Harken

Chapter 7

Harken stumbled towards the misty forest outside the palace walls. He was deaf to the shouts from where he had come and numb from the impact of his jump. The thin, wispy trees swayed to the rhythm of the gentle swirling breeze ambling through them. The earthy path winding towards the wall of fog was coated in crisp frost, crunching underfoot. It was tranquil there and Harken wanted to stay but he pushed through the fog. The moon had risen high, casting moonlight through the fog, glowing eerily all around. Twilight hummed through the atmosphere and was accompanied by inhuman whispers. They urged him to follow their voices, to find them, that he would be happy, they had everything he could ever want. It took all his headspace to drown them out. The fog was clinging to Harken now, only a few steps into the forest but a metre into something else. It began to shape into faces and bodies, eyes in the gloom. Then it began to speak in voices he couldn't not recognise, voices he didn't ever want to hear. "Harken, why did you drown me?" Promise mused, her ghost like form blowing over in the wind. "Why? We could have been friends. Good friends who helped each other. I could have given you the world, a penthouse in our cathedral and human blood as sacrifices. And you turned me away... poor boy". Her lungs drifted in the wind. Harken started to move faster, he hated it here. Now the breeze turned into a gale, pushing him back and urging him to turn around, go back. It even took new forms: a dying child, a dying bird. He ignored these and continued, until it came. An apparition: the red man-boy, made of swirling red smoke, staring with fearful eyes. His gaze turned to a chill in Harkens spine, an icy plea. "Harken, you're going to find me aren't you? Well you won't find me first, ok. My younger brother, Anicetus, he's taking a potion to look like me...", but he was cut off by Harken's monotone words. "Alexiares, I don't know if I'm going to find you. I don't know what to do. I was born a month or so ago, with no purpose or family or anything. The universe seems to have a plan for me and yet I don't know where to start. They think I'm their ace, their king but I feel more like the joker". It was the first time hurt invaded Harkens eyes, and tears were beginning to form, never to fall. The men shared a feeling of helplessness and pain. "Harken, I will be your family," Alexiares whispered, "we will leave this hellhole and we'll climb the tallest peaks and walk the barren deserts of this world until we find your purpose. We are tied by something above us and beyond earth, and that will never leave us until we die". Then the figure was swept away, the space left behind feeling empty and bare. On Harken went.
******
Silence had settled on Harkens shoulders after the encounter, and hadn't budged. It's grip on him tightened as he glimpsed the outline of a building in the distance, with great relief. It was a stone church of a pallid hue, with ghastly looming towers and stained glass windows blemished with layers of grime. It stood in the forest like a decaying skeleton, a sore thumb in the soup of mist. Large arched wooden doors, heavily neglected and vandalised, stood slightly open to display and tattered and sordid jade rug. The doors creaked as Harken made his entrance, a lone sailor in a sea of empty wooden pews, forgotten holy bibles gathering dust under their seats. There was an altar there, with a grey-haired balding man before it, praying with deep earnest and a desperate sense of hope. Harken knelt down beside him, look at the man's wrinkled face and asked, "where am I sir?".
The worshipper was slightly startled by the words, but blurted out, "you're in Silva Church, north-west of the royal palace, speaking to the Vicar Wallace Morton. And who are you, boy?".
"I'm Harken, vicar, and I just came from the palace. The forest is rather strange, very..".
He was interrupted by the Vicar: "It's awfully odd, that forest but probably because of all those lost souls people say it has. And if you came from the palace, then you must be that boy born from that machine and oh, you sound like it. Just because you came from a machine doesn't mean you can't use a bit of emotion. You're probably on a mission to save someone or save this place, but there's no saving a nightmare, my boy. There's a dictator in a tower calling for complete faith in his holy self, thinking he's higher than Jesus himself, and those rebels are making dodgy deals all around. People say they're gonna be puppet leaders, controlled by those funny criminals from outside, so they can get what they want and bend us to their will, my boy. And if you ask me, which you didn't, I would hot-foot it out of here before anything goes too wrong. My plan is to stay here and hide away, with my bibles and my God". The Vicar Morton finally finished his speech, an internal soliloquy that had punctured his lungs and seeped free, to finally raise his head from prayer and look nervously at the silent Harken.
"Sorry about that, my boy," his words were soothing and calm, "but I've lost faith in almost everything. I don't know if you can save us, but if you can then please hurry up. We don't have long. Feel free to take a bible on your way out".
"Thank you sir, but where are the rebels?", Harken whispered, only to be met with a dodgy finger in a diagonal direction. Walking out of the church, bible under his arm, Harken couldn't help but feel like he should return. He liked the Vicar, and there weren't many people worth liking anymore. He passes the slate gravestones on his way out, which he had ignored before. He ran his hands along their mossy tops, read the inscriptions and then halted at one in particular. It was different from the rest, unblemished white marble with fresh flowers in a glass vase. It had only one terrifying inscription: The Machine-Made Angel, nowhere in time, dead to us now.