Tribunal...Part 1

Just as I was about to pick up the phone and face the music with Ravyn Fyre, I felt a Call of another kind, the kind that would require me to leave my body behind and step into the Spirit World. From the urgency of the Call, I couldn’t resist, not that I minded very much delaying THAT call for a little bit...

I sat back, found my focus point and slipped from my body. I slipped through the walls of my RV and found a nearby rabbit hole to facilitate my journey to the Other Side. The darkness of the tunnel closed in quickly and briefly formed a womb-like passage that openned into a fog enshrouded plain. In the distance, I could see huge, dark shapes that appeared to be Standing Stones of some sort. The Call was coming from beyond the first one.

As I moved closer to the huge stones, I could see that they formed a series of very large circles, very much like the Stonehenge I had seen in books and films, but bigger, more complete.

Crossing the threshold of the outermost circle, I felt an almost tangible crackling in the air about me, like I had crossed from the normal into a place of...holiness (not a sensation I have felt very often in my various incarnations!). I slowed a little bit, feeling more than a little bit like a trespasser, but the urgent Call kept me moving forward. I passed through the next two circles, each time sensing that I moved deeper into Mystery, deeper into Sacred Space.

Finally I found myself coming to last circle, the impossibly giant stones towering overhead, with the capstones forming a complete circle overhead. The archway immediately to my front was completely shrouded in swirling fog. I was battling dual urges at this moment.

First, it felt that my very presence in this place was somehow wrong, that I did not belong here, this was not my Place. But the Call inside me head was irresistable and constant. It urged me forward, told me that I was welcome, but only for the moment and only when so Called.

I stepped through the curtain of fog and found myself facing the music and then some!

Once I was on the other side, I saw four female figures waiting for me. The first to draw my eyes was the Frau. In this place, she stood without the use of her cane, although she was still obv iously older than the other figures. Her kind face was still showed the prominent lines around her eyes and mouth of someone who smiled more than she frowned. She was shrouded in robes made of some natural fiber and was barefoot. Her head was bare, except for a simple leather band that kept her hair back. She was holding a wooden wand that was tipped by part on antler, held together by more leather straps.

The next figure turned out to be Cerrydwen. She was also barefoot, but she was wearing pants that appeared to be made of sackcloth and belted with some sort of rope. Her chest was covered, just barely, by a leather vest, held together with a series of leather ties. She was holding a tall wooden staff, the surface of which was carved into various Celtic designs. Her face and other visible skin was painted with swirls and other designs in blue ink, her glare was as dark as forboding as usual.

I winced as I recognized Ravyn as the third figure. Like the Frau and Cerrydwen, she was barefoot, but she was wearing a long woolen dress that came down to her ankles. The dress was a deep blue in color. The hemline, the ends of the sleeves and the neckline was embroidered in bright reds and oranges in a style that evoked the flames for which she was named. Her arms were crossed, and for once her glare was darker than that of Cerrydwen.

The fourth figure however was the most shocking. It was Jasmine. Like the others, she was barefoot. She was dressed in a simple green woolen dress that came to her knees. Unlike Ravyn’s dress though, hers was plain and unadorned, except for a simple golden cord which wrapped around her waist and tied, with both tassled ends dangling as the only decoration. Her eyes were wide and curious, but also showed a hint of concern.

“Jasmine, what are you doing here? Where are we?”

Cerrydwen stepped forward to answer. “Rusty Bones, you have been Called to this Circle of Glimmerdown Fells by my own hand and are offered safehaven as a Guest. Do you come here of your own Free Will and without Malice in your heart?”

“Uh, yeah I guess.”

“Then as Guest of the Keeper, I grant you the right of Free Passage from this Circle when our business with you is complete. No Guardian of this place shall impede your departure when you leave.”

“I didn’t see any Guardians on the way in.”

Cerrydwen smiled, a chilling smile that spoke of hidden things. “No one does. But they are out there, and the Rites must be performed or bad things will happen. Welcome for now, but be warned, this place is Sacred and its Mysteries are not for you. Please do not try to return on your own unless you are invited to return.”

“I’ll...keep that in mind.”

“Good.” She stepped back into her previous place, apparently satisfied that the Rites, whatever the Hell they were, were complete.

The Frau stepped forward, “Rusty, we called you here because Jasmine sensed that you were in danger and was very concerned. We also felt that it would be easier to discuss the entity that you have gone to face on your own.”

“Wow, how did you know all of this so quickly?”

The Frau smiled and pointed to the rest of the women present with a sweeping gesture. “We are women, we are all touched by the Fey. Your daughter sensed the dangers first and approached Ravyn. Ravyn contacted Cerrydwen and myself and told us of her concerns. I asked Cerrydwen to bring us to this place because of the protections that are here and your proximity to that creature makes it unsafe for us to come to you. Even now, without the Guardians of this place, such a meeting would be dangerous.”

“Do you know what this thing is?”

Ravyn couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. She stepped forward as the Frau stepped back. “You know, if you had even bothered to contact any of us for information before you went galivanting off to play hero all by your lonesome, we could have told you a little something about this.”

“Whoah now, Ravyn, I was sent on here by the government. I was doing my job!”

“Yeah well that’s no damn excuse to go off on your own against an unknown foe with no warning. Just because your body is dead doesn’t mean that you are invincible you know! You have people who care about you and who need you to be around more than you have been.

“Now we’ve got some information about this thing, but there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. We’ve had a couple of our members disappear when they started looking into this same creature, but we’ve learned a lot in that time. That creature is not alone down there.”

“You mean there is more than one? Oh shit. One of those things was pretty damn deadly.”

Ravyn looked more than a little perturbed that I had interrupted her just when she was getting on a role. I could tell she was about to let loose the tongue lashing of my...death when Jasmine stepped forward and spoke up.

“Daddy, didn’t you read Beowulf when you were in school?”

“Beowulf? You mean that old poem?”

Ravyn waved her silent and pointed a finger at me. “Yes, it’s an old Anglo-Saxon tale about an epic hero. He kills a monster named Grendel in that story. A monster that snuck up in the middle of the night and killed and ate its victims. Does any of this sound familiar now?”

“Well, yeah, this thing I tracked has been pretty messy when it kills and has eaten a lot of the victims’ bodies...but how does an old story like that matter today?”

She was looking exasperated again. “Old stories survive because there is almost always at least a kernel of truth to them. We believe that the monster you are facing is an incarnation of the creature from that story. If it is, it means that it has a more powerful companion...its mother, down there somewhere.”