One interminable drive, and eight 24 oz coffees later, I was standing in a clearing in the middle of nowhere Arkansas. According to the map I was looking at, I was in the Ozarks. That knowledge didn’t do anything for my sense of ease. The nearest civilization was a place called Mountain View and that was a good 30 minutes away. I don’t have anything against nature, per se, and Uncle Bill had made sure I knew my woodcraft, but I was an urban creature by nature. I liked the certainty of pavement, concrete, and street lights. The woods were pretty enough, but they were also full of things that might bite or eat me. It always struck me as foolish and unwise to spend more time in them than absolutely necessary. This was where Gran told me to go, though, so I found a rock to sit on and waited. According to the paper, the mystery guest was due to arrive within a few minutes.
There wasn’t much warning when it happened, just a quiet surge of power and a mild distortion in the air. One moment the space was empty and the next it was filled with something. I understood why Gran had said I’d recognize him on sight. He was man-shaped, at least, but there was something off about the figure. It felt like dissonance in my head or a film of light oil I couldn’t seem to wash off my fingers. There was also power there in him. I’d fought things that were collectively more powerful than me, but never anything with that much concentrated mojo. I stood and looked at him. He was big, a good six or eight inches taller than me, and at least as bulky as George’s bear of a boss. He wore a dark trench coat and a fedora that shadowed his face. He stopped short as he saw me, and I felt the awful weight of his attention slam against my consciousness. The mental constructs and wards I used to keep everyone out held, by the fingertips.
“Easy there, big guy,” I started, raising a hand.
He started moving toward me and I uttered a word on reflex. The word triggered a restraining ward that spread like a wall of liquid light between me and the thing moving toward me. I heaved a sigh of relief as he stopped on the other side of the wall. I’d held off some terrifying things with that ward and was relieved it had worked again. Then, I stared in utter horror as the figure considered the wall for a whole one count before he buried his hands in the wall and ripped it apart with pure, magical brute strength. He covered the distance between us impossibly fast. The next thing I knew, I was being held aloft by the throat. I was certain that I’d starve to death before he grew tired of holding me up that way. Then, I realized that he’d probably kill me before that. So, at least I wouldn’t die hungry.
I felt the words as much as I heard them. “Why are you here?”
I tried to swallow around the pressure on my throat. “Sent. To ask. Question.”
“What question?”
It was hard, really hard, to get the words out, but I managed to croak them. “Is,” gasp, “the bird,” wheeze, “singing?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The pressure on my throat vanished and I was abruptly staring up at the trench coat-clad titan from the ground. I’d never been as physically afraid of anything in my entire life. This thing was so far beyond me it was almost absurd. I might, might, be able to kill something like him if I had a good six months to plan and the government was willing to loan me a nuclear weapon. I had a moment of irrational fear that Gran had been sheltering me from some profound truths about what I might face in the field. Then I pushed that thought away. She’d warned me not to test this thing’s patience and that he didn’t have much. She just hadn’t quite emphasized how little patience. I couldn’t blame her because I didn’t ask the right questions ahead of time. The thing was staring down at me. I thought it was, anyway, since I couldn’t actually see its eyes through the impossibly dark shadow the fedora cast. He took a deliberate step back from me and gestured that I should stand. I got up on shaky legs and tried to face him with as much dignity as I could muster.
“Tell the Shadowed Queen the bird does not sing, but,” he trailed off for a long moment of thought. “The bird keeper is awake, and the hunter is traveling.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked on reflex.
The figure seemed to consider the question before lifting a huge hand and pointing toward where my rental was parked. I took the hint and started walking. When I got to the edge of the clearing he spoke again.
“Knight.”
I looked back because I was the only other person there. The fedora turned in my general direction.
“Raven’s Council.”
Then there was another one of those quiet surges of power and distortions in the air. The figure, whoever or whatever the hell he was, vanished as quickly as he came. I shivered and rubbed at my aching neck. I tried to make sense of what he’d said, but it was like he’d been talking in a foreign language. Who was the shadowed queen? Had he meant Gran and, if so, why had he called her that? I was pretty sure she wasn’t royalty. I knew damn well that I wasn’t any kind of knight. And what had the business about birds and a hunter been about? I had another bout of concern that maybe Gran was keeping things from me that I should know for my own safety. The very thought felt like a betrayal but I couldn’t shake it. I walked back to my rental in physical pain and emotional disquiet. If Gran was keeping things from me, I needed to know why. I’d never questioned before. I’d never felt the need, and I didn’t like the feeling. Certainty had always been my greatest weapon, in my own opinion. It was easy to go right to the wall if you knew you were on the side of the angels. Was I on the side of the angels, though? I wasn’t as certain anymore.
Normally, I’d have called Gran to report what happened, but I wasn’t ready for that. I wanted to see her face when I told her what that horrendously powerful thing had told me. If she was keeping important things from me, I’d see it on her face. I didn’t delude myself. I knew Gran kept secrets. She knew things, had power, and secrets went with those facts. Hell, I’d only been old enough to go into a bar for a few years and even I had enough secrets to fill a sizeable warehouse. Yet, I didn’t keep those secrets from Gran. For the first time, the drive home was a long, lonely thing filled with unhappy, traitorous thoughts. For the first time, I wasn’t happy to be going there.