The Great Darkening (Epic of Haven Trilogy)

by R. G. Triplett

  “Agreed,” Jhames said to the both of them. “I will want you, Armas, and a small company of your riders, to make your way north once again and convey the wishes of the Citadel to our fellow laborers in this holy cause.”

  “Yes, your Brightness,” Armas said.

  “Please see to it that these wasteful and worrisome reports are no longer dispatched to your office, Captain. For you have graver and more pressing matters to devote your attention to than the nightmares of our distraught citizens,” Jhames ordered him. “From here on, the woodcutters of the North can handle this supposed threat directly.”

  “As you will it,” Armas consented, deciding it was unwise to express further displeasure at the indifference of the Citadel to the plight of Piney Creek. Armas then crossed his arm over his chest and saluted both Priest King and Chancellor alike. He turned to leave the chambers and carry out his orders when the voice of Chaiphus rang out once again.

  “Captain,” the Chancellor spoke, “before you ride north, please see to it that Arborist Engelmann and his pupil—I believe you are familiar with them?” He raised an eyebrow before continuing in pointed, sharp speech. “See to it that they cease their blasphemous propaganda. Their juvenile words of brooding evil and imminent danger are sure to be nothing more than fuel to the already hot flames of our citizens’ unrest. And neither this Citadel nor I will stand for such ignorance to be preached! It has been known for generations that evil is nothing more than a reflection of laziness from a passive heart that has not learned the way of the flint.”

  Armas weighed his response carefully before he spoke. “What is it that you suggest I do about it? He is an Arborist after all, and beyond the scope of my authority.”

  “These are dark and desperate times, Captain, and the burning tree that he has so faithfully served is dying; with its death will also go the whole of his unobstructed privilege here in our city,” Chaiphus told the captain. “So if he wishes to remain in the good standings of our bright Priest King, he might want to be more … careful about what he preaches from the platforms and the town squares.”

  “I will give him your message, Chancellor,” Armas said with admirable restraint.

  As Armas took his leave from Chaiphus’ chambers, he set out to warn his friends before the ill that befell them turned to something worse than mere darkness.

  On the other side of the grand, white walls of the Capital, across the cold waters of the river Abonris, Engelmann stood atop the bed of a merchant’s cart in the great square of Westriver, speaking loudly to all who would take notice and listen.

  “People of Haven, hear my voice, hear my words!” The green-haired old Arborist wore not anger or piety on his face, but concern and humility. “Long have we lived in the light of the great tree, and long has this gift of the THREE who is SEVEN illuminated our city and protected us from untold evils. But now I fear for the future of our city, for we have become concerned only with light, and have not given a moment’s thought to the dark magics that thrive in the shadows.”

  Some threw their hands up at this un-Priestly sort of talk and loudly dismissed the words of the Arborist.

  “Who gives this old Arborist platform for these foolish Poet notions?” one man rudely proclaimed loud enough for all who were gathered to hear. “We are a people of the flint, and these fanciful tales will only fill our heads with nonsense!”

  “Even now reports are coming from the North of a dark horde veiled by a shadowy void, and of green-eyed monsters, and raven-fletched arrows fired from unknown bows. If you do not believe me, ask the woodcutters and they will tell you the truth of it!” Engelmann begged them.

  “Well, what would you have us do, Arborist?” a young woman asked sincerely.

  “My girl, I would say to you and to all of Haven: do not put your trust in timber or even in these great walls, but fix your heart to the protection of the THREE who is SEVEN alone. And hope, my dear, for I do believe that hope is our only true defense against the ravenous shadows.”

  “If this is true, then why hasn’t his Brightness come down from the Citadel and warned us? Huh?” another man said sarcastically. “If we were in true danger, the city would be humming with guardsmen! Leave us be, Arborist, for we have enough worries to occupy our fears this day.”

  “Aye, don’t waste your time listening to this old fool! His great tree has abandoned him and he is just looking for company in his lonely misery!” said another.

  “No, I beg of you, people of Haven! Please, hear my words … see my heart! For if we do not hope, then how shall we expect to endure the storm that is coming?” Engelmann implored the small, gathered crowd with a little too much desperation in his voice.

  “Come on, let’s go wait for the woodcutters’ carts. The only hope I have is neatly piled in cords of timber!” said the first man.

  Engelmann and his pupil, Michael, watched as the small crowd dispersed and went back about their business. “It is of no use, Engelmann,” Michael told him, the fullness of his worrisome and frustrated emotions bubbling over into his words. “Why will they not listen? Why do they not want to know the truth?”

  “Ah, young groomsman, long has man chosen to cling to the dying comforts of what he already knows, only to be buried in the grave of his foolish certainties,” Engelmann told him as he sat down to light his long pipe. “That,” he said with a mouthful of sweet-smelling pipe smoke, “and we must acknowledge that it could be a bit frightening to admit that all they have ever believed could be inaccurate—or worse—it could be a complete and total load of horse dung!”

  Engelmann’s dramatics gave Michael’s worried mind a small respite for the moment, and he smiled a brief smile. “But what if we are too late? What if no one believes us? How will we hope to endure like the Owele told you?”

  “That is not our task, young groomsman, to worry over things that we cannot possibly have any control over. No, ours is but to warn, and to hope; by those deeds—we might just endure,” Engelmann said.

  “Uh, excuse me, Arborist?” asked the young woman who had earlier been a part of the small but not-so-hospitable crowd. “I would like to speak to you about your...um, that is …” she paused, her eyes falling to the cobbled streets below her, “if you are willing to speak with me?”

  Michael’s eyes lit up at the young woman. She was dressed plainly enough, as most of Haven’s citizens were these grey days. Her hair was straight and common, but in her auburn simplicity there peeked an honest beauty that caught the attention of Engelmann’s young pupil. “Hello there, yes!” Michael said a bit too eagerly, and with a large grin on his face. “We would love to talk with you—I mean—he would love to talk with you.”

  Engelmann puffed for a minute on his long pipe and studied the reaction of his young apprentice. His mossy beard parted way, revealing an equally large grin upon his lined face. “My girl, it is our pleasure to make your acquaintance, though I must observe the pleasure is in fact much greater for one of us! Although perhaps you can see that for yourself.”

  The young woman blushed at the eagerness of Michael and the kind compliment of the old Arborist.

  “My name is Engelmann. Engelmann the Hopeful I have been called by some, from behind some not-so-closed doors.” With an overly dramatic display he pointed to his apprentice. “And this, my girl … this fine, strapping, young groomsman here is my pupil, Michael! I wouldn’t go about bestowing him with any other closed-door titles such as my own just yet, though, for he is only slightly less cynical than the rest of this miserable lot at the moment.” Engelmann let out a satisfied laugh, clearly as pleased with his clever introduction as he was about the conversation that was sure to begin.

  “Thank you both,” she said with a returned smile. “My name is Margarid, if it pleases you.”

  “It does indeed, my lady, it is a beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Michael said, a bit on the forward side. In the days since Cal’s departure for the Wreath and Michael’s encounter with the Sprite, something
had begun to grow less timid in his heart. If he were to think long enough to admit it, he would have to acknowledge that a process of unlearning had taken hold of him in such a way as to leave him forever changed. When magic itself stood there before him, with his tiny, offended blade at Michael’s throat, he could not help but further disbelieve much of the Priestly order that had regimented even the slimmest possibility of magic right out of his world.

  “My dear Margarid, how may we be of help to you?” Engelmann graciously asked.

  The three of them stood there in the great square of Westriver talking long into the day, for Margarid had many questions and was eager to hear what the old Arborist had to say. After some time had passed, and the depth of the conversation had intensified, the timber carts of the woodcutters made their anxious entrance to the borough’s square. Since the timber riots had started at the felling of the second to last branch, the riders of the Capital guard escorted and accompanied the vulnerable carts of the woodcutters in hopes of quelling any further uprisings.

  The Priests of Westriver sat at their desks, scrolls and parchments at the ready. Their task was to make sure that what little timber arrived in the city was rationed out in relative fairness.

  “I see that the Arborist has found himself quite the audience,” one Priest snidely commented to the other.

  “If he spent less time postulating about the demise of our kingdom and what measures we should theoretically be taking to prepare for such a demise, and spent more time tending to the dying tree … perhaps he would have less to postulate about!” The other Priest grumbled with indignant fervor as he made markings to account for the small cords of timber that his partner had just given to a citizen family.

  “That is what is wrong with our world. The undisciplined wanderings of too many undisciplined minds have led to the displeasure of the mighty THREE who is SEVEN, of that you can be certain,” said the first Priest.

  “Maybe we could regain the favor and the provision of our most displeased deity if we but cleanse our great city of this infectious blasphemy. Send them wandering into the shadow lands like the Poets of old,” said the second Priest.

  Armas, who had just arrived in the square in time to meet the now approaching timber carts, had overheard the disgruntled conversation of the Westriverian Priests. Coupled with the warning of the Chancellor earlier that morning, he began to grow uneasy at the condemnation that seemed to be gaining popularity with the people.

  Oh Engelmann, what kind of trouble have you got yourself into now, my friend?

  Armas made his way across the square to the merchant cart where the Arborist and his pupils sat and listened, still in excited conversation. The captain had been given orders, and though he half-believed the warnings of the mossy-haired old man, he still had to reluctantly deliver the message from the Citadel.

  “Oh, good day, Captain,” Engelmann said in between puffs on his long-stemmed pipe.

  “Engelmann. Michael,” Armas said, nodding to each of them in greeting.

  “Oh—this is Margarid. She um … she is ...” Michael stumbled a bit over his words.

  “Listening to the controversial ravings of this old Arborist, she is.” Engelmann smiled with a defiant grin on his face.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady, though I do wish it was for brighter reasons,” Armas said as he embraced her slender arm with his own.

  “Oh?” said Engelmann. “And just what are these dimly lit reasons of yours, Captain?”

  Armas took a deep breath, making it obvious that he delivered these words with protest and great care. “Since your return from Bright Harbor, the Citadel has become both aware of and altogether angered by your unbecoming and dark heraldry, Arborist.”

  Armas looked about to see if any Priest or guardsman was within earshot of his next words. “Though I do not doubt that there is magic in this world of ours that is largely ignored, and though it is obvious to me that somehow you have managed to stumble upon some of it … I warn you, friend, be careful as to whom and by which methods you choose to speak of this magic of yours,” he said in a stern and serious whisper.

  “Magic of mine?” Engelmann said amusedly. “This magic is not something to be possessed, like a coin or a horse or that braided cord of office you wear. No, Captain Armas … this magic is far too wild for that kind of nonsense.”

  “Whatever kind of magic it is, I implore you to think wisely about how and when you speak of it, before you find yourself locked in irons with no audience but the rats of the prison holds,” Armas said, plainly enough.

  “Prison holds?” Michael said, quite confused. “I don’t understand, Armas. Engelmann only speaks of what the Oweles told him, and it is only for the safety and survival of our city. There is not a word of rebellion or malice in any of his conversations!”

  “Oweles you say?” Armas said, both eyebrows now at full attention. “Now I must really beg of you both—perhaps all three of you,” he said, giving the young lady Margarid a sorrowful look, “to watch your tongues before the Chancellor does something to quiet them for you!”

  Michael looked to his teacher and then back again to Margarid in search of some kind of reassurance, but all he found were blank stares. “Then what would you have us do? This is not just nonsense, not just the paranoid ravings of an overly imaginative old Arborist. Why would you quiet the truth at the very moment that our people so desperately need to hear it?”

  Armas just shook his head, unable to come up with a satisfactory answer.

  Michael turned and faced north, looking through the crowded streets and shadowy skies. “I know what Cal told me before he left, and I believe him, Armas, I believe what he so desperately tried to warn me of.”

  “Cal? This is your groomsman friend, is it? The one who went in your stead to the Wreath? What exactly did he warn you of, Michael? Maybe you could help me understand why the lot of you would risk your freedom for such a message?” Armas asked sincerely.

  “That a great and terrible foe is lurking in the edges of the shadows, a green-eyed evil that has long waited and brooded in its dark halls for the demise of our great tree. It is coming for us,” Michael said, still staring off to the north. “Cal said he had seen it, or at least parts of it, which is why he left.”

  “So he just ran from it?” Armas asked.

  “No!” said Michael vehemently, jumping to the defense of his friend. “Captain, he went in search of the one thing that could truly defeat it.”

  “And just what is that?” asked Armas.

  “The new light of the THREE who is SEVEN,” Engelmann said matter-of-factly, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “He has gone to fulfill the prophecies of old. He has set out to finish what King Illium could not.”

  Armas stood there stunned for a moment. He could almost not believe his ears, incredulous at the notion of what his two friends were saying. “So … if Cal is seeking this new light as you say …” Armas paused to collect his thoughts, “then why in the damnable dark are you risking the wrath of the Citadel to preach from the back of a merchant cart?”

  Engelmann took a long draw on his smoking pipe, his eyes panning the view of the men and women who waited dejectedly in line for their meager rations of the nearly vanished timber, and then he looked to his young apprentice before answering Armas’ question.

  “For hope, Captain. Hope for hearts that will choose to endure the approaching darkness with belief in the promise that a new light will come. I fear that hope, out of all the virtues of our city’s people, is the least valued, and the least exercised here inside these well-disciplined walls,” Engelmann told him, something indefinable lighting his eyes as he spoke with an earnest passion.

  “Hope?” Armas pondered for a moment. “That seems, well … like a bit of an ordinary thing to risk your neck for, doesn’t it?”

  “Perhaps now it does, when the only thing we truly fear is darkness itself.” Engelmann puffed again nonchalantly in between his words. “But
just you wait, Captain, for when darkness is the least of our worries, hope might be the only thing that will keep us from being consumed by the ruinous tyranny of whatever evils wait for us.”

  Armas crossed his arms in a clear indication that he did not fully comprehend Engelmann’s perspective. “You speak in riddles, old friend, but I need practicalities,” he said with a challenging tone in his voice. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, but neither seemed willing to say more on the matter.

  Margarid stood quietly by, watching and listening to the conversation between the captain and the Arborist, and as she did she felt something new beginning to blossom there inside her innocent heart. “Is this what you believe, Michael? That there is something more worth hoping for?”

  Michael thought long about her question, for he sensed there was more tied to his response than just a regurgitation of his teacher’s words. The eyes of Engelmann and Armas rested upon the young groomsman, there in the square of Westriver, as they waited for his response.

  “I hope … for hope, lady Margarid,” Michael said honestly. “I hope that, when whatever green-eyed monsters that wait for us in the shadows assault the resolve of this city, I will have clear sight enough to find a deeper hope.”

  Engelmann smiled a wide, knowing grin as he took yet another long tug on his pipe. Good answer, young groomsman. Good answer indeed.

  Margarid smiled a satisfied smile as she leaned over and kissed him quickly on his right cheek. Michael’s face turned a deep shade of red as he looked shyly into her upturned and admiring face.

  “That was honest and hopeful enough for me,” Margarid said to him. “Thank you, Michael, and thank you, Arborist. I hope,” she said with a girlish giggle, “to see and to speak with you both again, soon.”

  With a smile and a faint, new light in her hazel eyes, the auburn-haired young woman walked across the square to take her place at the end of the timber line.