Brutal Telling

It was a story, nothing more. No harm in it.

But in this simple log cabin, buried in the Quebec wilderness, it seemed like more than that. Even Olivier felt himself believing it. Perhaps because the Hermit so clearly did.

The old man sat in his easy chair on one side of the stone hearth with Olivier on the other. Olivier looked into a fire that had been alive for more than a decade. An old flame not allowed to die, it mumbled and popped in the grate, throwing soft light into the log cabin. He gave the embers a shove with the simple iron poker, sending sparks up the chimney. Candlelight twinkled off shiny objects like eyes in the darkness, found by the flame.

“It won’t be long now.”

The Hermit’s eyes were gleaming like metal reaching its melting point. He was leaning forward as he often did when this tale was told.

Olivier scanned the single room. The dark was punctuated by flickering candles throwing fantastic, grotesque shadows. Night seemed to have seeped through the cracks in the logs and settled into the cabin, curled in corners and under the bed. Many native tribes believed evil lived in corners, which was why their traditional homes were rounded. Unlike the square homes the government had given them.

Olivier didn’t believe evil lived in corners. Not really. Not in the daylight, anyway. But he did believe there were things waiting in the dark corners of this cabin that only the Hermit knew about. Things that set Olivier’s heart pounding.

“Go on,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

It was late and Olivier still had the twenty-minute walk through the forest back to Three Pines. It was a trip he made every fortnight and he knew it well, even in the dark.

Only in the dark. Theirs was a relationship that existed only after nightfall.

They sipped Orange Pekoe tea. A treat, Olivier knew, reserved for the Hermit’s honored guest. His only guest.

But now it was story time. They leaned closer to the fire. It was early September and a chill had crept in with the night.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. I remember now.”

Olivier’s hands gripped the warm mug even tighter.

“The terrible force has destroyed everything in its way. The Old World and the New. All gone. Except . . .”

“Except?”

“One tiny village remains. Hidden in a valley, so the grim army hasn’t seen it yet. But it will. And when it does their great leader will stand at the head of his army. He’s immense, bigger than any tree, and clad in armor made from rocks and spiny shells and bone.”

“Chaos.”

The word was whispered and disappeared into the darkness, where it curled into a corner. And waited.

“Chaos. And the Furies. Disease, Famine, Despair. All are swarming. Searching. And they’ll never stop. Not ever. Not until they find it.”

“The thing that was stolen.”

The Hermit nodded, his face grim. He seemed to see the slaughter, the destruction. See the men and women, the children, fleeing before the merciless, soulless force.

“But what was it? What could be so important they had to destroy everything to get it back?”

Olivier willed his eyes not to dart from the craggy face and into the darkness. To the corner, and the thing they both knew was sitting there in its mean little canvas sack. But the Hermit seemed to read his mind and Olivier saw a malevolent grin settle onto the old man’s face. And then it was gone.

“It’s not the army that wants it back.”

They both saw then the thing looming behind the terrible army. The thing even Chaos feared. That drove Despair, Disease, Famine before it. With one goal. To find what was taken from their Master.

“It’s worse than slaughter.”

Their voices were low, barely scraping the ground. Like conspirators in a cause already lost.

“When the army finally finds what it’s searching for it will stop. And step aside. And then the worst thing imaginable will arrive.”

There was silence again. And in that silence lived the worst thing imaginable.

Outside a pack of coyotes set up a howl. They had something cornered.

Myth, that’s all this is, Olivier reassured himself. Just a story. Once more he looked into the embers, so he wouldn’t see the terror in the Hermit’s face. Then he checked his watch, tilting the crystal toward the fireplace until its face glowed orange and told him the time. Two thirty in the morning.

“Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.”

The Hermit nodded, his eyes rheumy and runny, perhaps from the wood smoke, perhaps from something else. Olivier leaned back, surprised to feel his thirty-eight-year-old body suddenly aching, and realized he’d sat tense through the whole awful telling.

“I’m sorry. It’s getting late and Gabri will be worried. I have to go.”

“Already?”

Olivier got up and pumping cold, fresh water into the enamel sink he cleaned his cup. Then he turned back to the room.

“I’ll be back soon,” he smiled.

“Let me give you something,” said the Hermit, looking around the log cabin. Olivier’s gaze darted to the corner where the small canvas sack sat. Unopened. A bit of twine keeping it closed.