled, "The
great secret of the reasonable man is to continue doing small things,
rather than giving up when large things stop working. We continue to
try reasonable things long after the process has stopped being
reasonable to us. That is how the ocean wears away the shore."
"You sound
like a storyteller Mr. Harley."
"Well, being
reasonable, means you do what you have to do. And you don't complain
about it. Let's get in the Cricket and figure out where to go."
They piled into the
Cricket and Harley started the engine and then let the van idle as he
flipped through a road map looking at the surrounding area.
I don't know this
area well. We're right on the border of two counties: Linwich County
and Howard Country, there are maybe four towns total in the two
counties with more than five houses and a pig." Harley paused,
"But who knows if witches live in small towns or big cities or
off in the woods. We need something useful, a clue or a hint or we're
just going to spin our wheels until we're caught."
From the back of
the van, Marion spoke in a voice that wasn't his, wasn't even a man's
voice, but the voice an old woman.
"The wheel
keeps turning." He said.
"That sounds
like Mrs. Trilby, Marion's crazy old neighbour with the cats."
Harley's voice faded away into a stunned silence, "It was Mercer
that saved us from the Hound the first time. Mercer is Mrs. Trilby's
cat. Mrs. Trilby is a Witch. Mrs. Trilby is a witch. We had help
right where we began and we didn't know how to look for it! Mrs.
Trilby, can you hear me? Marion can you hear me? You helped us with
that move against the hound before. Can you hear me this time? What
do we need to do? What do we need to know?"
"Your life is
not only yours dear. We merely tell a story to each other, we just
play the parts as needed. Some of us play heroes. Some of us play
mentors. Some of choose to play villains, often mistaking these roles
for the role of hero. We retell our stories to each new generation.
The story changes, but the the story remembers the previous tellings.
And the new story rhymes with its ancestor self."
"I mean about
the story. What do we do in the story?"
"All cultures
tell stories dear. All peoples belonged to the lands that birthed
them. That one people have been trapped in one mad little story means
nothing on the scale of humanity. History is merely his story: the
Story of the Locust King, and when it ends the cycle will continue
and the wheel will remain whole. I hope you realize that his story
was not humanities story. the story of humanity is a wheel, and his
story was just a stone that caused a slight bump."
"How do we
reach you? If you're a witch and we need a witch, how do we reach
you?"
"You need
local help dear. Not me. The nearest coven is in Linwich County, led
by Agnes Bladder. They're nasty things though, so be careful. They'll
try to use you to their own ends, so be ready dear. You're big. The
big pieces on the chess board and until you learn how to play the
game, people are going to move you around to suit their needs."
"Should we
even deal with them if they're that bad? They sound like villains."
Harley said.
"Dear, one of
the big mistakes the Locust King made was to try and divide things
into good and evil, pure and impure, holy and unholy. Everything is
sacred dear, especially the profane. And all powerful things are
dangerous, and so you have to deal with dangerous beings. The Locust
King wants us staying away from powerful beings, because then we
might have power that didn't come from him, we might be able to act
without his story. So seek out dangerous things and make you own
deals with them. The devil's bargain is propaganda, dear. "
"How do I find
them?"
"Linwich
Crossing is the only town of note in Linwich County dear, get
yourself there and they'll find you. You four are spraying, well I
guess I'd call it narrative radiation. Either way, anyone who is
paying attention to the story can't help but feel it. Four main
characters travelling together and carrying the plot, the old story
to boot. Oh yes, those old vipers will find you so fast it will make
your head spin. Just don't let them fleece you too bad."
"Thanks Mrs.
Trilby, Now, how's Marion doing? Marion are you alright?"
Marion spoke with
his own voice this time, "I'm in that other land I told you
about. The Shadowlands, I think it's called. It's hard to interact
with you like this and I know I'm drawing attention by doing it, so I
need to stay brief. But I'm okay. I learned how to do this from the
bad guys, but I'm on the run here too. So I need to keep this brief.
Say, what does my body look like there? Am I there at all, because
I'm still not sure what happens when I enter the Shadowlands. Did I
just disappear or am I like all sleeping beauty?"
"There is no
reality where I am going to call you sleeping beauty," Harley
said, "It's more like coma patient with occasional lapses into
schizophrenic prophet."
"Dear,"
Mrs. Trilby said, speaking through Marion again, "You really
need to get going, or you're both going to get caught. Harley dear,
find the coven- get them to train you. Marion has enough skills he's
figured out that he can manage, but you seem to running without any
of the powers associated with your role- you need them dear. You've
got all sorts of unfair prophecies to fulfill."
Harley shook his
head, "I hear you Mrs. Trilby. Okay Maia, let's write a story
where we get to win."
