The
Barn
Now it appeared through the hazy grey cloud, strange and daunting, the
temple. Perhaps this was just a shrine, nevertheless it was covered in a
shroud of darkness. It’s steeples spired high into the air, twisting and
deformed in their spectral architecture. The metal seemed rusted in
spots. Instead of turning into a bright orange of oxidized iron it
melted away leaving dripping holes in the structure ( a style reminiscent of
Gaudi). The Earth burped and hissed as the liquid hit the ground and was
consumed.
A sentinel stood at the door of this place, but not a
guardian as one would normally envision. This figure was definitely not a
hulking, muscular posterboy from the G.N.C. ads. Rather, a small frail
looking being, somehow able to impose great presence, though he was bound.
A mass of five black iron chains erupted from the side of one of the doors
(giving the Guardian a radius domain of about ten feet), wrapped around his
waist, shackling his arms and legs. He didn’t try to escape. Past
discipline had helped him to learn to live with the constraints.
He
stood only four feet in height and was armed with a six foot sickle. A
brown pungent robe was draped over the misshapen form but the hood exposed a
pure white face, not that of paint or a skeleton, but of an albino with black
sockets where eyes once were. His hands seemed to be normal in shape and
colour save the fingers. The nine inch length of each finger combined with
two inch nails was striking. His posture suggested that he was ready to rend the
flesh of any that dared disturb the mystery inside. It had happened
before.
Brathsu — Gregg’s Angel
Above Gregg was an angel with the body of a lion and the head and wings
of an owl. It’s head would turn completely around and seemed to see
everything. His footing was solid and firm, though there was no ground,
and the plane where he existed seemed to be at diagonals with our own. His
attacks upon the opposing force were well-planned , though they had become very
few over the past couple of years. It stood upon it’s hind legs, wings
extended and flowing, exposing the great chest of this magnificent creature. He
was an awesome sight to behold, His name was Brathsu.
Kreoli – Toby’s Angel
Above Toby there was a rather disturbing, yet somehow amazing
creature. It looked to be the figure of a naked old man with long flowing
grey hair. He had the face of a normal man but his body was extremely
different. He had five noses along the top of his chest and five more
along the top of his back. Ten eyes were in two rows down both his chest
and his back. He had ears down both of his arms and legs. Only the
one mouth was upon his face, in the normal spot. Kreoli he was named.
The city limits sign was old and weather-beaten. It stood where
it always had, just past the Jacobs’ place. These days, the actual city
limits extended another two miles out past the Thorntons’ land and into the
Freemason’s property. This year, as in years past, the city council had
overturned a request from a group of citizens (mostly members of the Chamber of
Commerce) to replace it with a bigger, bolder, newer sign. They wanted a
sign that didn’t have geographic formations in the paint where weathering had
eaten through nine layers of paint. They wanted a sign that didn’t have
buckshot holes dotting it. Mostly they wanted a slogan better than
“Welcome to Wellesville.” The council said they liked the rustic, down home
ambiance of the sign. Secretly, they had decided to ignore the problem
until they were forced to deal with it.
~~~~~~~~ Toby and Gregg showed up about fifteen minutes
late to the after-game party. It was less of an attempt to be fashionable
late than to assure that someone they knew would be there. The two boys
were 17, and their lives consisted of schoolwork, athletics, and church.
Toby was the son of a high-school teacher and a software designer. Gregg
the son of a housewife and a blue-collar worker. Neither one had ever
wanted for anything physically, and their parents did better than most at
looking after their children’s’ emotional well-being.
The two boys had
come to the party on an offhand invitation from Andrea, a girl whom Gregg had
wanted to date for years. Excitedly, Gregg had accepted the invitation,
not realizing the enormity of going to their his party ever—especially one where
certain non-church ordained activities were certain to occur. Toby had
bolstered his best friend’s failing courage by pointing out that the experience
alone was worth going for. After all, they couldn’t rightly rail against
something they didn’t know anything about.
As they entered Jason
Freemason’s house, the unfamiliar scent of beer assaulted their senses.
The dark, yeasty smell was something that was not altogether unpleasant, almost
like bread baking. In one room they saw a group of guys (with one or two
girls), watching a film that could be called sensual, at best. In the
kitchen, another group of kids were gathered around a keg, laughing raucously at
some shared joke. Toby and Gregg gravitated toward an open door that led
into a study. Inside they found what appeared to be a lively philosophical
debate, with Jason at the helm. Andrea sat by herself in an overstuffed
leather chair in the corner. She beckoned to Gregg. With a sidelong
glance at his friend, Gregg walked across the room a d snuggled up beside
her. Toby would be fine in this room, debate was his element.
The ongoing conversation seemed to center on what was causing the
common morality to go bust, what could fix it, and if it should even be
fixed. Jason had taken up the last of these topics and started a small
debate on the relative need for religion in high-tech society. He argued
that science was rapidly filling in the void that religion had been created to
fill; man’s purpose in the universe. There were still mysteries of
course. The room exploded into three camps. Most of these kids had
been raised in a Southern Baptist church, and either truly hated it, or were
truly afraid to oppose it. Two or three stayed aloof, one of them was
Gregg. Toby, however took Jason to task, citing the various contributions
organized religions of every stripe had contributed to civilization. Jason
countered with the atrocities that had been committed in the name of the gods;
the Judeo-Christian God especially. This point struck home with many in
the room.
Eventually, the feeling in the room had attained the
openness that only comes after years of practice, chemical influence, or
adolescent fervor. Jason seized the opportunity to direct the
conversation.
“ So, what about the darker side of spiritualism?” he
queried, “Is anyone interested in magic?”
An audible hush fell over
the room. Jason had everyone’s rapt attention.
“My grandfather
had an old trunk full of magic things,” Jason explained to his audience, “It’s
out in the barn. We could check it out tomorrow if anyone is game.”
Jason’s sly smile was a challenge to be answered. Several gasped their
assent excitedly, others agreed more cautiously, but everyone in the room
eventually resolved to meet the next night at 7 pm.
“O.K., then it’s
agreed, we’ll meet here tomorrow. This is to go no farther than this room,
understood?” Jason’s knowing look said he expected a much bigger turnout.
Toby and Gregg weren’t late the following night. Not everyone
that had agreed to meet had come; it seemed that for many the idea was more
comfortable than the experience. A few faces were new—Jason’s instruction
had ignited a few gossip pilots, and the word had spread as he had expected.
Jason was sitting on an old steamer trunk and was grinning like a
nasty schoolboy. In his hand he held a cracked-leather volume that looked
like it weighed more than it’s bulk should have.
“It tells how to
summon them!” he whisper-shouted when everyone had assembled in a quiet
ring around this strange king on his strange throne. Gregg and Toby hung
toward the back of the group. The feeling that they weren’t quite catching
everything that had been going on had been growing all day and was now
peaking. It seemed that they saw everything that was going on, but it
wasn’t registering.
Jason opened up the book and began
reading-----------------------------------------. He stopped abruptly and
turned to them.