I'm sorry, I can't continue my former story until I tell another, I don't know why.
I just need to tell a little story, I call it the Lonely King by Mr Max Malcolm
Once, oh so very long ago my lovelies, there was a kingdom high in the mountains. This kingdom sat so high that the capitol was constantly among the clouds. You might worry that it would be cloudy or foggy in the streets, but it was not so. Actually it was bright, and the streets shined like silver in the moon. Well, it was so when our tale first begins. The old king was a grand sight, as grand as he was old, and believe me when I say he was quite old indeed. But don't think that just because he was old he lacked vigor, because if you did you would be dead wrong. He strode through the gates of his high castle in the mists, out onto the streets of his capitol. He walked past all the stalls and merchants in the market, and people couldn't take their eyes off of him in all his majesty. He walked so gracefully that you might think he was flying, and with such grandness and pomp that he was a parade in his own right. He stood in the town square and with a voice as strong and beautiful as a brass band he said; "I think the time has come for a festival! Our life is good and I have been your king now some 90 years, we certainly don't lack anything to celebrate!" and with a flourish he turned and walked twice as quick back into his castle. The streets exploded with excitement and before the day was out the preparations for the festival were complete, and that night by lamplight they ate and drank, singing songs and raising their glasses to toast their happiness. The one disharmony in the evening was the lack of the good old king, but they comforted themselves that he would be there the next day to join in their revelry. The old king sat in his castle and he cried. His sorrow was as deep and as unbearable as any a man had faced before him. The king sat in the tall tower, knowing that his hours were now numbered. His reign had been long and happy, not without it's struggles but overall a very fun ride and a well worthwhile life to have lived. The problem had come several days earlier, as he was eating his evening meal a man came to him dressed in rags. The king was shocked by the man's dirty appearance, but bid him speak nevertheless. The dirty man spoke in a voice that sounded like shattering glass "I come to you in a generous mood, as you have always been generous with those less fortunate than you. I am the man in charge of fortune and luck, my name is Destiny and I have walked by your side every year of your reign, and so it is my duty to deliver the unfortunate news I have brought you. Your sun is setting great king, every man must see the end of his journey, and yours is coming in 14 days. Use them wisely, you cannot escape, rush or delay the setting of the sun and the end of your life." and with that the dirty man threw a marble on the floor, which exploded in a cloud of glorious colorful smoke, leaving the king alone with his thoughts. Well the prospect of death was not at all something unfamiliar to the king, he had fought many battles and knew that death could have come at any time then. The problem was the prospect of an heir, he had none. He had once, he had 5 sons, but every last one of them had died out in the wide world, adventuring, leaving no heirs of their own. The prospect of leaving his kingdom without leadership, he knew that without a leader his kingdom would fail and die.
So now you know why the grand old king cried alone, and he could not burden anyone not even his advisors with his troubles. So the old king sat and he thought, and he had been thinking for 5 days when he said to himself "something has got to be done." So he sent for the tax man, and he said to the tax man, "Tell me of an honest, tax paying man of no high office in my kingdom." Because you see no one knows the country better than the tax man, and the tax man had quite a long think himself. Almost everyone he knew at some point tried to avoid paying tax, for sadly that's the folly of human nature to hold onto every last penny. Finally he remembered, several years ago he came across a young man, hard on his luck, but willing to pay every bit of tax due of him. The tax man remembered this because he had tried to force the money back on the man, but the man said to him "I would not cheat my country out of what is owed them, for have they not provided us this peaceful land and how would we keep it, if every man didn't do his part?" The tax man smiled at the memory, and said "I know just the man, his name is Roland, he makes tools." So the king said that this was just the man needed for the job. He sent his men to search the countryside for the man, and to inform him that he was the kings heir. The men went out from the castle to search for Roland the toolmaker, heir to be king. And the king went down to the festival and drunk and enjoyed his friends and subjects. At the end of the great feast on the last day, he stood up and raised his glass to his guests and said "I appreciate all of you more than I could ever express. My time is at an end, but preparations have been made for the future, and I trust he will take as good or better care as I would have." Then, having said his goodbyes he sat down and closed his eyes as the setting sun outside dipped below the horizon.
You would have thought that nature herself was mourning for the state of the kingdom afterwards, people cried constantly and when they went about their business it was with a weary heart. All the beauty and wonder seemed to melt away as the sky turned gray every day, not even the stars would come out. Everyone was at ill tempers and fights broke out, and the only thing that brought them any peace was the thought that maybe there might be a brighter day coming with the dawn. But the dawn didn't come and the search for their new king Roland lasted three horrible miserable years. It almost became like a ritual or sacred rite and less like a task that anyone expected could be achieved. They even tried expanding their search to include nearby kingdoms. The men put in charge of the quest, the kings own guard, were ready to give up and try and find some new form of governing, maybe drawing straws or a whistling contest, because any king must be better than no king at all. Finally, on the final day of the third anniversary of the good kings death, the kings guard passed through a desolate region between the kingdom next door and their kingdom, heading back home in misery and shame. They came across a tall stone tower in the middle of the desolate plain. They were so hungry and so tired they could not go on, so they knocked on the door. They said "we are the royal guard, and we request shelter and something to fill our bellies as we cannot go on." To be honest with you they didn't expect a response, after being on this journey for so long they knew that many people would simply ignore a knock on the door asking for help.
Imagine their suprise when the door opened, and a great tall man with a loud booming voice said "Come in, come in, I'm afraid I'm not used to house guests, I live alone you see and until you showed up I had almost forgotten the sound of my own voice, it's been so long since I used it you see."
So they ate their meal, and humble though it was it felt like a feast to be with such a cheerful man after such a long hard journey. They told him of their troubles, the whole tale as I've been telling it to you, and the man seemed to have a spark in his eye and a grin on his lips on hearing the name Roland, and of the incident described by the tax man. He let them finish their tale, and he thanked them for the lovely story, and prepared them beds, and told them he would dine with them again the next day. The next day just before dawn the guards were woken by noises outside. The man had set them a table out in front of the door outside, and what's more the clouds overhead were starting to break up, and sparks of blue shone through, and in the predawn light they sat down for breakfast. The man spoke first and said "I'm terribly sorry to hear of your long ordeal, and it has touched me straight to my heart. Had I but heard or known of your tale I would have saved you much heartache. But the past is the past and nothing can change that now. I am the man that you seek, my name is Roland and I am your king. I have set things in order here and as soon as you our ready we will ride for the capitol and set about putting things right again." The guards had stopped eating when he stood to talk, as is polite, and when they heard who he was, they fell to the ground and bowed, weeping sweet tears of gladness. And the great man just smiled, and he took them each into his arms in a warm embrace, laughing and patting them on the back, thanking them for their great service to the kingdom. They rode to the capital and as they rode with the dawn coming behind them, people came from miles around, following them into the city itself, filling the streets as they hadn't been filled since the good old king had left. Roland stood in the town square and said loud for all to hear "Your new king has arrived, and there will be a new golden age." He was very right, of course, and he had many adventures of his own, but those are tales for another day.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
chapter 2
authors note: I expect that when I reach the end of this tale I will go back and revamp the early chapters as details become more clear. Oh, and since I didn't say so before I'm saying so now, all rights to this story belong to me. I don't want it reposted unless I have some approval as to how it's posted. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anything else is accidental. now on with the story!
Chapter 2
Silence is a strange item to approach. It can fill your soul with terror, or soothe the weary mind. Silence is a blade with two cutting edges. Silence can be your ally or your enemy. There have been times that I would have given anything to receive the blessings of silence. I longed for it at times, when my life became so full of noise and clutter that silence was like an old friend that I embraced it like an old friend. I let it surround me, like a warm blanket keeping out the wind.
Sadly for me the silence I found in that long empty house was far from a friend. It was rooted in emptiness and death perhaps. I was able to search the corridors of the 3 main floors. I realized soon that a room to room search on my own would take me days, and though I had provisions to last that long I was not capable of it. I had intended to search the house from the moment I found my fathers footsteps approaching the ancient building. The problem was resources, and to that point I had only been able to bring what I could in a pack on my back. The lodge had been so long uninhabited that no food or provisions could be found. That was not the major problem though, the silence was the problem. Working alone was dangerous. The prospect of working alone was so unpleasant to me that I determined I would have to return to the nearby city for help. Furthermore I would set up a base of operations and a sort of residence in the ages old lodge in case of the event that I would need to set up a search and survey of the surrounding acres. Having determined this need I quickly scribbled a note to the effect that if my father or companions found it to stay in the central living area until I returned, and that I would return within a day and a half. Included in the note were the time I had left and a number at which I could be reached in case they had something urgent to communicate to me. I attached it with a tack and hammer to the inside of the heavy wooden front door, left my provisions but for the bare essentials on the inside of the door frame and locked the door behind me as I left.
I stuck to the main road this time and in a little more than an hour hiking on the abandoned roadway I reached the front gate and headed back into town, after making a quick stop at the family home to pick up my sister Alice who was three years older than me and an excellent cook. In town I went about contacting a team of two surveyors, a professor of history, and two men with backgrounds in both back country survival and handling weaponry to protect our small group. The situation was explained to all involved, and that regardless of whatever we found they would be employed for a minimum of a month, and with no maximum time limit. Upon the advice of our expert survivalists we purchased a good deal of communications from advanced walkie talkies to several miles of cable and a set of portable communications terminals. The professor who's name was Doctor Kent required that all of us carry cameras to record what we found. I had no trouble luring him or the others, no just with wages but with the smell of adventure and mystery. It is easy to overcome caution simply by sparking a person's curiosity. Alice put herself in charge of shopping and bringing the provisions in and holding down a sort of home base when we arrived and got set up. We gathered that night for a drink to help take the edge off, but headed to our respective homes early to get an early start. We agreed to meet at the front gate at dawn the next day.
The dawn saw me driving down the empty highway, not too cloudy out at the time. The strange thing was that as my car approached the gates a fog hung close to the ground, thickly blanketing the ground and hiding all the details of the pavement and ground. I led the way using my car as we drove down the winding service road up towards the lodge. Though the sun was just coming up tall trees surrounding the road blocked out much of the light, leaving us to use fog lights to see our way. The road was particularly treacherous because of our inability to see the pavement under our wheels added to the winding and changes in the altitude of the road surface. This forced our pace to be painstakingly slow. Finally after many agonizing minutes that felt like hours we reached the lodge and parked our vehicles at the end of the building. Looking up at the foreboding stone structure I felt the enormity of our undertaking in searching the building and grounds. It seemed to me that we would never see the end of this place. I shivered involuntarily as I thought about those hundreds of empty rooms, long empty time had forgotten them. He suddenly wondered if a building could become feral and wild, taking a life of it's own and refusing to be tamed by man. People put so much of themselves into buildings that they sometimes begin to take on personality of their own, a life of their own. They seem more like people than structures, and if the lodge were a person what sort of person would it be? I imagined a lonely but tenacious old man, tossed aside by the world left with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company year after weary year. At some point he stays alive out of a sort of unholy determination, feeding on his own stubbornness and refusal to let go of life.
I knew I had spent too much time staring when Alice woke me from my daydream, bringing me back to the present. "Can we get on with getting in the front door? You've been standing there staring for over thirty minutes. What do you see?"
"Nothing, just wondering if there might be termites.
"Even termites would have trouble sustaining themselves on this stale building, it would probably taste terrible." Susan retorted, bringing a smile to my face.
I unlocked the front door, letting the double doors swing inward on their own weight. As everybody brought our supplies indoors I looked to see if my provisions I had left had been touched. Once again I found every trace that I had been there was wiped away, even the tack I had used to pin the note to the front door. This was slightly unsettling for me, so I checked the central living area. Once again I found nothing. Our group decided to store our provisions in the large kitchen, so that Alice could cook and have what she needed close at hand. I instructed the survival experts to help Alice set up a sort of home base in the kitchen, while the surveyors, Dr. Kent and I proceeded to the east wing of the lodge. The most puzzling thing that came to our attention was a giant room lined with shelves. The door hung ajar making this the logical first stop for our search. While what we had found so far seemed orderly and everything in it's place this room looked like it had been ransacked. Chairs lay on their backs, books and papers lay scattered over every surface, however the shelves themselves were empty. Dr. Kent was thrilled with all the books, as he went through picking them up and putting them in a sack to bring with him. He called my attention to a large leather bound volume with the title "Logbook of the Orion estate", which I told him to set aside for me back at base camp. We finished our sweep of the first and second floor with very little eventful happening or being found. The third floor just left us mystified as all rooms except a storage closet were locked securely, and did not budge no matter what we did. As the daylight left us we gathered in the kitchen for an evening meal, sharing the experiences of the day and enjoying Alice's wonderful cooking. It was decided we should sleep on the kitchen floor, and bar the doors against entry. I was the last to fall asleep, frightened of a return of my previous dream in this unfamiliar place.
I did not have a repeat experience of the dream, instead just imagining a drumbeat, followed by the tune I had heard in my dream before. The lyrics were missing, but the tune still brought me restless sleep, I was unable to hold still the whole night.
End of chapter 2
Chapter 2
Silence is a strange item to approach. It can fill your soul with terror, or soothe the weary mind. Silence is a blade with two cutting edges. Silence can be your ally or your enemy. There have been times that I would have given anything to receive the blessings of silence. I longed for it at times, when my life became so full of noise and clutter that silence was like an old friend that I embraced it like an old friend. I let it surround me, like a warm blanket keeping out the wind.
Sadly for me the silence I found in that long empty house was far from a friend. It was rooted in emptiness and death perhaps. I was able to search the corridors of the 3 main floors. I realized soon that a room to room search on my own would take me days, and though I had provisions to last that long I was not capable of it. I had intended to search the house from the moment I found my fathers footsteps approaching the ancient building. The problem was resources, and to that point I had only been able to bring what I could in a pack on my back. The lodge had been so long uninhabited that no food or provisions could be found. That was not the major problem though, the silence was the problem. Working alone was dangerous. The prospect of working alone was so unpleasant to me that I determined I would have to return to the nearby city for help. Furthermore I would set up a base of operations and a sort of residence in the ages old lodge in case of the event that I would need to set up a search and survey of the surrounding acres. Having determined this need I quickly scribbled a note to the effect that if my father or companions found it to stay in the central living area until I returned, and that I would return within a day and a half. Included in the note were the time I had left and a number at which I could be reached in case they had something urgent to communicate to me. I attached it with a tack and hammer to the inside of the heavy wooden front door, left my provisions but for the bare essentials on the inside of the door frame and locked the door behind me as I left.
I stuck to the main road this time and in a little more than an hour hiking on the abandoned roadway I reached the front gate and headed back into town, after making a quick stop at the family home to pick up my sister Alice who was three years older than me and an excellent cook. In town I went about contacting a team of two surveyors, a professor of history, and two men with backgrounds in both back country survival and handling weaponry to protect our small group. The situation was explained to all involved, and that regardless of whatever we found they would be employed for a minimum of a month, and with no maximum time limit. Upon the advice of our expert survivalists we purchased a good deal of communications from advanced walkie talkies to several miles of cable and a set of portable communications terminals. The professor who's name was Doctor Kent required that all of us carry cameras to record what we found. I had no trouble luring him or the others, no just with wages but with the smell of adventure and mystery. It is easy to overcome caution simply by sparking a person's curiosity. Alice put herself in charge of shopping and bringing the provisions in and holding down a sort of home base when we arrived and got set up. We gathered that night for a drink to help take the edge off, but headed to our respective homes early to get an early start. We agreed to meet at the front gate at dawn the next day.
The dawn saw me driving down the empty highway, not too cloudy out at the time. The strange thing was that as my car approached the gates a fog hung close to the ground, thickly blanketing the ground and hiding all the details of the pavement and ground. I led the way using my car as we drove down the winding service road up towards the lodge. Though the sun was just coming up tall trees surrounding the road blocked out much of the light, leaving us to use fog lights to see our way. The road was particularly treacherous because of our inability to see the pavement under our wheels added to the winding and changes in the altitude of the road surface. This forced our pace to be painstakingly slow. Finally after many agonizing minutes that felt like hours we reached the lodge and parked our vehicles at the end of the building. Looking up at the foreboding stone structure I felt the enormity of our undertaking in searching the building and grounds. It seemed to me that we would never see the end of this place. I shivered involuntarily as I thought about those hundreds of empty rooms, long empty time had forgotten them. He suddenly wondered if a building could become feral and wild, taking a life of it's own and refusing to be tamed by man. People put so much of themselves into buildings that they sometimes begin to take on personality of their own, a life of their own. They seem more like people than structures, and if the lodge were a person what sort of person would it be? I imagined a lonely but tenacious old man, tossed aside by the world left with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company year after weary year. At some point he stays alive out of a sort of unholy determination, feeding on his own stubbornness and refusal to let go of life.
I knew I had spent too much time staring when Alice woke me from my daydream, bringing me back to the present. "Can we get on with getting in the front door? You've been standing there staring for over thirty minutes. What do you see?"
"Nothing, just wondering if there might be termites.
"Even termites would have trouble sustaining themselves on this stale building, it would probably taste terrible." Susan retorted, bringing a smile to my face.
I unlocked the front door, letting the double doors swing inward on their own weight. As everybody brought our supplies indoors I looked to see if my provisions I had left had been touched. Once again I found every trace that I had been there was wiped away, even the tack I had used to pin the note to the front door. This was slightly unsettling for me, so I checked the central living area. Once again I found nothing. Our group decided to store our provisions in the large kitchen, so that Alice could cook and have what she needed close at hand. I instructed the survival experts to help Alice set up a sort of home base in the kitchen, while the surveyors, Dr. Kent and I proceeded to the east wing of the lodge. The most puzzling thing that came to our attention was a giant room lined with shelves. The door hung ajar making this the logical first stop for our search. While what we had found so far seemed orderly and everything in it's place this room looked like it had been ransacked. Chairs lay on their backs, books and papers lay scattered over every surface, however the shelves themselves were empty. Dr. Kent was thrilled with all the books, as he went through picking them up and putting them in a sack to bring with him. He called my attention to a large leather bound volume with the title "Logbook of the Orion estate", which I told him to set aside for me back at base camp. We finished our sweep of the first and second floor with very little eventful happening or being found. The third floor just left us mystified as all rooms except a storage closet were locked securely, and did not budge no matter what we did. As the daylight left us we gathered in the kitchen for an evening meal, sharing the experiences of the day and enjoying Alice's wonderful cooking. It was decided we should sleep on the kitchen floor, and bar the doors against entry. I was the last to fall asleep, frightened of a return of my previous dream in this unfamiliar place.
I did not have a repeat experience of the dream, instead just imagining a drumbeat, followed by the tune I had heard in my dream before. The lyrics were missing, but the tune still brought me restless sleep, I was unable to hold still the whole night.
End of chapter 2
Saturday, January 15, 2011
In the beginning....
(this is rewrite 1, my browser crashed and I lost my work, so this will take a different look than my original idea.)
There are so many things we cannot know, simply because our histories do not cover. The greatest tragedy of the ancient world was the destruction of great libraries by barbarians, when man discovered writing the use of oral traditions was lost. Perhaps if some of those stories could be told they could cast light on what we do not know of our planet's past. One thing is certain, and that is the uncertainty of the past. Even in the cases where someone did put pen to paper and it was preserved, history is written by the winners.
Our story's beginning is one of those uncertain things. Some would say it began centuries ago when my family first was granted a title and some land in exchange for our silence about the truth behind the history that was then just being laid down. Others would say it started thousands of years ago, as man was first laying down the foundations of civilization. It's possible it began even before that.
The land had been handed down from generation to generation, from father to son for over six hundred years. But almost ever one of them to a man lived in a reverent sort of fear of the land itself, not to mention the houses that lay upon it. Their age had made them more tombs than houses, though they housed no dead. Well, not any dead that would be visited. Once and awhile one of my ancestors would disappear into the many rolling acres, and never be heard of again. It served as a sort of warning, enough to frighten not just the local villagers but every male in my family as well. Though we lived in fear of the property, we felt it was our duty to keep the houses locked, safe from anyone with the misfortune to wander onto the property. About one hundred and fifty years after my ancestor first came into possession, one of his decedents decided to move to a less unsettling location, but still within close range so as to tend the property. He moved everything important, but left two houses and a workshop, simply because the buildings had foundations too deep, and it would have felt wrong to destroy them. He built a gatehouse, which was the only structure that anyone used for the next four hundred and fifty years.
This is what I consider the beginning of our story, and it occurred shortly after I came of age. My name is George Orion My father was not well, and not a single doctor could find out what it was, why it had happened, or how to cure it. He told me he sensed that his end was near. Those were the last words I ever heard him say. The next day I found his truck parked at the gatehouse to the property. It was open, the keys were in the seat along with a current copy of his will. I pocketed both and locked the truck. I returned to town and hired two strong men, and outfitted our team with enough provisions to last for months. I felt that the reason so many had disappeared was because of a stubborn streak of pride in my family. We decided to go on foot from the gatehouse, as it would be too easy to lose the trail. We followed the tracks for a mile, until the joined a larger path, about one hundred feet away from an imposing stone building. It looked like an old hunting lodge, made of stone presumably cut from nearby rock. It was three stories tall, with a large balcony on each end. I had never seen it before in my life, nor had anyone even discussed it aside from that there were structures dating back to before we abandoned the property. It was the duty of whomever was the male head of the family to do repairs and take care of the grounds. I could tell that although in decent repair, no one had lived there for a long time. The silence was permeating, so thick and unsettling, we found ourselves talking just to hear noise.
The only sign that anyone had been there recently were the footsteps we had followed here, and that the front door was unlocked. My companions were in awe and fear of the structure, and strongly urged me to set up camp outside, however I felt that would be letting an opportunity for shelter go to waste. On the inside we found various furniture from different eras, most of it from the mid 20th century, though there were some pieces much older than that. We cleared a space in a large seating area surrounding a fireplace big enough for five men to stand side by side in and not scrape the sides.
We soon lost our daylight, and relied on heat and light from the large fireplace, and firewood we cut outside. I was instantly glad to have brought companions, simply to have someone to talk to in this large unfamiliar building. The silence inside was even more unbearable, growing up in a modern world I was used to the sounds of a house, ticking from clocks, air conditioners coming on. In spite of an unfamiliar lack of noise I found sleep. Unsettling dreams still haunted my sleep, regardless of the fact that I had company.
I dreamed of voices in the dark. This was my dream:
I was wondering down a stone lined corridor with no windows, curious carvings decorate the walls and ceiling. I have a torch in my hand, but the light gives me no comfort. Coming from every direction I hear clicks, a grinding sound, water dripping in the distance. The corridor stretches to infinity, and I fear what lies outside of my torchlight. I felt a chill of air moving from somewhere ahead of me. it blew scraps of paper by my feat and past my arms, giving me an uncomfortable feeling like when you walk through a spider web. Luckily there are no spiders, or any other sign of life for that matter. I take comfort in the idea that air moving means a way out. I continued in that direction for some time more, then the torch blew out as the strength of the wind became too much. I touched the corridor wall and let it guide me, as I did not have any more matches. I came to the end of my wall, and I could tell from my hearing that I was now in a large chamber. I hear whispers in the dark.
"who is this?" a deep whisper reached my ears.
"you are in over your head boy, turn back."
a second voice joined in "there is no turning back, what lies in shadow should not be visited on the outside world."
I try to voice my protest, but it feels like icy fingers grip my neck, preventing speech.
A chant starts, and I continue to move forward, stumbling in the dark. There is no way to tell if the voices are real or imagined.
The chant, which contains no words I thought I would ever hear a human utter, becomes a background for a horrible song that penetrates my mind to the very core. I could never forget it.
"In the dark where shadows lie
hide the things that cannot die
Hidden deep beneath the ground
They guard the secrets that they keep
Older than trees, older than earth
These creatures lack death and birth
they guard their gruesome knowledge
Many secrets lie sleeping beneath the dark
Under the world of man, you'll find such secrets if you can
But watch yourself, and be aware
Because many before you have tried and failed
There's is a fate that you may share"
I heard a heart wrenching sound, and I woke to the sound of screaming.
I soon found the screaming was my own. A red flushness covered my body, and I had drenched myself in sweat. I looked around to see if I had awoken my companions. But where they had lie the night before now was empty. There was no sign of their gear or that they had even been there at all. I became more panicked and began to search the lodge, getting more frantic with every passing minute. However it was all in vain, I found no trace of them.
End of chapter 1
There are so many things we cannot know, simply because our histories do not cover. The greatest tragedy of the ancient world was the destruction of great libraries by barbarians, when man discovered writing the use of oral traditions was lost. Perhaps if some of those stories could be told they could cast light on what we do not know of our planet's past. One thing is certain, and that is the uncertainty of the past. Even in the cases where someone did put pen to paper and it was preserved, history is written by the winners.
Our story's beginning is one of those uncertain things. Some would say it began centuries ago when my family first was granted a title and some land in exchange for our silence about the truth behind the history that was then just being laid down. Others would say it started thousands of years ago, as man was first laying down the foundations of civilization. It's possible it began even before that.
The land had been handed down from generation to generation, from father to son for over six hundred years. But almost ever one of them to a man lived in a reverent sort of fear of the land itself, not to mention the houses that lay upon it. Their age had made them more tombs than houses, though they housed no dead. Well, not any dead that would be visited. Once and awhile one of my ancestors would disappear into the many rolling acres, and never be heard of again. It served as a sort of warning, enough to frighten not just the local villagers but every male in my family as well. Though we lived in fear of the property, we felt it was our duty to keep the houses locked, safe from anyone with the misfortune to wander onto the property. About one hundred and fifty years after my ancestor first came into possession, one of his decedents decided to move to a less unsettling location, but still within close range so as to tend the property. He moved everything important, but left two houses and a workshop, simply because the buildings had foundations too deep, and it would have felt wrong to destroy them. He built a gatehouse, which was the only structure that anyone used for the next four hundred and fifty years.
This is what I consider the beginning of our story, and it occurred shortly after I came of age. My name is George Orion My father was not well, and not a single doctor could find out what it was, why it had happened, or how to cure it. He told me he sensed that his end was near. Those were the last words I ever heard him say. The next day I found his truck parked at the gatehouse to the property. It was open, the keys were in the seat along with a current copy of his will. I pocketed both and locked the truck. I returned to town and hired two strong men, and outfitted our team with enough provisions to last for months. I felt that the reason so many had disappeared was because of a stubborn streak of pride in my family. We decided to go on foot from the gatehouse, as it would be too easy to lose the trail. We followed the tracks for a mile, until the joined a larger path, about one hundred feet away from an imposing stone building. It looked like an old hunting lodge, made of stone presumably cut from nearby rock. It was three stories tall, with a large balcony on each end. I had never seen it before in my life, nor had anyone even discussed it aside from that there were structures dating back to before we abandoned the property. It was the duty of whomever was the male head of the family to do repairs and take care of the grounds. I could tell that although in decent repair, no one had lived there for a long time. The silence was permeating, so thick and unsettling, we found ourselves talking just to hear noise.
The only sign that anyone had been there recently were the footsteps we had followed here, and that the front door was unlocked. My companions were in awe and fear of the structure, and strongly urged me to set up camp outside, however I felt that would be letting an opportunity for shelter go to waste. On the inside we found various furniture from different eras, most of it from the mid 20th century, though there were some pieces much older than that. We cleared a space in a large seating area surrounding a fireplace big enough for five men to stand side by side in and not scrape the sides.
We soon lost our daylight, and relied on heat and light from the large fireplace, and firewood we cut outside. I was instantly glad to have brought companions, simply to have someone to talk to in this large unfamiliar building. The silence inside was even more unbearable, growing up in a modern world I was used to the sounds of a house, ticking from clocks, air conditioners coming on. In spite of an unfamiliar lack of noise I found sleep. Unsettling dreams still haunted my sleep, regardless of the fact that I had company.
I dreamed of voices in the dark. This was my dream:
I was wondering down a stone lined corridor with no windows, curious carvings decorate the walls and ceiling. I have a torch in my hand, but the light gives me no comfort. Coming from every direction I hear clicks, a grinding sound, water dripping in the distance. The corridor stretches to infinity, and I fear what lies outside of my torchlight. I felt a chill of air moving from somewhere ahead of me. it blew scraps of paper by my feat and past my arms, giving me an uncomfortable feeling like when you walk through a spider web. Luckily there are no spiders, or any other sign of life for that matter. I take comfort in the idea that air moving means a way out. I continued in that direction for some time more, then the torch blew out as the strength of the wind became too much. I touched the corridor wall and let it guide me, as I did not have any more matches. I came to the end of my wall, and I could tell from my hearing that I was now in a large chamber. I hear whispers in the dark.
"who is this?" a deep whisper reached my ears.
"you are in over your head boy, turn back."
a second voice joined in "there is no turning back, what lies in shadow should not be visited on the outside world."
I try to voice my protest, but it feels like icy fingers grip my neck, preventing speech.
A chant starts, and I continue to move forward, stumbling in the dark. There is no way to tell if the voices are real or imagined.
The chant, which contains no words I thought I would ever hear a human utter, becomes a background for a horrible song that penetrates my mind to the very core. I could never forget it.
"In the dark where shadows lie
hide the things that cannot die
Hidden deep beneath the ground
They guard the secrets that they keep
Older than trees, older than earth
These creatures lack death and birth
they guard their gruesome knowledge
Many secrets lie sleeping beneath the dark
Under the world of man, you'll find such secrets if you can
But watch yourself, and be aware
Because many before you have tried and failed
There's is a fate that you may share"
I heard a heart wrenching sound, and I woke to the sound of screaming.
I soon found the screaming was my own. A red flushness covered my body, and I had drenched myself in sweat. I looked around to see if I had awoken my companions. But where they had lie the night before now was empty. There was no sign of their gear or that they had even been there at all. I became more panicked and began to search the lodge, getting more frantic with every passing minute. However it was all in vain, I found no trace of them.
End of chapter 1
introduction
Hello, My name is Larry Albano, and I will be your story teller. I have been writing professionally for about a year or two now, and I want to work up to writing a novel. I find that I enjoy blogging, so I figured that I would tell my stories in blog format. I'll talk more about me between my stories, for now I want to get to writing
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