“I sent you running before,” my voice cracked as I said it. So much for strength in the face of your enemy.
“Is that what you believe?”
The quaking laugh started up again, heaving like thunder. It seemed to come from my left, but also from outside, like the sky itself was laughing.
There was a flash from outside as lightning broke the sky. Beams of bright white light lit the interior of the tower, bringing with it a cold burning metallic smell that filled the upper chamber.
Lightning! The clouds had brought a storm!
Curwen’s laugh caught and turned into a long wail.
In the brief, bright flash my vision burned and I could see Curwen writhing against one side. One gnarled claw gripped the body of Wensem—tiny and weak-looking compared to the immensity of the creature—while another dug grooves into the floor.
I raised my gun and aimed it in the direction of the thing. He knew I wouldn’t shoot with Wensem in the way. The chance to hit him would be too great.
“Drop him!” I shouted over the sound of hammering rain. “You hear me? Drop him!”
My back felt warm. Sticky. My brain was frazzled. Everything seemed to double on itself. Somewhere in the back of my mind something was fighting with me... something was nagging. Remember, it said.
“What is one maero to you, caravan master? What is one maero to the Guardian?”
“I’m not here to barter. Let him go.”
“There is no tunnel above us to drop on my head! Your small weapon will do nothing. So why have you come?” Curwen said, his voice almost normal.
“Someone has to.”
He roared. “Hah!”
It rushed at me again, slamming into my chest. I sailed backward, crashing against one of the outer walls and collapsing into a pile of rusted buckets. The wall cracked in protest. My head smacked against a thick wooden beam, causing the world to spin faster, and I fell to the floor, landing hard on something and causing the gash in my back to scream at me.
“I knew you were in Syringa. The Ngranek told me as much. I believed that distance meant our paths would never cross. At least not for a while. I could finish my work here before I’d need to find you. I watched. Watched as you met your friends… I hoped they would convince you away from this place. But you left that fort to the east.
“This town… I am so close to breaking them. Their hope is lost. Madness will settle into this town… Swallowing it whole.”
My whole body ached. My back burned. My head was swimming. My hand was light. The heavy weight of the Judge was gone. I was weaponless. Despair beckoned.
I fought it and pulled myself from the crates, dragging myself along the floor. Not sure if I was moving towards or away from Curwen.
“I have dealt with Guardians before. So I took one of your people…” His voice seethed with anger. “I should have realized you’d be just like the ones before you. You treat your subordinates like they’re an extension of yourself. I cannot comprehend it… I realize I made a mistake. I should have focused on you from the beginning!”
He lunged to where I had fallen, but misjudged my movements. I could hear him slam into the outer wall. Feel the headframe shake with the vibration. Light leaked in, giving me a brief glimpse before it disappeared into the shadows.
“When you rolled through the barricade I realized I had to change my plans. I could exact revenge… do to you what I did to Carter eons ago. You see, Waldo Bell? This will end in your death.”
I tried to swear, but my words came out as gibberish. I felt warm and cold all at once.
“Can’t you see that? Yet you still came! Pitiful as you are, you still came. I suppose you think that makes you brave.”
I struggled to rise. A bite of cool air whipped across my face and I realized one of the eye pieces in the gas mask had cracked. Air from outside was leaking in. Had that happened when I was thrown the first or second time?
“It makes you a fool,” Curwen said.
I pulled the gas mask free and the cold smell of the burning metal was clearer and more evident. I thought about the metal and about the storm. I wondered...
My answer came suddenly.
Another crack of lightning sent Curwen spilling and screaming and whirling.
It jolted my memory.
Light!
I could beat this son of a bitch.
Wensem’s body was still clutched in his four hands. No, two. Four? In my swimming vision two Curwens held two Wensems. I shook my head trying to clear it. I squinted and tried to bring my vision together. Everything was difficult to make out. The dark shapes were blurry and the floor before me seemed to wobble and veer away.
I shakily rose to my feet and rubbed at my eyes. I was tired. So tired. I somehow knew this was Curwen’s mist working on me, but my body didn’t care. I wanted to sleep.
Darkness settled back inside the headframe and Curwen boomed another laugh.
“Did I break your little mask? I must admit I didn’t expect that. The citizens of Methow had no idea how I could waltz around, plucking their friends and family.”
I didn’t respond. It took all my will to focus on what I was about to do.
“Are you getting sleepy?” the monster asked. “It would be little fun for me to end this while you were asleep. I want you to feel what I am going to do to you!”
Wensem’s body came crashing towards me, his limp arm slapping me in the face and driving me down to my knees. Please be alive. I reached a hand out and felt his chest, but it was difficult to tell if he was breathing or not. My hand came away warm and sticky.
Blood.
Curwen laughed and another flash of lightning and peal of thunder split the sky overhead. Beams of bright white light shot in between the slats and filled the chamber.
My body wanted to remain on the floor, but I fought it and with all the effort I could muster I rose. My eyes focused on the direction of the monster. Anger. Rage and hate filling my chest.
I would end this.
Curwen curled his claws over his single eye in an effort to protect it from the flashes of lightning. As darkness filled the space once more, the hulking form turned towards me. Claws curled menacingly, arms hanging at its side.
Time froze for a long moment as monster and man focused on one another. I grinned and hoped Curwen could see it.
THIRTY
THE FLARE CRACKED TO LIFE IN MY HAND.
Curwen’s single giant pupil shrank as a brilliant red glow filled the upper floor growing brighter and brighter as the flare burned hotter and hotter.
The thing had no face but the emotion in that reaction was clear enough. It shuddered and recoiled in horror. I dropped the burning flare, and pulled the second from my back pocket.
When it popped, I tossed it across the room, away from the other, making it more difficult for Curwen to snuff out the light quickly.
He howled in pain, and the noise in the sky seemed to burst into my head. It drove the fog out and snapped me into reality. My head pounded. My skull ached, but I had remembered. The blows, the jolts. I had forgotten about the flares crammed into my back pocket.
The Judge was lying near Wensem and I hobbled quickly to retrieve it, picking it up and spinning in time to see Curwen throw himself at one of the flares, scratching at the stick with his gnarled claws. His claws dug grooves into the wooden floor.
“No! No! No!” he screamed.
The flares burned bright and hot and the dry floor of the old headframe began to catch, smoldering at first and then beginning to burn, bringing more light into the room. Curwen hollered and shouted. He seemed to be gagging as the light pushed away the darkness.
“No!” he screamed. “No! No! No!”
In the bright light I could clearly make out the creature for the first time. The single yellow eye dominated a massive skull with no apparent nose or mouth. Its torso was man-like, and two spindly clawed arms hung from its body like the branches of a dead tree. Its lower torso was a mass of
writhing tentacles that seemed to move and twist like some terrifying dress. Its huge leathery wings slammed about awkwardly, crashing into walls and the floor as Curwen struggled against the burning light. Small scorch marks were appearing all over the sooty black flesh on his arms and legs, glowing orange at the edges like the coals of a hot fire.
So this was his true form. The body of a First.
I considered emptying the Judge at the creature but I realized it would do nothing so I tucked it away.
Light was another story.
I backed up to where Wensem lay and awkwardly struggled to haul him up over my shoulders. He was heavy and not moving. His gas mask was torn, and gashes were cut across his chest, and arms, and legs. Hot maero blood made him slippery. If he was still alive and if I could get him out of here, he’d recover. Maero are hard to kill.
“This isn’t over! This isn’t over, Guardian! Argh!” Curwen screamed, slamming himself against a wall with a satisfying crack. He moved towards me, stumbling, a claw reaching out. One of his wings hung limp. The yellow eye, once so bright, was turning a lurid brown.
I watched.
He slammed himself against the wall again, and then half-rushed and half-fell towards me. Old dust swirled in his wake.
I kicked out with my bad leg, my boot connecting with the massive eye. The motion was awkward and jerky but the strike was true. Between the light, the fire, and my blow Curwen recoiled. Falling backward, he slammed against the burning floor.
The flares erupted into an inferno. I could hear the old tower moaning and sputtering as the fire began to chew at the structure itself. I am apparently hell on old buildings.
We had to get out. I hobbled to open the trapdoor set into the floor and, panting, struggled down through the small hole and onto the curling stairs. Curwen returned to smashing himself against the side of the headframe, sending quakes down the whole structure. He is trying to break through, I realized. He is trying to escape.
“No, no, no!” he screamed.
The space below the upper floor of the tower was darker than the room at the top but fire was already creeping down the walls and bringing with it more light.
I moved down the stairs as quick as my knee and the weight of the full grown maero would let me. When I landed on the main floor my boots made an echoing heavy thud. My knee burned.
I pushed out the door and struggled into the mining camp. Wensem’s hand slapped awkwardly against the gash on my back and I gritted my teeth, tasting blood in my mouth. We stumbled across the grounds toward where the others lay. The gray mist was dissipating. Eaten away by the rain or removed as Curwen burned, I wasn’t sure.
I collapsed as I sat Wensem down among my sleeping friends. A nasty knot had formed above his left eye but his chest heaved in a breath and he coughed fitfully. He was still alive. The others were beginning to stir.
Curwen was still howling above and when I turned and looked up, the entire top of the headframe was wreathed in flames. They were shooting out from holes and roaring from portions of the roof that had already collapsed. The sounds of screeching metal and Curwen’s roar echoed from atop the burning headframe.
He was dying.
Thunder boomed low and loud and lightning struck the top of the tower. In that instant, Curwen burst forth, exploding outward and howling as fire licked at his leathery wings and ran down the length of his tentacles. Time seemed to slow as his wings tried to catch and beat at the air. He tumbled, outward and then down.
The massive eye, charred almost as black as the creature’s skin, looked down as it fell. A wave of recoil seemed to roll down its body. The bright flares Hannah and the Shaler boys had scattered reflected against his blackened skin. The harsh golden light burned him.
I stood, broken and bloodied, and stared upward, watching as the fire and the light took Curwen apart. I smiled to myself as his body burned away and joined the rain, falling as flakes of blackened soot.
THIRTY-ONE
IT WAS GONE.
Dead? Who can say? Some believe that Firsts never die. That if they fall on our world they are just banished from our reality to some cold darkness where they dwell and plot their return. Others hold to the belief that they might be destroyed but they rise again, after eons, pulling themselves back together with some unseen magnetic force in some endless cycle of destruction and rebirth.
I sat there, catching my breath, staring upward as the ashes of the creature that plagued the small town of Methow for over a year rained down around me. Slowly, my friends began to awaken, blinking and rubbing their eyes. They stared upwards as the headframe burned and fell apart.
The dark clouds bled out and were replaced with lighter ones, the rain lessened, and the sky finally cleared up. The oranges and purples of a sunset soon appeared behind the mountain to the west.
In silence we all watched the headframe burn and then collapse in on itself, falling down into the large chamber it was built upon, forming a burning pit of smoldering timber and the remains of the hoist.
“There goes our way out,” Samantha said, looking down into the hole.
“I wasn’t keen on going back underground,” Hannah said. She turned and looked at me. “You’re sure he’s gone?”
“I’m sure,” I said, realizing I truly meant it.
Wensem woke in pain, and quickly realized his leg was broken and a few of his ribs were cracked. He wasn’t in any condition to climb the steep slope that surrounded the mining camp so we fashioned a litter out of some old canvas and some boards to move him.
It took us the rest of the day to crawl up over the landslide, and a few more hours to safely descend back to the ground. Taft met us on the other side, her eyes big as pie pans as she heard us recount what had happened.
Together the company struggled back to the small town, pushing our way through the gate and falling into our bedrolls smelling of fire and smoke and sleeping better than we had in months.
The following morning we rose and told our tale to the citizens of Methow. Finishing triumphantly with the fiery end. A great cheer rose from the survivors. It was over.
We went to work immediately to remove the bodies that hung around the remnants of Methow and buried them in neat rows away from the valley, among a stand of pale aspen whose leaves were just beginning to turn and would eventually cover the dead in a blanket of gold. It took us over a week. When we were finished we cut down the stakes and crosses and burned them in a great bonfire away from the town. We watched the flames hungrily eat the pile of wood. A fitting ceremony to end the terrible reign of Curwen.
I looked at my people, and saw their eyes flash, reflecting the flames. Wensem’s leg had been splinted and bandages were wrapped around his head and chest. He leaned heavily on a crutch that one of the refugees had made for him. He flashed a crooked smiled at me when he saw me looking.
Samantha was next to him. The horns that sprouted from her temples and chin were longer than I had seen before. Even with layers of road dust, torn clothes, her hair tangled and ragged, I still thought her beautiful. Her dark flashing eyes didn’t turn away from the fire. They didn’t look up and see me standing there.
After we returned to Methow she had given me a long silent hug, those small horns on her chin pressed against my shoulder. We held one another for a long moment, neither of us wanting to let go. It was either a hopeful sign that things between us could be mended or a final hug goodbye.
Hannah and Taft were standing among a group of the Methow survivors. Hannah’s eyes were empty, her stare stalwart but somber. She held the stump of her left hand to her chest protectively, her other hand jammed deep into her jacket pocket. The fire and life that burned inside her had been replaced by something else. Something colder.
Taft loomed above her like a protective older sister. A massive grin split her face and her cheeks jutted out like small mountains. She laughed deep heavy laughs, and drank from a thick flask, hugging the survivors around her jovially.
Away from t
he group stood the Shaler boys. From them there came no smiles. No hugs. No grateful thanks. The caravan that had been their family's livelihood had been broken. They came into this as boys but were emerging as men, gun weary and battle hardened.
I would offer them a job. They had proven they were more than adequate members of the caravan, though I was unsure if they would take it. I lead them into misery. Who would stay with a leader like that?
What kind of leader had I become? I had faced another First—my second now—and somehow emerged alive. Mostly intact. The gashes would become scars, more memories scratched into my skin. When I looked in the mirror, I would now see Curwen alongside Peter Black and Cybill. Leering in the background.
“What happens now?” asked the mayor in his quavery voice. The old man stood next to me as we watched the fire, a shawl wrapped around his frail shoulders.
“Now we pack up and head out, I suppose. You and yours are welcome to join us.”
“That is very kind of you.”
“It’s the least we could do.”
“There is nothing for any of us in Methow,” said the mayor. “Just bad memories.”
“There’s always Lovat, and if the big city life doesn’t suit you there are handfuls of communities living up and down along the islands.”
“Thank you for your help,” the old man said. “For all of this. For everything, yes, we will go with you.”
It was decided.
We had entered Methow as seven. We left as eighty-two. Our ranks swelled with the surviving men, women, and children of the dead town of Methow. Refugees bound for a new life on the other side of the mountains.
The journey was uneventful. We encountered early snows at the summit of the pass but were out and descending before it had too much of a chance to slow us down. We emerged on the other side as much colder weather blew in from the north, promising to close the pass for the winter.
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