The Adventures of Niall Cadfael MacLir

You do not recognise me, I see this, as you fumble about in confusion, grasping for some way of determining how I know these things”, the man said, a shadow of a smile curling about his lips. “I know I have been gone these ten years, but even my wife does not think my appearance has changed that much”>

“You speak as if you know this area, but obviously you have not learned sufficient respect, else you would not speak so of Holy Mother Church. What you have spoken is blasphemy, even now the priests are on their way”, the old man responded. “Even if you were my son, there is no hope for you now, nothing I would even do for you, for you are beyond redemption”.

“Then share this coffee with me, old man, and let us wait for these priests of yours, let them come, and you shall learn about things the Church has deemed too inflammatory for the common man to know, let alone understand. Let them come, and we will see who is correct, and who is sent scurrying away like whipped curs. Best they bring the regiment of Witch Hunters too, else I have to hunt them down, and eliminate all the evil being wreaked upon this land, do it the hard way, I mean”.

So the old man waited for for the priests, and their Witch Hunters, and the Man sat back against the tree and closed his eyes. The shadows grew, and were waxing long when the priests rode up, shrieking shrill epithets about the evil of fire. The Man drained his cup, threw the dregs to the trees, and stood up. The shadows swayed, and leapt, and huddled about the priests as brilliant fire illuminated the grove. A creature of elemental fire walked out of the camp fire, the sparks rising from her form, and dancing upon a sudden breeze. “These are the men who would condemn fire”, she asked.

The priests got up their courage, for a moment, and began the ritual for the banishment of evil, and she laughed at them, the flames swirling about her, dancing as if they were dancers in a grand masque. The priests finished their incantation, and nothing happened, they started calling out in the name of Mother Church, and still nothing happened, then she moved. The priests shrieked in abject terror, their garments fouling about their feet, tripping them so that they landed in a puddle of their own making. The Witch Hunters were a heartier breed, and leapt forward to deal with the woman of flame, only to be met by a sword slashing from the hand of the man. Several it passed through before it landed in one of them. Those it passed through fell to the side shuddering, and confused, and uncertain as to what had occurred.

Then the battle began in earnest, The one in whom the sword had become bound screamed out an ancient challenge, and pulled out his own sword, and tried to bury it in the Man. What ever skills the creature may have had had long since grown rusty from disuse, the man parried the slash, and cut inward with a slice of his own. The Witch Hunter staggered backwards shadows bleeding from an open wound. Then the fire elemental attacked a pillar of flame burst from her engulfing the Witch Hunter, and turned from an ordinary flame to one with such white hot intensity that the very ground began to melt beneath it.

We started on our way once more, my lessons from the Priest continued during the day, and at night the Herald was there to teach me the use of the armor, and weapon. The days grew shorter as we travelled north, and the nights colder, and yet Becka and I managed to stay warm. More than once the priests would go off, and scout the region ahead, and leave Becka and I to ourselves for the night, though the conflagration was not so intense as previous times, still the priests mumbled about indiscriminate incendiary effects. Those nights we slept very warm indeed. I never thought about how the priests kept warm, The passion for my bride intensely burned through all other thoughts.

About a month after my weapons training had begun, the Herald informed me I had learnt as much from him as he was willing to teach me, all else I must learn on my own. As he left a wind swirled about, electricity crackling about the air, and he walked into the face of a cliff, disappearing from sight. It was not the last time we met, but the last time he came as my teacher. It was then we began noticing signs of this strange evil we had been sent to deal with, perhaps they had been there all along, but with the accompaniment of the Herald of the Most High, they made themselves scarce.

Occasionally we sighted flocks of birds, sometimes flocks of sheep, or goats, as the land was mostly all tilled there was little wild game. The sheep looked as if they had not been shorn in several years, the goats looked jsut as ragged their numbers swelled to an almost impossible size for domesticated creatures. Yet there were no signs of herdsmen, not even an old encampment. Once we spotted a dog, it looked like it should have been dead of hunger, and yet it walked its way with no sign of infirmity. The dog would likely have gone about its business had it not seen us... No sooner did the dog lay eyes upon us than it attacked, snarling a threat, dead lips curled back against foul looking, rotting teeth. Becka hit the poor creature with a bolt of flame, such that any ordinary creature would have been dead. Flaming like a falling star it streaked towards us, unfazed by the fire. I pulled out my sword, and struck the creature a shattering blow, as my sword slashed its arc through the creature a black shadow came spilling out of it, destroyed by the touch of my blade. The dogs body continued on its course coming to a rest at the feet of the priest, where it rotted to a skeletal remains in mere moments.

“That was odd”, the new priest commented, as the creature continued its decomposition. “The sword did not kill the poor thing, it was already dead, it was reanimated by a dark magic that prevented its spirit from leaving the body”.

“What is to stop that dark magic from doing so again”, Becka asked.

“When the sword passed through its body it tore a darkness out, and destroyed it, the darkness was the same dark magic, I think, that attacked us back on the day Niall called upon the Creator for help”, said Artwys, our Anamchara.

“A magic that does not let its victims die, that is horrible”, returned Becka, her hair turning a deep red, and flames licking about her eyes.

I always thought my wife looked beautiful, but as the flames danced about her eyes, i saw a terrible aspect to her beauty, I saw a visible seepage of her consuming passion. I felt the revulsion for this horrendous damning that existed, and we both burned with desire to destroy it once and for all. Indeed both the priests were visibly sickened by the thought that any had the power to enact such a horrible curse.

“We must be within the demense of the demon now”, suggested Peter, the second priest, “It would make sense, if my scriptorium was the outer edge, the shadows have quite a range. We best be on our guard lest they assail us again”.

“Let them come”, said Becka, “We have your prayers, Niall's sword, and my flames, they will rue the day they saw us as easy prey”.

“Becka”, said Artwys, “Niall's sword can destroy the shadows, yes, but there is something we possess that is much more powerful, it is light, shadows cannot exist in the presence of light, in fact they flee from light, as long as we are with in a pure light we are safe from their attack”.

We continued along the path, the priests and Becka continued their conversation, light versus a sword that could slay shadows, I felt Beckas indignation that the priests would think that something as insubstantial as light could be so powerful, but I had a feeling that the priests were talking of something very different than what my lovely wife thought they were. It ought not have been a surprise, they were often speaking to one another in riddles, using words I barely understood, or sometimes ones that seemed to be in a different language interspersed in their conversations. It was enough to drive one mad, if one paid enough attention to it, but I did not.

The skies were blue, not a cloud rippled its way across their surface, as much as the area seemed calm, peaceful, even tranquil, a deepening sense of unease, of disquiet seemed to emanate from everywhere. Not a bird chirruped, not an insect sang, there was no sound of civilization, even the animals were silent. All would have been entirely silent except the priests babbling away, together, incoherently, maddeningly annoying. Just as it seemed I could not stand their incessant chatter, they too went silent, the oppressive gloom of the place affected them also. The road widened into a broad highway as we walked along it, the ruts of wagons could be seen, but the countryside was slowly overtaking the road, it appeared to not have seen much use in many years.

Not a wagon, nor a rider, nor even a pedestrian did we see along that empty stretch, the only creature we had seen was the dog, that had attacked us earlier, and all of a sudden the town came upon us unexpectedly. It was wide open, with little stone walls bordering the road, an occasional tree spreading her branches out to the sky, so we ought to have seen the town before, we ought to at least smelled the town, the garbage, the smoke from fires, something, but there was no noticable trace until we were right in it.

The town showed the signs of long decay, shutters banged in the breeze, flowerbeds were all wilted, the trees withered and dry, the buildings tarnished from disuse. If we had walked into a ghost town I would not have been surprised, except there were no ghosts, there were people who looked like they had rather have been ghosts. The people shambled about, with no apparent destination, nor employment. The youngest that I could see appeared no older than a couple of hundred of years old, skin all wrinkled, hair long, unkempt, some had hair dragging down upon the ground. Their fingernails were long and cracked, and there was no life in their eyes, not a gleam, not a glimmer of even intelligence. There were no animals there, not a horse, nor a chicken, but they resembled the occupants of the town. At first we tried approaching one or two of the people, but it was as if we did not exist for all the response we received.

(Authors note: In the fulness of time there will be more added to here, however, this is the tale to the point i had my computer crash, and then moved between countries. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to continue this tale, should there be enough interest).