Notes from the Future: Henrietta's Tale, Part IX

The night is clear, silent and bright with stars. Mother Henrietta continues her tale.

"With one last monumental strike of steel to flint, Friar Rudel bellowed into the face of the beast, 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross!'"

"The force of his bellow upset his footing in the snow. Slipping to one knee, Friar Rudel nevertheless angled flint and steel upward. Perhaps it was the fall, the strength it added to his strike, but in that moment a shower of ruby-red, blood-red, deepest Pomegranate red sparks shot forth from his flint and steel toward the oil-soaked shreds of the monk's cloak, surrounding the tightly-wrapped cloth for a moment in its own flurry of fire.

"The beast tried to halt, skidding in the snow and scrabbling back with its claws, a new look on its face, one Friar Rudel and Hannibal the Talkative had not seen yet in this longest and darkest of nights: surprised terror.

"But then the sparks blew away, gone, snuffed out like their lives would be in moments. The beast, seeing this, smiled, catching its lolling tongue between needle-sharp teeth and tearing it, then deliberately licking its own blood all around its misshapen muzzle. The sparks were gone. It knew it could use its own burning against them. Already its flames were turning black and adding evil smoke to its cloak of pain.

"Friar Rudel saw something the beast did not. For, hovering there, just on his side of the staff, was a single red spark. It glowed. It faded. It glowed brighter, then faded farther. And Friar Rudel began to pray, fervently, over and over: 'We stand in circles of light that none may cross, we stand in circles of light that none may cross, we stand in circles of light that none may cross, bless and protect us in this and all we do Mighty Mother of the World, we stand in circles of light that none may cross ...' Feeling a presence next to him, Friar Rudel turned, still praying, to see that Hannibal the Talkative knelt to his left and had added his voice to the prayer, his own eyes focused on the same tiny, weak spark.

"The beast crouched, gathering its strength.

"Both men raised their voices and as they did so, the spark grew brighter and began to float upward in that meandering way sparks have, closer and closer to the oil-soaked rags. Seeing this, they got even louder, Friar Rudel began to sing the prayer and Hannibal the Talkative tried his best to add a harmony to the melody of Friar Rudel. Reaching a crescendo, Hannibal went slightly flat; the spark began to droop backwards and away from the rags and Friar Rudel turned, smacking him on the back of the head and gesturing to raise his pitch. The beast launched himself into the air. Hannibal went a tone too high and the spark flew up into the wind-driven snow above their improvised torch; Rudel smacked Hannibal again and sang the correct note which Hannibal immediately matched.


"The beast was in the air, mouth open, teeth jutting, eyes wild, claws extended.


"The spark moved down behind the rags.


"Friar Rudel switched from Hannibal's correct harmony, pointing at Hannibal to indicate that Hannibal must maintain his harmonic pitch as Friar Rudel hit the final note of the melody.


"Everything was still for a moment. Wind, snow, the leaping beast ready to devour them, the spark glowing brighter, even hot for a moment.


"Then the spark moved straight back a space, paused a hair, and shot directly into the rags of the torch, igniting the oil and the rags and sending up a sudden wall of blood red flame in the circle around them. 


"The beast, his gaping mouth inches from Friar Rudel's throat, was caught halfway across the boundary inscribed by Father Robert's staff. He howled one last time as the red flames burned him right in half at the waist, burning off the tip of his wickedly barbed penis as well. A look of surprise and confusion on his face, his upper torso skidded in the snow to cross the circle and hit the fire on the other side, where it again burned in half. His legs and the bleeding majority of his monstrous penis fell to the snow outside the circle, leaking red blood tinged with a black, greasy ichor. 

"Friar Rudel took the woodsman's axe wielded by Hannibal the Talkative and used it to flick the gigantic barbed head of the beast's penis outside the circle, then moved to the back of the circle and did the same. Each piece he flicked through the fire was burned in half again, so that by the time he was done, there were six smoldering chunks of the burning beast leaking their black-tinged blood into the snow, where it smoked and gave off a smell of sulfur and grinding, burning bone.


"Warmed by the incarnadine fire, Friar Rudel was able to examine Father Robert and the mysterious girl where they hung limp over the packs of Abelard the Donkey and Bluebell the Mule. By a miracle -- or, perhaps, by the magic of this strange mountain -- they were both alive, breathing, but only just. He was turning to remark on this to Hannibal the Talkative when Hannibal himself gave a cry and pointed through the flames to where the left half of the beast's torso lay twitching in the snow.


"Twitching. It hadn't been twitching before. But as Friar Rudel watched, the black smoke issuing from its blood began to coalesce around it, and though the beast's innards and lungs, torn raggedly by the fire, leaked onto the snow around it -- the beast opened its left eye. The beast flexed its left arm. As they watched, it began to pull the bloody, blackened snow about its gaping, torn body, half its foul face grinning at them as it coughed and hacked on its own leaking fluids. 


"Turning, Rudel saw tiny arms and a face beginning to sprout from each separate half of the beast's severed penis tip. The eyes of each face were fixed on his own eyes, watching him as mouths formed and the halves of the beastcock began to squall like babies. The beast's lower body was rutting in the snow, shoving its ruined phallus deep into the bloody ice and presently ejaculated a great gob of greenish, acidic semen, its great torn penis pulsing and jerking as it squirted quarts of its foul seed. Thus mixed with its smoking blood, the seed began to form pinkish matter that looked like a kind of raw pork stew. Hannibal the Mute grew pale. 'I may never eat pig again,' he said.


"Friar Rudel turned to the slumped form of his barely-alive friend Father Robert. 'Robert,' he begged. 'You're still alive -- if you can hear me at all, please, please help us. Can you help us? Is there a way to wake you, to heal you, to bring you back and get you to speak?! Please, Robert! We're running out of time!'


"Silence and the wind, filled by the sound of the squalling beastcock babies and the coughing, hacking laugh of the slowly regenerating beast, was all that answered Friar Rudel.


"He closed his eyes. Searching for a place of peace within himself, he tried to ignore the sounds of evil rebirth coming from the snow outside the circle. He is a priest, you are a monk, yet you are not so different; you are both men, he told himself. You created sigils tonight that delighted the Merry Guardian, wherever he's gone; mayhaps you can do something better, brighter, clearer. What if you could bring Father Robert back awake, bring him awake for even a moment, just to ask him one question?


"Opening his eyes, Friar Rudel stepped forward and, facing East, began inscribing a series of complex but connected symbols in the air; first a framework, then, moving counter-clockwise, a basis for the sigil. Finally, moving clockwise over the basis, he inscribed what he thought and hoped would be the best miniature sigils to put at the twelve points of the image that now hung, suspended in blue white light, in the air before him.

"Hannibal the Talkative stood by Abelard the Donkey and stared in frank amazement.

"Never pausing to think, Friar Rudel smacked his right hand onto the top of the flaming torchstaff whose magic protected them, setting his hand aflame with oil and the red fire of the single spark that had lingered. Then he stepped forward and, planting his red-flaming hand in the center of his utterly new and untried sigil, shouted, 'Awake, Robert! Come back to us and heal!'

"There was a blinding blue-white flash of light from the sigil, echoed by lightning shattering down from the clouds to strike the peaks all around them, deafening thunder a second behind.

"The sigil hung in the air, its parts moving and weaving within its framework, the blue-white of its lines now edged with red flame. Where Friar Rudel had stood was only a set of footprints in the snow."

Mother Henrietta stops, holds up a hand, looking around in the forested California night. Everyone behind us takes a knee in alert combat stance or whatever it would be called.

"What is it?" I whisper.

"It's ... time. This is the place," says Mother Henrietta.

I hear a wet snap and a warm mist covers my face. I know this feeling.

Mother Henrietta falls to the trail, more wet snaps erupt around me, some hitting the embankment to my right, some hitting the Rachels and Ezekiels just behind me and I'm just standing here as I realize they're shooting. They're shooting at us. 

Rachels and Ezekiels are shooting back, someone tackles me and I fall on Mother Henrietta. Whoever tackled me is shielding me, there's blood everywhere, I can feel it. Too much blood.

Mother Henrietta is dead.