Phillips Harbour
Tuesday, October 27. Night.
After a cold and unpleasant night out on the Hill, Randall and Yotee spend most of Tuesday at home and asleep. At least one good thing has come of the meeting with the Closers on Monday night: neither the witchhunters nor the sheriff darken Randall's door again on Tuesday. Which is just as well: if they did get a look around, it'd be hard to explain the fox skin pinned to the barn wall and its attendant paraphenialia, and some of the ritual equipment in his safe room would be ... problematic, as well.
Yotee sleeps fitfully and restlessly, waking several times during the course of the day, only to shift position or move from the cellar to the kitchen and go back to sleep again. When he finally decides to stay awake, the moon has risen over the harbor, and Randall is outside working on a divination.
It's not going very well. He's kneeling in the moonlight on a patch of cleared ground, with the corpses of a handful of small animals littering the ground around him: a mouse, a squirrel, a couple of sparrows. There's nothing visibly wrong with the animals and no blood on the ground, though Randall holds a clean knife in his left hand. Crouched before him is a single rabbit, unnaturally still but breathing. A rope tether encircles the rabbit's neck and secures it to a stake in the ground.
Yotee shakes his head, an unpleasant night, fitful sleep, and another dark night. He approaches Randall, at least there's some food. He heads straight for the rabbit.
Randall picks up his rifle, and slings it on his back, across the strap for the leather satchel hanging at his side. "Well, 5th times the charm." He mutters as he carefully cuts it loose. "Hey, guide, not lunch! Leave it be."
If I bite it, it might move faster. Some rabbits do on three legs. However, the coyote doesn't molest the beast for now. Sooner or later Randall will be finished with it. What are you doing?
The rabbit has almost a drugged look to it as Yotee approaches, eyes glazed and staring. When Randall cuts the thong, it turns in a slow circle. It gives a half hop to the north. A step to the east. A stumble, and it sits back on its haunches.
It sits further back on its hindlegs, and lifts its forepaws into the air. Ears slowly rise. Little pink nose twitches. The rabbit blinks a couple of times. Then it shifts its weight forward, and charges at top speed across the field, heading northeast. The overgrown field hides it from view within moments, although signs of its passage are apparent in the shifting and rustling grass
"Hhmm..." Randall watches the rabbit worriedly, as he folds the knife and pockets it. "Blast! I hate this part!" he swears as the rabbit suddenly bolts. "Try to follow it" he says as he takes off after it.
The sudden dash is a jolt to the coyote's instincts, and he takes off after the rabbit as well. He's still thinking of it as lunch. Brunch. Breakfast. Whatever its called when one hasn't eaten for a day. Yotee will have no trouble following the rabbit, and he leaves a wide clear path. He's glad of the run, it saves him having to think.
The rabbit dashes ahead, too small and too fast for Randall's eyes to follow easily. But the man has no such difficulty following Yotee's trail. It's a long run, however, and regular exercise hasn't been on Randall's to-do list this month. Within the first quarter mile, he's started to fall behind. The rabbit leads them through the field, across the stream, into the stand of trees on the other side. In a mile or so, it's crossed one road and then starts into the hilly area beyond the coniferous forest.
Predictably, it's headed for the Hill.
Less predictably, it doesn't go to the top of the Hill, where so much action has already occurred. Instead, it ends its mad dash partway up the steep north slope of the Hill. It comes to a sudden stop a few yards onto a brush-covered ledge, and stands with its forepaws lifted again, ears perked, oblivious to the coyote following hot on its heels. And the man, trailing a few hundred yards behind both.
Are you sure... these critters... weren't taken by... bits of the... hill spirit when... it broke up? Yotee asks, between bounds and lunges in and out of visibility during his pursuit. Could all the little pieces of claw and hoof be returning? Or not.
Predictably, Randall doesn't have the breath to answer, if he had anything to answer. Trotting along determinedly, he worries more about sticking with the chase than with worrying about the reasons. Bloody hill.
Yotee halts. He watches the rabbit, waiting for Randall to catch up. He paws at the ledge, I remember this. I landed here coming down, nights ago.
By the time Randall catches up, the rabbit has dropped to huddle on all fours. It nibbles absently at the leaves of a nearby plant, eyes glazed over again.
Heavy sigh. Heavy, weary sigh. Heavy weary heartfelt put upon and bloody annoyed sigh. Randall packs a lot of meaning into a sigh these days.
There is not much nutritional value in a sigh, and the coyote has had another strenuous exertion on a string of them. He thinks of food first anyhow, Can I eat this one now? It ran somewhere. How is this place not the one you wanted?
"Right, never the easy way. Oh, this is the place, where else would it be?" Randall seems a bit resigned to his fate, but still annoyed, as he digs through the satchel for a canteen. "Looks like you get to watch over me this time, Yotee. I'm going to be taking a look around, make sure nothing walks off with me body while I'm busy, if you would."
Okay. He waits for Randall to sit, or lie down, or take some other unusual posture. Should I bite you if something comes, or if you have bad dreams, or morning arrives? When do you want to be bit?
Settling down with his back to a tree, Randall set the canteen and rifle in his lap. "I don't _want to be bit at all, thank you very much. And I can't really say what you might have to do, since I haven't done this before." He shrugs, and adds "Do what you think you need to, and good luck with it." With that, Randall leans back against the tree and closes his eyes, looking like he's settling down for a nap.
Randall has done this a number of times before. Normally, the world goes grey around him, with the normal features of the world disappearing. A silver cord ties him to his own body, which he otherwise cannot see. All he does perceive are faint shadows and ghosts -- whatever's most significant around him in a magical and spiritual sense. This time starts out like that ....
And then it goes pear-shaped.
The astral world is wrong here. It shifts from empty and grey to overcrowded with stuff. Stuff that he can't describe because it doesn't make any sense to him. It's like trying to see things with his skin, or taste them with his eyes. Or suddenly being able to see after having been blind one's entire life. There's a riot of information all around him: colors, shapes, sounds, scents, patterns -- and he doesn't know what to make of any of it.
Nature is harsh, full of moments cruel in fang and claw; Yotee is hungry so this becomes one. He is kind by swiftness, quickly killing the sedate rabbit and making a meal of it. He licks clumps of fur from his muzzle, and his satiated belly frees his mind for other things. Randall asked him to wait and watch. That's easy enough. The coyote trots over to the man, and shoves himself into his lap, displacing the canteen and rifle. He can borrow some warmth, contemplate the darkness around and the insides of his eyelids and keep an ear out for anything that approaches. Nothing could wander off with Randall without disturbing him as well, and that should do.
Being Randall, he doesn't panic. He remains astral. The riot of nonsensical sensory input continues to wash around him; after a time, he finds himself able to pick out a few familiar things among it. There's the light of his silver cord, short and indicating that his body is nearby -- still there but hard to find among all the other details. There's the shadow of Yotee, faint and wavery. The rabbit is here, barely perceptible at first. Then, as Randall watches, the rabbit's features abruptly sharpen, becoming more solid and real. It looks more dazed then ever, and flops onto its side.
Randall watches the rabbit. It's not doing much of anything, but it makes more sense than almost everything else around him. After a time, he starts to get a sense of continuity between the rabbit's astral self and the rest of the scene. The rabbit gets blurrier, maybe, or the abstract shapes become more concrete, or perhaps it's just that Randall's astral "sight" is coming into some kind of focus. Whichever it is, he can tell that the rabbit isn't the only ghost around. There are many others, all of them much larger and more powerful than the rabbit's, or Randall's own spirit. They don't seem aware of Randall or the rabbit. And while he can tell that they're ghosts, or spirits -- not entirely unlike his own soul -- it's like they're spirits of some wholly alien lifeform.
All the stuff around him isn't ghosts, however. The rest is something else, something he lacks a context for.
Time passes. Moments for Randall are minutes for the coyote, and number in the many. Nothing happens, and those minutes stretch towards an hour. Yotee isn't tired. At first he counts breaths, then flea-bites, then he stares at the sky as it slowly changes. He stands and flops himself over on his other side.
"Well, this waiting seems have gotten me as far as it will." Randall thinks, before reaching over to 'poke' the rabbit in the side, or try to rather. "Wake up!"
The poke makes the astral rabbit jump. Back in the real world, Yotee has a butterfly sensation from his stomach.
The rabbit jerks away from Randall, and runs off, dodging around the strange abstracted ghosts around them.
A few minutes pass for Randall (and another hour for Yotee.)
Yotee's left hind leg kicks. He's happy to be reminded of a meal, though he wonders again what Randall did to it with the knife that made it act so strangely. He needs something to chew. There's Randall's belt, leather is good. The canteen strap is also leather, and there's the stock for the rifle. Any of the three would be a great choice. The coyote decides to work on the canteen's. It's likely tougher, and may have absorbed interesting flavours from hands and horses it has been near. He settles down for a chew as more time passes.
On the astral plane, an immense presence draws near to Randall, dwarfing even the giant ghosts already around him. The giant ghosts scatter and flee like the rabbit did at Randall's poke, although Randall can't tell how they move. Then the presence grabs them -- all of them -- and draws them back. Randall gets the impression the new being is looking at them -- but that what it's really looking for is him.
Meanwhile: mmm, tasty canteen strap!
"Damned if I do..." pretty much sums up Randall's reaction to all this, but it seems like the time to be passive has passed, really. Shuffling through the options, he starts considering the sorts of wards he's done in the past - mostly the "don't see anything here" sort. Maybe there is something that can be pulled together quickly... with no prep-work...and no equipment. Right.
Yotee happily destroys, it makes the time pass faster. Soon he has rended the canteen's straps, torn and stretched them, and swallowed a few pieces in the process. He's interrupted, his head stretching up, ears perked as he listens. Nothing, just his imagination, but it spurs him to find something new to work on. Having passed over the rifle stock and Randall's belt, he decides to choose something else again. A boot will be entertaining. He gets up, works it free of the man's foot then slings it around and chases after it. It smells like Randall, he can pretend Randall is playing, throwing it for him, and not off doing... whatever he's doing.
COME. It's not a word; it's a command. Randall can feel the weight of it, like a giant black hand trying to wrap around his astral cord and pulling. In hte waking world, Yotee's ears prick and his hackles rise, sensing the new and unpleasant force. But the hand can't grasp Randall's cord, and even if Randall wanted to obey he doesn't know how. He can feel the frustration of the gigantic presence, like a shadow seeswaing back and forth through his soul.
Hey! Yotee barks once, switching to a low growl, he looks around as he senses... something. He warns, like a typical animal would. Get your own boot. This one's mine.
"All debts are repaid before the Banefire." Randall reflects on that phrase from his research. "And Shaft is going to owe me for this, even if I can't get anything useful out of it." So, back to waiting, and watching, and trying to figure out what's going on.
LET ME IN. The words form in Randall's head, along with images of wielding immense power, of a giant whose strides take him tens of miles at a step, of summoning firestorms that would destroy cities, of raising mountains from the plains, of holding back tidal waves with a thought. LET ME IN. The order comes with a promise: everything it shows Randall would be his.
"Oh, right, like this is something we haven't heard before, roight?" Randall isn't buying this for a moment. He decides to simply wait it out for now, not responding, not reacting. Not giving the noisy git anything else to work with.
A shadow falls between Yotee and the sun. He hears a voice, as if from a great distance, telling him: open.
Yotee freezes, boot tongue held between his teeth. He doesn't recognize that voice. Randall is doing something he hasn't bothered to explain, and the coyote is mildly interested in being useful, which doesn't give him much motivation or information to work with. Randall wants to Open the portal, this thing might help. Though... he's got a lot of bad experiences with shadows. He howls, Who are you?
Attract its attention; splendid idea...
Another few minutes of groping around Randall, with unpleasant dark hands that are not-quite-real. More images rise in his head: familiar ones, this time. Of the devastation wrought upon man by man. A flight of mechanical dragons ridden by men, raining fire and death upon a city at night. Men torn apart and dying on a battlefield that goes on without end, filled with the flash and noise of sourceless death. A peaceful city which suddenly has its heart ripped out, annihilated in a white flash of an instant. Outside of the destruction is something worse yet, people whose faces and bodies are melting and staggering, shambling horrors waiting for the release of death. Tidal waves that swamp thousands of miles of coastlines, destroying hundreds of thousands of lives. NO HOPE. WITHOUT US. LET US IN.
open, the voice tells Yotee. There's a scent in the air that reminds him of the Spirit Lamp, that beckoning, intriguing promise. open, and receive ... everything.
Nothing new here, either, just the horror he's had to live with for years now. Randall still thinks its a bad idea to do anything but watch, for now. Even talking could be enough to crack open the door. So, stubbornly, Randall remains passive, watching, waiting. He's good at that.
Another few minutes, and the presence seems to get bored with trying to provoke a response. NOT YET. BUT SOON. SOON, it promises. Then it wanders off, taking the alien ghosts with it, leaving Randall alone in this strange sort of astral, surrounded by vibrant shapes and sounds and scents that don't add up to anything that makes sense.
Everything is pretty tempting. The boot is good... but, everything! That's up there with trading land for beads. It's one of those legendary trades that come along once in a lifetime. Plus, opening was the whole point of the Game. Yotee has a great relationship with his impulses, so he asks, How do I do that?
A nagging doubt pricks Yotee's mind, like a flea in an awkward location. Something about the others, making sure they're ready, the Closers agreeing to work with Alorn and St. John, preparations. He dismisses it, surely everything was taken care of while he was sleeping.
A flash of images go through Yotee's head: standing before a great fire, with the Staff, Mother, the Flame all at his side. Plus Randall and a token of a silver fox. Willing the portal to open. Other images: Rev. Hale bound, Mr. Shaft with his throat cut, Miss Townes drowned. stop the closers, and open.
Astrally, Randall can tell that before it withdrew, the presence was intent on something else. He's not sure whom, but he has a hunch it noticed Yotee.
And then the coyote knows how. It all seems straightforward enough. It had to paint a picture, many pictures, but he got it. Well, except for one detail. His next question is obvious enough. Where?
Yotee gets an image of Randall now.
When he's shown the bonfire, over it is a full moon, brighter than the gibbous one tonight.
When has been answered, at least, and Randall knows where, that seems to be everything. Satisfied, Yotee stops asking questions and returns to worrying the boot; no sense annoying more than one master.
Yotee feels something poking at him.
poke poke
He barks, jumps up and looks around to see what it is. What?
Nothing happens while Yotee is alert. But when he settles back down to chewing Randall's boot ....
poke poke
Who? He asks, and for good measure throws in: Why? He settles down back on Randall's lap, watching for this poking-thing. It could get annoying; he'll have to remember that trick for later.
As Randall continues to observe the astral 'terrain' here, patterns in the strangeness start to emerge. It's still wholly unlike anything he's ever observed before, but he can see some elements that are repeated, over and over again. Some types of the stuff around him appear to be common, others unique. He can't touch it, however, even when he tries. Despite how real and vivid it looks -- if anything, it is more real than he is, and here he is the ghostly one.
After futilely trying to poke at it for a bit, Randall takes a chance on wandering away from his body. His silver cord unspools behind him as he moves through the otherworldly space. After a handful of yards, the abundance of stuff starts to fade. Soon he's in one that looks like what he would have expected: a grey void with few landmarks. When he looks back along his cord, he can still see the riot of astral life that he left behind, however. He feels like two astral spaces are touching here in this area: the familiar one and the alien one. Like two circles touching at a tangent point. When he moves away, he moves along the circle of the familiar one; his feet can't find the path to the circle of the alien.
Yotee doesn't feel any new pokes.
... and he is very pleased. He settles down, finally tearing the sole off the boot. It's leather, been to many places and soaked up many things, and it's quite tough. He happily gnaws, waiting. Waiting got him a complete set of instructions, maybe something else will come along. He might have tried waiting before if someone had told him it was so effective. He chews.
Since there doesn't seem to be a way to interact with these other 'things' (for lack of a better, or any, term), and he can't walk further into wherever they are, Randall follows the astral cord back to his body. After seeing the condition of his boot, Randall silently closes his eyes again.
... and the poking resumes.
Yotee decides he isn't interested in the boot after all. With a twist and flick of his head, he flings it away down the hill. He'll just have to settle for Everything now.