Chapter 3
In my own defense, I had not slept well ever since that bizarre encounter at the museum. In a misguided attempt to get some much-needed rest, I had tried to read an ancient handwritten volume I discovered in my grandfather’s study. Poring over its yellowed pages within the comfort of an over-stuffed chair beside a crackling fire on the hearth, I might have dozed off.
Sometime between the hours of midnight and dawn, I was awakened from a dream in which I fought to escape a terror I could not name. But like many dreams, the details escaped me when at last, I awoke. Shaken and somewhat unsettled by the experience, I was startled when I thought I heard the sonorous tones of a Gregorian chant in the still night air. Holding my breath, the deep somber tones of the chant could be clearly heard though I could not sense the direction from which they came. Rising to investigate, I opened my bedchamber door to peer cautiously into the dimly lit hallway beyond.
The chant swelled to surround me standing there alone as the complex melody drew me irresistibly into the corridor where with halting steps, I abruptly stood before a dark door that was unfamiliar to me.
I could feel the deep vibration of the melodic chant through the soles of my feet; hear the sound of many voices raised in expectant supplication.
The smooth crystalline doorknob turned in my hand before I realized I had reached for it and the door swung inward forcefully on a gust of hot wind. Carried forward by my own momentum, I stepped across the threshold and into thin air, falling
down onto barren ground. Stunned, I scrambled to my feet and looked about me in search of the dark doorway I had only just stepped through. Turning about, I perceived nothing but the unbroken grey face of a splintered rock wall as I tried to shield my eyes from a wind that carried with it a fine grit.
The chant stuttered then and failed as a circle of robed figures turned to stare in astonishment at
me; the strangely robed figure that inexplicably appeared from nowhere within their very midst.
One robed figure then turned to another saying, “Do you yet harbor doubts? As the prophesy was written,
as he is called, so shall he suddenly be amongst you.”
Stricken, the admonished one dropped to his knees pressing his face to the bare ground in repentance, “Forgive me, Sire. I ... I was a fool not to believe.”
“Make haste then squire, fetch a cloak for the T
raveler. He has come from afar,” intoned the hooded figure. “And we will speak no more of belief this night.”
“Yes, my lord,” the young squire replied before springing to his feet and scurrying away.
I ducked when the unmistakable ring and clash of swords reached my ears above the keening of the wind. If I were to believe my senses, the hoarse cries of men engaged in combat punctuated with the shrill screams of pain suggested I had somehow stepped across my threshold onto an ancient battlefield.
In disbelief, I stared about in confusion when a cry of alarm went up from a close quarter. The robed figure rushed to my side to lift a battered shield above our heads in response. In less than a moment, a hail of black arrows filled the air with deadly whistling and some found their mark despite the shouted warning. In horror, I watched the returning squire fall at our feet, pierced through the throat with a black fletched arrow, gurgling as he fell in his own blood.
The robed figure retrieved the heavy leather cloak the squire carried and laid it reverently upon my shoulders.
“
Traveler, forgive us for calling upon you once again in our time of need,” the robed figure pleaded. “From the very beginning of this doomed quest, we have been beset on every quarter by creatures and those most surely possessed by demons. Though we have fought valiantly, too many of us have fallen to reach this last lonely place where we are now surrounded by our enemies. Our numbers diminish by the hour and I fear the quest we were entrusted must end in failure. Lest you intervene, the
key I carry may fall within the reach of the damned and as we both know,
that must not happen.”
“
Traveler, please take the object of our quest so that these brave knights shall not have sacrificed their lives in vain. Redeem us this night
, take this damned
key and carry it beyond the reach of these demons as only you are able,” the robed figure implored as he reached within his hood.
Drawing a rough leather cord from about his neck with a weary sigh, he withdrew a glittering black key. “You
must take it from me,
Traveler, for I have been bound to it so long that I can bear its weight no longer.”
Between us, to my surprise, my own outstretched hand appeared to enclose the glittering key as I willingly accepted the object of his doomed quest. I was immediately struck by the strange icy chill of the black object against the flesh of my hand. He slowly bowed his head in resignation to allow the cord to be slipped from about his neck. The knight sighed deeply and shrank back as though finally relieved of the burden of some terrible load as the creatures surrounding their lost quest howled eerily, redoubling the ferocity of their attacks as if sensing the object of their foul desires slipping away.
With a guttural roar, a grotesque monstrosity that might once have been a dire wolf or some great cat leaped to land upon a knight guarding the edge of the besieged camp to bite and tear at him with wicked teeth and claws. The knight fell to the ground gutted while another fought on despite wounds inflicted by the fangs of the hideous beast that continued to thrash and scream in defiance even as it was pinned to the ground by the blade of his longsword.
“Redeem us,
Traveler, for this night we are as surely lost as the sun will rise on the morrow,” the hooded figure intoned as he started up the Gregorian chant again and it was taken up by others. The deep vibration of the melodic chant an incongruous counterpoint to the clash of battle going on all around us against an unspeakable evil.
As I turned away, I beheld my very own dark doorway beckoning with soft amber light from within an alcove of the fractured rock above me.
With a frantic leap, I grasped the edge of the door jamb and pulled myself bodily across the threshold. Standing, I looked back in time to see yet another hideous creature vault the battle lines to attack the doomed camp before I slowly and firmly closed that dark door to halt the howling wind and dust.
With the closing of the door, the Gregorian chant was silenced, cut off as though with the edge of a keen blade. Impossibly I stood on soft carpet in my own dimly lit hallway in utter silence. The heavy leather cloak on my shoulders trailed gray streamers of fine dust behind me as I stumbled down the hall to my own dark bedchamber door. Entering there, I collapsed into my over-stuffed chair, exhausted and filthy, my elbows falling to rest upon my knees. In my right hand lay the sweat-soaked leather cord from which still hung the darkly glittering icy key.
The hearth where a cheery, crackling fire was burning, surely no less than half an hour before had fallen inexplicably dark and cold. An ominous tapping at the windowpane drew me hesitantly forward to find only the branch of a barren tree tapping at my windowsill in the wind, the culprit responsible.
Slowly drawing the heavy curtain back from the casement and peering out upon my world, I was astonished to find a thick layer of freshly fallen snow blanketing the once familiar landscape below.
Although frequently guilty of losing track of time or the exact date, I was quite certain this could be no later than the fourth or perhaps the fifth of September! Unlatching the lock, I pushed open the window on stubbornly resisting hinges where an icy wind brought a flurry of snow and the strains of Christmas carolers below spreading their holiday cheer.