HFTH - Episode 189 - Sanctums

Content warnings for this episode include: Animal death (several CPE’s), Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Birds (Omen as usual), Suffocation, Emotional Manipulation, Bugs, Body horror, Consumption of Inedible Materials, Religious Violence, Al has no skin as usual, Life Support, Brain Death/Coma, Giant Squid Cannibalism, Spiders, Drowning

Intro - Tribulation Years

You learned early that it was your role to only speak when spoken to, and it taught you modesty and respect. You learned that you were born to follow the guidance of your parents, and it taught you obedience and humility. Your family had discipline and others did not; they shunned worldly pleasures and the slippery paths the devil always offered to lead mankind astray. Especially in these final days, to mislead these chosen few.

They told you that you had been born into the end times. The book of revelation was unleashed upon the earth, and all of its black rains and green lightning that were different, they told you, from the storms that came before. You were filled with fear, but also with awe and reverence—now were the years of tribulation before heaven on earth would begin. In the years since, you have found others like you, unchanged by the rains which reveal the hidden sin—you have learned how to fight for them, bleed for them. If you must, you will die for them. But the years of tribulation have run long, and you are still no closer to ridding the world of its evils, which sing louder every year Hello From The Hallowoods.

Theme.

Right now, I am several dimensions to the left of yours. The flames I walk through have nothing to do in this place—the concept of fire here is foreign, as is combustion and loss. Everything stays in this place, resisting the change that eternities bring elsewhere. It is a sacred dimension, known only to its dwellers and a very few who stumble in from far abroad and hope to remember where they left their doors. The theme of tonight’s episode is Sanctums.

Story 1 - Heaven Is An Empty Place

Harrow sat in a chair missing all but one of its legs. It remained quite stable and upright regardless. Gravity was uncertain, attempting to make up its mind like a shy first kisser. Harrow watched the ghost of the skinless boy named Al whir around the table of the abandoned cafeteria hall. Xe had spent a lot of listless lunches sitting alone at one of the smaller side tables—up until the summer class, xe had never really had friends at school.

“This isn’t as fast as I can go,” said Al, “but it almost is. I can go even faster if I could just go straight, but grandma Zelda won’t let me go outside.”

“I just want to keep an eye on you,” said Zelda. Her old ghost wandered the side of the table, pushing down plates and glassware that had begun to drift upwards into the void. Some of the objects seemed to have rendered incorrectly, taking on fractal appearances as if several different shattered plates had been glued together at odd angles. “All my life I spent on solid ground, or mostly solid. And I still think it’s the best. If you fly out there you might just disappear, like a shooting star.”

“I’m almost as fast as a shooting star!” said Al, whirring past Harrow’s seat again as he orbited the hall, and the light he shone with was just as bright.

“I would have made a nice spaghetti but I haven’t found a way to cook here, and I haven’t really needed to on account of being an angel now,” Zelda said.

“It is alright. I am never really hungry,” said Harrow. “You two are in good spirits after all this time.”

“Time?” said Zelda, looking up, and the ghostly rings of her irises dilated to differing degrees. “Has it been long? I suppose it wouldn’t make a difference to us. Angels in heaven live forever and ever.”

“It had been over ten years since the library burned, when I entered this place,” said Harrow. “But I have been traveling in here for some time, and yes, it is hard to tell. I do not know if time really means the same thing here. Nothing else does.”

“Some things mean the same as they always did,” said Zelda, looking around as Al whipped past the table again. “My grandson having so much energy to burn does. Love does. Having fun does.”

“Are you two happy here?” said Harrow.

“Al, would you see if there are any drinks in the kitchen? Our guest must be thirsty,” she said, drifting down into a chair, her wisps of smokelike curling hair drifting.

Before Harrow could say that xe also was not thirsty, Al had said, “Super fast I will!” and then departed with a rush of wind down the end of the cafeteria and through the doors to the kitchens.

Zelda smiled, and looked from the swinging doors back to Harrow.

“For the first time in half my life, I’m not in pain anymore. I can move how I want. I can keep up with Al. We have our fun. We play games. I worry sometimes if it’s good for him to be here, if he should see more people beyond the five of us, if he should have friends his age—but he didn’t have much luck with that at the Scoutpost. He tried, he really tried, you know. I just wish my Jonah could come to visit me here. I wish for that. But otherwise, I’m happy as a gourd.”

“The five?” said Harrow. “Who are the other three?”

“Well, misters Raven and Writingdesk are downstairs, and then beneath that lurking around somewhere is your bitch of a mother.”

“Grandma! Bad word!” Al called from the cafeteria doors, holding an empty glass in his glowing skeletal hands.

“Sorry. Setting a bad example,” said Zelda. Al was over beside Harrow in a flash, and set the cup down in front of xem.

“The water doesn’t work, so you can just imagine it’s full of tasty soda or whatever you want,” said Al.

“Mmm. Delicious,” Harrow said, pretending to sip and opening and closing xir lips. “How is she? My mother?”

“Oh. Horrible like always,” said Zelda. “Throwing tantrums that move everything around. But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? See, that’s nice of you. Visiting her.”

“I actually came here to rescue her, if she is alive,” said Harrow. Inside xir hollow chest was a growing gnawing dread. Had xe been hoping that she would be dead after all, and that only peace would be found here in the void? What had really beckoned xem into the infinite darkness of lost dimensions: hope, or a desperate wish for closure?

“Everyone needs rescuing from this place,” Zelda continued, looking up at the dark ceiling and its fractal chandeliers. “It killed my husband, you know. Killed my Jonah. Killed my grandson. Killed me.”

“It made us angels,” Al intoned. “I like being an angel more than a… a.”

“Ghost?” said Harrow. Al plugged the sides of his head where full ears might once have sat.

“You don’t have to say it,” whispered Zelda. “He’s scared of ghosts.”

“Is it alright if he shows me to the others?” said Harrow. “I could use a guide who knows the place.”

Zelda looked to Al, and he raised his skinless brows.

“Just be careful,” she said.

“I will,” said Al. “I’ll even go super slow so you can keep up!”

Harrow followed behind Al as he darted ahead down the halls, poking at picture frames and flicking peeling scrolls of wallpaper.

“How are you enjoying life here, Al?” said Harrow, xir black shoes on disintegrating brown carpets whose holes gave way to nothingness. “It seems like a frightening place, but you and your… grandmother seem to be making the most of it.”

“I miss all my friends,” said Al. “Does Russell miss me? What about Arnold and Victoria and Riot and Percy and-”

“Well, I know some of those people,” said Harrow. “Arnold and Russell are still good friends. Arnold isn’t just a hand anymore. They’re groundskeepers now, and they work on solving supernatural problems.”

“Riot was a groundskeeper,” said Al. “My friend Riot.”

“I’m not as familiar with her but I know who you mean,” said Harrow. “Victoria doesn't always see eye to eye with us these days but she’s doing great work writing for the Scout City Almanac. It’s a newspaper.”

“Wow,” said Al. “And what do you do?”

“Oh,” said Harrow, and paused. “Well. Ah. For a while, I took care of Arnold mainly, until he grew enough to take care of himself. And then I did a lot of studying, with whatever I could find from Downing Hill. To learn how to develop my powers more, open my doors. To come here.”

“Wow,” said Al. “Everyone’s doing such big things. I hope they remember me.”

“Well,” said Harrow conspiratorially, “They’ll all be very impressed when I tell them how well you’ve been doing your job.”

“What’s my job?” whispered Al.

“Being the protector of the spooky library,” said Harrow, gesturing down the hall.

“Right!” said Al, becoming more serious, and he punched the wall with his transparent fist.

They arrived at a hall where embers glowed in veins through blackened wallpaper, pulsing but neither spreading nor dimming. At the end, across blood-spattered tiles, Harrow jumped as xe noticed two people sitting against a wall. Al however was unperturbed, and floated onwards. Harrow crept after him, and came to inspect the two that sat. They were human figures, distorted and shifting from one facet to the next, much like the rest of the library itself—splintered and unbound from reality. In most facets, they were two men in tattered grey suits. A very large man with dark skin sat with his arm around a very small one with scrawny legs and large eyebrows. They appeared to be resting, seeming to breathe from one glittering reflection to the next, except in one where they were gone entirely, and replaced with a large baroque writing desk missing a drawer, in which a raven nested.

“They don’t talk much,” said Al. “At all.”

“You’re sure they are alive?” said Harrow.

“Grandma says they’re just sleeping,” shrugged Al, and carried on past them to a feature that had not been in the main entry hall before: an elevator with a tarnished golden basket. Harrow watched the slumbering figures a moment longer, and frowned at the blood that stained both of the men’s grey suits, seeped down the small man’s uniform, and then continued.

The elevator had an exposed golden cage, and in the metal were gilded birds, ravens.

“How does an elevator still work in this place?” said Harrow. “There’s no…”

But before xe could finish xir sentence, the world began to move. It was not so much that the elevator dropped as that the library rose around them, revealing the inky depths of the fractal void fluctuating beneath them. The elevator was lowered into the expanse like a diving cage.

“Heaven isn’t what I thought it would be like,” sighed Al, as the library receded like the sun when falling into deep water. “I thought there would be more angels, and music.”

“It’s got to be kind of lonely,” said Harrow. “But then again, I’ve been lonely even surrounded by people. I suppose it’s more about the kind of people.”

“Yeah,” said Al, and reflected. “Most of the people who’ve told me lots about heaven aren’t here. I would have thought they’d be.”

Darkness found them suddenly, and the elevator’s cage opened to a floor of black crystal. An object sat at the center of a vast fractal room, which appeared alternately to Harrow as a huge stone altar covered in indecipherable letters, or a bowl of peppermints, or a small baby cradle. A woman lay with her arms crossed on the altar, facedown upon it, in the only shaft of light.

“Mother?” said Harrow. “Are you alright?”

“Oh,” her voice rasped quietly, yet filled the chamber with a rush of motion in an otherwise windless dimension. Her head rose, and Harrow found that her eyes were all black, the brittle porcelain faceplates of her face cracked and shattered, the writhing black mass of the eternity of her roiling beneath the surface. As xir mother rose, Harro could see the bonelike surfaces of her skin, the long shells of the white centipede tail, a hundred legs wrapped in long coils around the cradle.

“You little thing,” she mused. “I thought you died.”

Interlude 1 - Crowd Logistics

Please do not push. It is crowded in the Lurch Lake Chamber of Prophecy as Scout City’s residents stream in to take refuge around the shores of the vast subterranean lake, but there is space for all of the displaced residents and then some. Please wait in line patiently to enter and keep your hands to yourself; focus on quieting your screaming babes and do not resort to panic. Do not let fear find a home in the pit of your stomach, do not let desperation cloud your mind and take control of your hands. Surely you remember what it was like to fight to survive. Against the forest, against your rivals, against the world. There is no need to fight each other. The enemy is not your neighbor, standing just as helplessly on the shores of this lake; it is the fire outside, and the cause.

Also, please do not drink the water of Lurch Lake. It is deeply affected by the blackwater, and frogs and tadpoles and eels and other slimy creatures. The gigantic stork Frogsticker that sits on its floating island in the center takes baths in there. Even though you feel that the summer has been too hot to breathe, and the fire will suffocate you. Please do not drink the water.

We go now to one who is handling crowd logistics.

Story 2 - CPE Institute Daily Report Form EK-7B129

CPE Institute Daily Report Form EK-7B129.

Documented By: Penny Rescher.

Preliminary Reports: I hate to be using this form; it makes me feel like one of the wardens rather than a fellow inmate. However, I find it necessary to document the status of each of the other CPE’s that remains in captivity here, before I can go about my plan for the sequence of their release. I expect as Friday and I descend through the levels we will have some surprises. I am still attempting to determine what we encountered at the door, but I hope by a process of elimination to determine what was trying to speak to us. We are taking the elevator down into the vault now.

Floor 1: Category 1 Containment. CPE’s that are paranormal but not seemingly dangerous.

CPE1: A large round statue carved in the shape of an ancient king, with one hand outstretched, palm turned upward. It is immovable, and hovers slightly in the air where the floor was installed beneath it. It appears the facility was built around it. It sits in a glass-enclosed room with white panels and lighting, and appears not to have moved.

CPE8: A book whose pages always describe the present moment. Sits on a well-lit reading podium. Might be in need of a new binding. Described me as sheepish. Otherwise intact.

CPE9: Typewriter that types cryptic messages. Gave it fresh paper. It typed out ‘you fools’ fifty-three times and then got jammed. Will give it more paper tomorrow.

CPE10: The Dodge Monaco is parked in a garage next to the elevator. Status: a little dusty. Friday was able to get it to turn over.

CPE11: The watching cat-clock has stopped working. May need new batteries.

CPE16: The mirror that does not blink seems functional, and its gaze tracked us as we moved, even on the other side of the reflective glass window. It is listed as being paired with CPE35, which only exists when it is not being looked at. There would be no way of knowing.

CPE21: A compass that pulls you and your destination closer together while held. Friday picked this up and was nearly yanked off her feet. Not sure what her destination is yet, but it’s clear she’d like to be somewhere else. We’ve been here for a day and a half and I already can sense she’s feeling confined.

CPE23: A set of dentures that love to chew. Shaking their box did cause them to start chattering. They stopped again, but suspect it is a ploy to get us to put a finger in there.

CPE24: An hourglass that decays its surroundings when turned over.Supposedly, haven’t tested this. Intact, not dusty.

CPE27: An ichthyosaur fossil that is sentient and telepathic. His name is Rudy. We talked for half an hour about philosophy before Friday reminded me that we still had three more floors to go. I’ll be back to visit him later.

CPE28: A globe that displays the movement of clouds and weather in real time. Apparently above us it is raining, with small flickers of lightning over our state. This far down, I cannot even feel the thunder.

CPE29: This is listed as a large locked wooden cabinet, through the keyhole of which a spatial phenomenon can be observed. This enclosure appears, however, to be empty. I have no idea where it can have gone. I do not think what we heard on the other side of the door upstairs was a cabinet, but in this place you can never be too sure.

CPE31: A phone which apparently allows you to call and speak with your childhood self. I have not used it, as I spent my childhood in one of these cells and I don’t remember ever being given access to a phone.

CPE33: A fortune-telling animatronic, acquired from a dealer called the Spindle. It spits out mildly accurate fortunes on printed cards. Friday and I both tried it. It said my day was lucky. It said hers was Friday. It would not work for the Omen at all.

CPE34: An aztec calendar that, according to the description, disconnects you from the spacetime continuum when touched. I have no desire to test this but it is still in its case and accounted for.

CPE38: A toy orangutan holding cymbals, which clangs them together at a pace matching the heartbeat of whoever is directly in its field of view. It did, at several times, go off even when neither Friday or I were standing near it.

CPE42: A library terminal that locates library books you’ve lost. It seems to run without power. And while it did not work for me, for Friday it had interesting news—it said, Fifth Dimensional Rift, Downing Hill Public Library, Dormitory 2, Friday Rescher’s Room, Between the Back of the Bed and the Wall. Inadvertently, I think we have discovered where Downing Hill has gone.

Marketing - Back To Your Dreams

Lady Ethel Mallory

Sometimes it is impossible to know the effect that you have on people until they tell you. I went through my many years of marketing in all kinds of media—print and digital, television and radio, multi-picture microinfluencer multi-level-mass-market-material grassroots experience campaign. When the technology became available to advertise in dream, we alone at the Botulus Corporation held that power. It was my privilege to speak to you every night in those early years. Trying to sell you on the future Oswald Biggs Botulus was promising. But then, once he kicked me to the curb for being too old, too wise, too able to see through his games, I met someone out in the real world that we all live in. I think her name was Aggie or Angelina or something. She made it clear how much it had pained her and everyone who had grown up outside, to have me interrupt her dreams every night. That all she really wanted was some peace and quiet.

I share this anecdote with you so that you know, I know the cost of picking up this broadcasting equipment again. And I would not be invading the private realm of your dreams unless the message was truly worth hearing. The campaign of Lady Ethel Mallory for Queen of America is just beginning. And I need your support to fix the world we all live in.

Story 2, Continued - CPE Institute Daily Report Form EK-7B129

disappointed sigh

We return now to Penny Rescher’s paperwork.

Floor 2: Category 2 containment. CPE’s that have been deemed malevolent or dangerous, but can be safely contained.

CPE3: An electrical entity of some kind trapped in a lightbulb. This lightbulb is seemingly connected to the power grid, serving as a backup power source for the facility. As the tiny spark of a being inside flickers, so do all the lights. If this is the backup power that this place relies on, it is no wonder that a CPE might have gotten loose.

CPE4: The mirror that eats reflections is covered with a tarp. As far as mirrors go, it seems to be intact.

CPE12: A spirit trapped in a stone urn. The urn is here, and so presumably is the spirit. I am not about to open it to find out and I have asked Friday not to do so either.

CPE14: The swallowed sword. I did not catch a glimpse of the spirit that supposedly haunts it, but it did seem to rattle slightly of its own accord as I passed.

CPE25: A vat of a boiling, unidentifiable non-neutonian fluid. It is fully sealed in its container but I trust from the boiling that it is well.

CPE30: A small handheld game console. Apparently it has an increasingly disturbing plot and is haunted by a drowned boy’s spirit. I did take this one with me as the first official release; it does not have much to do beyond sit in my pocket. I would like to think that we both, as trapped children, can get along.

CPE37: I undid the blinds on CPE37’s chamber in order to check on it, but I’ve made a mistake—I must have missed in my descriptions somewhere that all it takes is sight. It is a black urn, weighs several tons and standing over 8 feet tall, covered in lichen and dripping with moisture. It supposedly follows behind a person as a portent of their doom. It has since disappeared from its enclosure and it, at moments when I am not studying it, reappears at random intervals in seemingly random places. I have had some difficulty at least once because it is quite large and can take up most of a doorway if it appears in a bad spot.

CPE39: An entire room from an old farmhouse in Buxton, Maine. Floorboards are a now-extinct pumpkin pine. It manifests, supposedly, a single black fly each day at 4PM. I am not sure what time it is, all of the clocks down here show different times. The floor of the farmhouse room is filled with dead flies, ankle deep. None were alive at the time that I checked.

Floor 3. Category 3. CPE’s that display lifelike qualities but routine behaviors. I am preparing myself to see dead CPE’s here.

CPE5: A box with a cat that cannot be proven alive or dead inside. Resisted urge to open at risk of killing cat. Hope it comes out of its own accord.

CPE6: A large enclosure that replicates a swampland. Plants have grown to encompass most of the chamber. Supposedly there is a four-mouthed crocodile of gigantic proportions sleeping inside. His hibernation is expected to last another 63 years.

CPE7: In an enclosure that replicates a desert dust storm, complete with wind and crackling lightning, there is a 20-foot tall humanoid skeleton with what appears to be part of an electric pole caught in its ribcage. Trailing cables spark with light. The treadmill in the floor of the chamber has broken, but it appears to be continuing a slow march northwest regardless, so it has done much damage to the back wall of its enclosure by its slow, steady walking against the surface. It did not seem to react to Friday and mine’s presence.

CPE15: A large black stone egg. Remains unchanged.

CPE17: Went for a walk in what appears to be a large enclosure styled after a forested countryside, complete with a river, although the river is more a trickle of water at this point. We will need to replace the filter. The hillside of living flesh that dwells here is still alive; I was worried about it and whether it would have enough food to survive the wait. I found it hidden within the soil and roots, with chunks of knobbly pink flesh hiding beneath the dusty soil. It was warm to the touch, and quivered happily at my presence. I love the hill but I do not want it as a pet; it is over a hundred feet long by now, and I do not know how to walk it.

CPE18: The lamprey that doubles in size when it eats living flesh seemed to be entirely dead—the tank was filled with shedded larger bodies. Apparently Friday found a small strand of it still swimming, which she put in a glass of water. I was not informed about this until later, see CPE20.

CPE19: The giant squid that opens spatial portals appears to have died. However, there are fifty tiny squids drifting within, feasting on the titanic corpse of their mother. They appear to be able to open very small portals in a similar fashion; one appeared outside the tank in a glimpse of purple light and had to be put back in his place.

CPE20: The clown that feeds on affection seems to have dried up to death. His emaciated, dried and painted face stares up at the ceiling without response. I administered the cup of water Friday provided in an attempt to see if he was merely in need of water. I was later informed about the lamprey. If either survives, they may be mutually beneficial.

CPE22: The coelacanth is alive in its aquarium. Apparently all coelacanths are classified as CPE’s, but they could only catch one for the Institute.

CPE26: I was rather afraid that this one would have died. It is one of the few I was aware of directly when I departed, as Mr. Writingdesk provided me pictures of it and told me stories. The unicorn is well. It appears to have shed its scales and hair several times as it has grown, and its nails need to be clipped, as they have grown long and curled on almost all of its thirty-six feet. Its single horn has grown into a long spiral. It batted its long eyelashes at me; and despite my better judgement I did open the access grate to push my hand through and lay a hand upon its forehead. I should love to braid its mane with flowers, if it wishes to stay with me a minute before it runs free into the world.

CPE32: The faceless humanoid that crawls on walls appears to have taken the form of a yellow, skin-like chrysalis in the corner of its cell. I did not open its door yet. I do not want to wake it until it is ready.

CPE36: The Farmhouse. In this enclosure seems to stand a farmhouse in a misty field, surrounded by trees. It is supposedly very haunted, and it fills me with worry just to look at. Logistical worry. I do not know how you can set a farmhouse free or how they got it down here.

CPE40: The tooth fairies are few in number but a half-dozen seem to have survived. It appears to have helped to be contained with CPE41, which has too many teeth growing on all of its surfaces. There are no bones or shells of the fairies as it appears CPE41 eats them, however it cannot reach the higher reaches of their enclosure where the fairies make their paper nests.

Floor four: the final floor. CPE’s that display lifelike behaviors and intelligent thought. In other worlds, people, just real people.

CPE13: CPE13 seems to have left her enclosure, but returned safely. If I had to guess, she was taken north on a big road trip because they were afraid she’d starve, or get lucky and never have to see this place again. Little did they know, they never had to worry. I was always coming back. I spent most of the years of my life in this box. With its picture-books and children’s room decorations.

I thought I was the only CPE of this class contained here, but I was surprised to find another door, to another wing. There was another CPE on my floor. I cannot remember ever hearing it mentioned, and it is absent from the files I came across upstairs. We would not have found the door at all had Friday not noticed an access panel in the corner.

Entering the chamber, we found a pale enclosure with no features, surrounded by layers of lasers and glass. And files which I have begun to comb through.

CPE2: He is called Mister Spiderfingers. He is responsible for the deaths of eighteen children between the ages of six and twelve, and maybe lots more undocumented, which he eats. He often represents himself as a tall, pale stranger with dark-ringed eyes and wet black hair, and long long hands. I know somehow that I have seen him before. Perhaps I used to dream about him. He has power only in places that are abandoned. He can be invisible when he wants, or dissolve into a black mist or several thousand spiders. His cage is empty, and yet I have begun to realize that he is still here. I am sure that he could have escaped if he wanted, gotten past us when the doors were open. And yet, I am sure now that he met us at the door. And that he has not left. Friday and I are on the lowest floor, and the lights have just gone off again. He is watching. He is coming.

Interlude 2 - Old Stone

This place where I am gathered—the council chamber. It predates my watch of the universe, and makes me wonder, who built it? I suppose it might be Syrensyr’s handiwork, and yet it does not seem like his construction. The Industry is polished and gilded, designed to intimidate and impress. This place is rough and unhewn, promethean. Perhaps it is a far-flung relic from some other universe, or was built by the Outsiders, or was wrought as a sanctuary in the days of writhing gods before the universe had formed properly. Either way, it is not reactive to our powers—to Syrensyr’s heat or Olbsalolb’s tendency to dissolve substances. The central meeting chamber is surrounded by rooms that it seems the Council of Heavens have designated as their individual sanctums. It is between these that I move as I seek conversations before our meeting continues. I need to speak with Syrensyr about this… new work he has planned for me. I hope it will not take my attention away much from you, dreamer.

We go now to one who is unwavering in her occupation.

Story 3 - In Loris We Trust

Sir Fen stood at the back of the retinue of the Saint Loris. A third of their knights had been lost, and those that remained had washed up battered and broken upon the shores of France, spitting up sea water and praising God for his grace. Four shivered relentlessly, and what remained of their armor rattled as they did. Sir Fen did not rattle or shiver, as she was rarely cold. The moon was suffocated by a shroud of cloud, and she hoped the clouds would leave so that she could bathe in its light again. At the door, Sir Hart explained on behalf of the Saint Loris, half in english and half in broken French, that they were there to take shelter, and to protect the abbey from monsters that had invaded it secretly; Sir Fen was sure she had seen the detective’s daughter Hope through the door, and it was certain that their quarry had come here also. The wrinkled guardian of the abbey doors seemed unsure of what to make of the cadre of soaked knights that were gathered outside; of the Saint Loris all the more beautiful for the ruination of her white shrouds of fabric and the way they had turned transparent to reveal the armor underneath. It was taking a while, and Sir Fen stood back a bit from the group, and stretched.

She could feel Satan in her heart. Satan felt like a seizing, an ice-cold anxiety that was foreign to her body crawling along her arteries. Satan said, what do you think you’re doing? He said, you’ve left behind the country you grew up in, its towns and cities, its people that speak your language. You have placed all your faith in a pale little woman who lies on her bed and commands you, and now you have lost everything, even the clothes you packed for the voyage. You have thrown away your entire life for nothing at all.

It was a lie, of course, and she recognized it as such, and begged the Lord’s forgiveness for his counterpart’s ongoing assaults on her faith, and acknowledged that it was not the first or last of his miracles that she and so many of the other knights had been plucked from the waves and carried by his currents to the shore. Then the group looked alive as there seemed to be motion at the door swinging open to hushed whispers from a crowd of curious residents beyond. It was another miracle that they had arrived, it seemed, at Abbey Sainte-Loris; the historical saint for which Loris had named herself.

Dear lord, she thought, why is Loris the saint and not I? Just out of curiosity. What made you decide to put your infinite grace and merciful power in her hands? That she should decide names for herself and the rest of us, that she should be carried by our loving arms while we walk over hot stones? She prayed that the answer would be revealed in time, not so that her ego might be satiated, but so that she might better understand the nature of his infinite wisdom and love, amen.

She turned her gaze up to the sky, and for a moment could see no clouds, no stars. She realized then that what she saw was the outline of a great pair of batlike wings, spreading out and as black as the night, and beyond them a huge black wolf with golden pagan decorations in its fur, falling from the top of the abbey’s walls towards them.

“Brace yourselves!” she cried, and then the devil’s servants were upon them. The wolf collided first, and several knights were caught underneath the black furred mass, deep growls filling the air along with battle cries and a scream of the knight caught beneath the wolf’s massive clawed foot, pulverized once, twice into the ground by its pouncing, and then the wolf snapped down, wrapped its toothy jaws around Sir Weston, and flipped him end over end twenty feet to roll down the hillside that led up to the abbey. Sir Fen’s immediate priority was the Saint Loris, and she began to jaunt towards the saint, but Saint Loris was being ushered in through the abbey doors by her forward vanguard, and suddenly something swept between Sir Fen and her saint—the dark shape of the bat. Sir Fen raised her sword, but huge black claws reached out from the expansive nothing-shape to wrap around her shoulder and her helmet, obscure her vision, and she swung blindly as she felt herself wrenched up and off the ground. Her legs dangled and kicked in the air, and she swung loosely with the sword but with the other hand tried to unbuckle her visored helm; the strap was nearly suffocating her as she was carried by it. The force of the bat’s wings rushed around her, filled her ears with shrieking wind, and then finally she found the latch to her helmet beneath her chin and pulled it. Suddenly she was, for a moment, free, dropping out of the bat’s grasp and into the air, and she was several hundred feet away from the abbey, in the air over an expanse of bushes and trees that blanketed the base of the abbey’s hill, the vast shape of the bat carrying her helmet upwards and screeching as she broke free.

Oh dear lord, she thought, preserve me. She plummeted, and was sure that if she struck the ground from this height she would die on impact, or be smashed open upon the forest. The clouds parted from the moon for a moment, let long beams of silver peel through the mist, and the light burned in the crescents of her eyes. She closed her eyes, and held her breath, and prepared to die.

She did not.

The wind seemed to catch her like the hands of the lord himself, and she was light as a shadow, as a moonbeam, and the world rose silently and swiftly to meet her until she was laid peacefully into the meadow-grass as gently as a babe in a basket.

She had barely enough time to give thanks before the bat swooped down from above, descending with its triangular wings of night, and she fumbled for her sword which had fallen by her hand. And then there was weight on top of her, heavy but not quite crushing, and the sudden presence of a woman kneeling on her, a hand strong as iron and ice-cold wrapped around her neck, long teeth glinting in the starlight. It was in Sir Fen’s training to shriek, to give warning to the other knights, to claw for her sword and put any scratch she could against the skin of the Duchess of Boldt Castle.

Instead, sinfully, she lay utterly still, like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf, aware of her demise as it happened. But the teeth did not bear closer to her neck, and instead the face of the duchess shifted so that they were eye to eye. There were deep red lights hidden within the vast black eyes of the woman above her.

“She got to you too, did she?” said the Duchess. “How did it happen?”

“Who?” Sir Fen said, trying to muster her voice. “What?”

“You’re like me,” said the Duchess, and the hand around her neck shifted, a thumb moved up to push Fen’s jaw, as if to turn her this way and that. “The Emptiness has touched us both. What’s she done to your eyes?”

“I have nothing in common with you, beast,” said Sir Fen, although she knew the creature might end her life with a single twist. “Mine gifts are gifts from the lord almighty who hath called me to his chosen purpose. You were wrought by the devil to manifest evil upon this earth.”

“I was wrought by the void between stars,” the Duchess whispered. “She is vast and dark and beautiful and deadly. And her claim is in your blood, written in your eyes. Perhaps you have not met her. Perhaps it was your parents, or your parents’ parents.”

“How dare thou speakest such lies to me,” said Sir Fen. “I am a loyal follower of the Saint Loris and her guiding light will preserve me from the implores of the darkness that…”

She found herself quieted as the Duchess’s thumb pressed against her lips.

“Hush,” said the Duchess, and frowned, ruby lips and sharp white teeth. “You’ll see someday, that we are the same. I used to be a normal girl too, before she came to me while I lay dying. I was maybe more human than you ever were.”

A look of intensity came over the Duchess, and Sir Fen prepared to meet her end, but instead breathed a sigh of relief as the Duchess stood up and got off her chest, retreated a few steps, a tall woman in a long black lace dress. Sir Fen sat up, watching her.

“What will thoust do, monster?” said Sir Fen.

The Duchess smiled.

“I’m going to slay your saint,” she said, and then her black cape became two wings, folding out from her hips, and her body was a vast shadow as she rose into the night, racing back through the mist towards Abbey Sainte-Loris.

Outro - Sanctums

Sanctums. Dream is my sanctuary, dreamer, although it comes at the cost of invading yours. How much I would like to simply wander without speaking. Watch the corridors of your mind as you construct fears and possibilities, elaborate social scenarios involving your relatives, days where you keep losing parts of yourself and nights where you confront evil you did not know lurked in any recess of your brain. Alas, I must interrupt these dreams to tell you that Scout City is burning, and an abbey in France is being invaded by the Knights of New England, and that an unsettling creature has been unleashed in a vault. Even if you remember very little when you wake, you will take some of this with you into the day. Reflect at odd moments on the imagery that your mind concocted. And I hope, when the moment is right, when your world needs it most, you will remember everything.

Until an unhallowed day comes, I am your loyal host Nikignik, waiting sanctimoniously for your return to the Hallowoods.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Call To Service' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamer, please knock before entering. Sometimes a moment is needed to drag the lid back onto the ark so you are not blinded by the incredible power of the god within. Too many faces have been melted by just bursting the door open.