The Making of the Stonequest Series

            A refined, middle-aged man shifted slightly in the witness box as he prepared his defense.

            “While it is true I struck my brother five times in the head with an axe, I mean to show that I am not his murderer. Far from it – I am, in fact, his avenger. There are some, no doubt, who say I am mad, but after hearing my tale you will ask yourselves how I could have done otherwise.

            It all started some three months ago towards the end of the harvest. One cold, starry night, it came – the abomination that has so troubled our otherwise decent lives.

            From the heavens it fell, a great ball of fire. I chanced to notice it on an errand to fetch wood for the stove. I hailed Eustace from his study and described what I had seen. At once he suggested going in search of it. I protested, but such was his willful nature that he could not be dissuaded. With trepidation, I gathered the items we would need: a shaded lantern, a coil of rope, a large woolen sack and a pickaxe. To this, I added a jeweled, ceremonial mace, taken from its housing above the mantle.       

“What are you expecting?” Eustace laughed. “A beast? A fire demon perhaps?”

            His flippancy was no comfort. A vague dread mingled with the cold-night air to chill my bones and heighten my misgivings.

            “Could we not wait till morning,” I asked, protesting. “It’s folly to tramp about a snowy forest at this hour.”

            “Pshaw! We’ve known these woods since we were children. We won’t lose our way. Come on, now.”

            I was jealous of my brother’s confidence. I still thought our errand foolish. Nevertheless, I strapped on a pair of snowshoes and trailed him out the door. More than a foot of snow had recently fallen. This slowed our progress, but we penetrated the woods all the same.

            All of the servants were fast asleep, and Eustace deigned not to wake them – the adventure was to be ours alone.

            Gradually, we found our way. A slight breeze in the air carried the scent of smoke left by whatever had fallen, that great conflagration in the sky. My brother’s pace quickened. He seemed genuinely excited. In fact, I had trouble keeping up with him. Burdened though I was with the evening’s mutton and potatoes, it was the misgivings of my heavy heart which slowed me most, instilling within me a feeling of leaden inertia.

            Was it our business to venture into the forest on such a fool’s errand? And in search of what? Why would a celestial event fall under the jurisdiction of a couple of middle-aged squires?

            Nevertheless, I continued to allow Eustace to lead with the dark lantern. As we departed from the well-worn trails, we encountered many obstacles – fallen trees, dense undergrowth and snow-covered rocks. I stumbled more than once. Large boulders heralded our entrance to the Rocky Hills. All the while, the amorphous shapes of the forest cast frightening shadows, taunting me with terror.

            I am not sure how long it took, and I would be hard-pressed to find the exact location, though the events following are forever seared into my memory. An artificial clearing was scorched into the ground by the path of the thing that fell from the heavens. Pieces of stone, the likes of which I had never seen, glowed brightly all around. Waves of heat radiated from the blast crater. Not a patch of snow survived. At the crater’s center … Gads! Oh, if only I could banish that haunting image! To think I could have grabbed Eustace by the sleeve and run screaming back to the chateau – to safety. But no, my brother was too bold for reason, too bold to heed common sense and decency.

            Placing down the dark lantern, he crept forward. Much to my horror, he touched the monstrosity. Grotesque in appearance, the ill-formed creation vaguely resembled a diminutive human being, though the analogy discredits our species. A countenance of evil – that is what we faced. Harsh lines were chiseled forming a frozen scowl, while its furrowed brow managed to convey intelligent fury and sadistic menace. Gray-skinned with golem features, it was a veritable gargoyle.

Small cloven feet and claw-like hands adorned its extremities. Also, its head seemed too large for its body with spindly arms adding to this aspect of unbalanced proportions. Overall, it seemed terribly misshapen. Although static, I shuddered to think what it would do if animated. It seemed the very portrait of sinister cruelty.

            It was then Eustace did the unthinkable: after touching it, he noticed it was alive and decided to nurse it back to health. Grabbing the woolen blanket from my paralyzed hands, he proceeded to bundle the thing, carrying it in his arms as if it were a baby in swaddling clothes.

            “Eustace!” I screamed. “What are you doing? Od’sblud, what mean you by this?”

            “Can’t you see,” he said. “This was meant for us. It is a messenger. We must care for it. We must preserve it until it has a chance to relate its purpose.”

A curious illumination filled my brother’s eyes. The transient gleam vanished almost as abruptly as it formed. At the time I thought it was a trick of the moonlight, for the glowing orb was bright and full, hanging low in the sky. Now, I know otherwise.

The forest was ravaged by the impact. Had it not been winter, it surely would have burned. I turned one last time; the strange rocks still smoldered maliciously. What were they? Parts of a shell? They seemed to mock nature as if ill-mannered visitors, their glowing menace palpable – like a diabolical sentience. The pulsing played on my fears; giving me the feeling I was being watched. With a shudder, I began the return journey, glad to leave that blasted manger of eldritch horror. My mood improved as we distanced ourselves from that accursed wasteland; however, I could not forget that my brother bore a sinister burden, one that would forever change our lives.

I did not cease to voice my misgivings, but even my most vehement exhortations could not convince him to drop the malformed beast. Indeed, my efforts were most vigorous, my words of admonishment hounding him, pursuing him relentlessly.

“This is not right!” I said. “It’s not natural! Cast this thing aside! It is evil!”

To this my brother replied that the stars had given us a gift, and that it was not ours to abandon. I could make no progress. No rational argument would divert him from the path he had chosen, a path to oblivion.

At the house it thrilled me to think we were harboring that unwholesome beast, cloistered away in the derelict, basement chamber. Servants were now forbidden to access the lower supply-rooms, and rumors quickly spread among the staff. I slept not a wink that first night; for, I felt that no good could come from anything that hideous. Still, I hoped for the best.

The next day I wondered what should be done. Was it too late to kill the fiend? And then I heard it – a freakish bleating that haunts me to this day. Bless my brother for having restrained it; prudence had not entirely deserted his faculties. Before retiring for the night, he had shackled it to the bed. At least he had some vestige of good sense left in his troubled brain.

As I ran to the scene, the shrieking stopped. I arrived to find my brother spoon-feeding porridge to the monster. It greedily devoured the nourishment, barring its sharp, gray fangs. It seemed eager for more, and regarded my arrival hungrily. I feared that soon it would not be satisfied with grains, that it would acquire a taste for human flesh. Eustace seemed to read my thoughts. He scowled.

“Come, now. It won’t bite you,” he said. “You see it is harmless. Don’t harbor foolish thoughts.”

I, on the other hand, was far from satisfied. How could I feel comfortable with that beast staring at me with its cold, malevolent eyes? Thin and yellow like that of a tiger, nay – a serpent; those luminous crescents sent chills down my spine. When I looked into them, into that dark abyss of evil, they stared back with an intelligent, knowing gleam. With some invisible torchlight, the beast had read my darkest thoughts as easily as if they had been written on parchment. The fiend regarded me as a threat and wanted me to know this. It was that exchange which inspired within me a fright the likes of which I have never known; for, in order to read me, it had exposed itself. And, in that portal so abruptly opened, I saw a being of total evil, an intelligent malignancy, capable of great acts of greed, deceit, wickedness and horror.

In contrast, it reserved a much different expression for my brother, one of deceptive kindness and kinship. I know not how it put forth such an air of false docility, nor how it could get away with such transparent duplicity. It must have charmed Eustace from the start somehow; it certainly was not natural for a man of his lucidity to choose such a path, a path any normal person would consider abhorrent madness. Nothing could explain this behavior, this single-minded devotion to our mysterious guest. Nor could I have suspected how quickly this untoward interloper would come to subvert so completely our otherwise normal lives.

Suddenly, the creature fell back upon the bed, apparently entering a state of deep slumber. Whether this was by chance or by design I could not tell.

“Eustace, that thing is an unholy abomination,” I protested. “We don’t even know its intentions. It may kill us.”

“Pshaw! You know nothing,” he said with some asperity. “Appearances can be deceptive. An ugly messenger does not necessarily bring an ugly message. Look how weak it is. It rests.”

“Is that what you think? You still see him as a messenger.”

“Indeed I do! Now, stop carrying on this way. You trouble yourself unnecessarily without justification. What has this poor creature done to earn your scorn? No harm shall come to us.”

But I was far from mollified. I saw the creature for what it was – a diabolical sophistication. This was not some mindless beast or freak of nature; this was an eldritch power from the stars, a thing that should not be.

Alas, my brother was not to be persuaded from his stubborn perspective, saying that time would reveal all, and we had to wait and be patient. Oh! If only I had insisted, a great catastrophe could have been averted!

But such is the clarity of hindsight. At the time, I was eager to complete the orders for my thriving practice. The host of clients I had taken was daunting; they all wanted their accounts finished promptly as year’s end was at hand.

Days passed. As the winter wore on, the beast grew stronger. Eustace would sit long times attempting to communicate with the creature. In the early days, it merely squawked and spat, but soon it became more reserved, more communicative, almost furtive. These meetings soon became exceedingly private. The door was never left ajar; rather it was locked from the inside.

During my first and only observation of the beast’s education, Eustace demonstrated how it could read and understand our language. With a chalkboard, he directed its efforts. I recall how the creature would cast those hateful eyes upon me, eyes that could flash fire at one, yet extract sympathy from another.

Gradually, my brother stopped sharing its progress. It was as if the two had forged some special bond, and I was considered the odd appendage, avoided almost entirely.

And still no message.

Then came the day my brother set the beast free. Now it had full access to the house! It was then that I started locking my bedroom door at night, though it was a moot point – I slept so little those days. Soon, I found myself a stranger in my own house, uncomfortable walking the hallways. I took to carrying a weapon at all times – the hatchet was my favorite aegis. It allowed me some modicum of comfort. If asked, I would say I was on my way to chop wood for the stove. This plausible excuse would prevent a possible argument, for my brother had grown defensive of the creature. Indeed, he was like a mother bear protecting her cub. Still, he refused to accept its diabolical nature. If only I had killed it then!

Onerous was daily life now. The servants had long since fled, and chores I once took for granted went undone. Eustace dismissed the staff prior to releasing the creature; however, most had already fled our accursed household. Many had noticed the foul scent and did not wait to see what was coming. They were lucky. My brother and I were still the only ones to have laid eyes upon the monster. Now I wish I had shared what I knew; corroboration would be invaluable at this point. Alas, it was not to be. None knew what lurked beneath our roof and crept throughout our halls. Even now, the thought of occupying a room with that fiend still chills me, filling me with dread.

With the reduced occupancy, the house was like a tomb. And the shortening of the days meant most of my time was spent by candlelight. This did nothing but augment the gloomy aspect pervading the silent house. All the while, I continued to experience a sense of foreboding, one which was not unfounded. Indeed, more sinister developments came to support my woes.

The family dog, Renford, began to act strangely. Always my stalwart companion, the hound recently had grown skittish and erratic. He barked much more frequently than ever before. Never could I find the reason. Then, one day he disappeared. I mentioned it to my brother who suggested wolves were to blame. This would have been a plausible explanation, except the forests had become eerily silent. An itinerant wolf pack would have most certainly been heard. Besides, Renford was not one to wander from home.

Weird occurrences started to happen with alarming frequency. Most obvious were the birds. As an amateur naturalist, I enjoy watching birds and have done so with my telescope throughout the year. Winter is never a good season for bird watching. Nevertheless, one can always spot the occasional woodpecker.

“Objection!” shouted an attorney sitting at the head table. “Where is he going with this?”

The magistrate in charge was clearly enthralled with the defendant’s singular tale. As a result, he swiftly overruled the objection. The testimony had also commanded the undivided attention of the jury. In fact, although it was past the hour for mid-day-meal, the defendant was bid to resume his narrative.

“As I was saying…” he continued. “I am an avid birdwatcher, yet the forests were strangely devoid of birds. Indeed, the silence was deafening. In fact, wildlife of any kind was neither seen nor heard. That is, until they came.

At the time, I thought nothing could be more terrible than a silent forest. I was wrong.

Imagine waking to the frenzied cawing of crows outside your window. That is what I suffered one gray December morn. Back then, the little sleep I got was brought about artificially through the use of an opiate known as laudanum. Roused from my stupor by that terrible cacophony, I swiftly drew back the curtain. What I beheld will haunt me for the rest of my days! Roosting in the faint rays of the dawn’s twilight were dozens of ravens. They were perched outside my window on the oak tree opposite. Their supernatural cackling tormented my ears. Oh, how angrily they called to me! Of that, I am certain. My appearance did not daunt these creatures in the least; rather it drove them to frenzy!

Worst of all, amidst the confusion, like an island of calm, or the eye of a storm, were a dozen birds, not cawing, but eating. Then, I saw it – the tawny remains of a pelt. They were feasting upon my spaniel! Poor Renford! What a terrible fate! At first my eyes were reluctant spectators, unwilling to accept what they had seen. When the true horror dawned, the bile rose in my throat. Although gagging upon the repulsive realization, I resolved to right the atrocity.

I threw on my slippers and dashed outside. With my blunderbuss, I forced those carrion defilers to flee, reclaiming my home …for the moment. Thankfully, I was in the habit of keeping a loaded gun above the sitting-room fireplace, accessible, yet out of the reach of our eldritch visitor. Of this fact I availed myself. The stentorian blast carried far, the offensive sound reverberating throughout the hills and skeletal trees. Still, I knew few neighbors would hear. I wondered what Eustace would think. I half expected him at any moment to rush out to join me, eager to investigate the cause of the alarm. In this, I was mistaken. So, with heavy heart, I remained alone to contemplate the grim task of deciding what to do with Renford’s remains. Finding a pole, I knocked what was left of the family pet from the tree. A snowy fetor fell at my feet. The cold had preserved my friend for the days he had been absent, though the crows had not been so kind.

Unfortunately, this was not the most grisly discovery. Before starting the arduous task of hacking through the frozen ground to bury the animal, a morbid curiosity gripped me. How had it met its fate? Normally, I would not be so inquisitive, but the supernatural encounter with the crows had heightened my vigilance. With gloved hands I sought the answer; I parted what was left of the furry hide. Ultimate horror is what I found – two deep puncture wounds violated the neck of the once proud beast. The spacing of these marks I knew only too well! They were the width corresponding to the bite marks of the accursed beast we quartered in our once peaceful abode.

My blood froze upon this epiphany. I nearly fainted. Shivering more from fear, rather than cold, I staggered into the house and navigated the hallways in a delirious, desperate panic. My meanderings suddenly brought me before Eustace.

“You look like you’ve seen a specter,” he said. All night he had been talking with the creature. He had heard neither gunshot nor crows.

“That thing!” I bellowed with trembling, outstretched hand. I pointed at the monstrosity, which suddenly appeared. “That fiend killed Renford!”

“Nonsense! Don’t insult our guest. Look! You’ve frightened him.”

The imp recoiled as if struck by a branding iron, seeking refuge in the folds of my brother’s cloak, adopting every nuance of innocence and docility. However, the act could not fool me. I knew better.

“Eustace! That monster sucked the very life-blood from our beloved pet! Soon it will do the same to either you or me! It is evil! We must kill it!”

I rushed forward wielding the gun as a club, ready to fustigate the foul demon into oblivion. Alas, my brother checked my hand.

“Calm yourself!” he yelled. “This is no way for a rational man to behave. What proof do you have of these awful accusations?”

“Proof?” I said, my face flushing with apoplectic rage. “Ha! Come with me! I’ll show you.”

Eustace first removed the creature, taking it to the wine cellar where it had made its home. That being done, I led him to Renford’s remains. But whoa! I was in for yet another shock, one far greater.

The body was gone!

Oh, how my mind reeled! Impotent tears slipped from my cold cheeks, freezing solid before striking the ground with a faint percussion.

“No!” I bellowed. “I refuse to accept this! I don’t know where it went or what has taken it, but it was here! See where it lay!”

I showed my brother the spot, but myriad foot prints obscured much of what I had hoped to see. I had been careless in my initial investigation. In addition, not a trace of fur remained upon the snowy ground. In any case, Eustace protested that the lack of evidence offered another explanation.

“You’ve been overburdened as of late. Perhaps your stringent time-table has brought about some nervous condition. Maybe it would behoove you to reduce the size of your practice. Stress can bring about hallucinations, you know.”

I nearly screamed, but lacked the energy. He thought I was going mad.

“Very well,” I said, “you think I’ve lost my perspicacity. If you really are concerned about my health, you will remove that blasted thing from these premises! You know it’s the real cause of the nervous condition of which you speak.”

My logic briefly checked him from responding; he knew I was right. Instead, he adopted a different tactic, one of ignorance.

“The messenger?” he asked innocently.

“Yes! The messenger! What in blazes is wrong with you? That horror is no messenger! It’s a killer and a manipulator. Don’t you think this has gone on long enough? It’s been nearly three weeks! You said you would take it to be studied by learned scholars once it was well enough to travel. It was ready after the first week! You’ve been keeping it since as some sort of perverse pet. What power has it over you?”

At this remark, my brother’s face grew stern, and for an instant, his eyes became as the demon’s.  Then, after some type of inward struggle, he composed himself.

“No,” he said. “Nothing is wrong with me … far from it. In fact, I am almost ready to start my campaign. I’ll be elected this fall, and this little creature can only help me in my quest for fame and fortune.”

“Nonsense! You don’t need this thing! Part with it now while you still have the chance. Don’t wait for this thing to poison you further. Don’t let it continue to corrupt your mind and subvert your dreams.”

Alas, he would have none of it. And once again, my protestations fell upon deaf ears. Nevertheless, I kept trying. Each day I warned him of the great danger, of the impending danger, yet each day he stubbornly insisted that the creature was no threat.

These terrible, unnatural events did little to prepare me for my final confrontation with the beast. I could never have foreseen the grizzly outcome, nor is there anything I could have done which would have prevented it.

The creature was gaining strength and size daily. Already it had doubled its weight. Soon it would be too strong for an ordinary man to master. Something had to be done. However, in the end this proved unnecessary. A transfer of consciousness was my brother’s undoing. What’s that you say? You doubt me? I wish I could doubt myself too, yet I alone must carry the truth. In the truth we must trust … for, it is the only way. The horrible truth is that the thing became my brother.

As I said before, little prepared me for the grim conclusion to this frightful affair. It all happened so suddenly and without warning. Looking back fills my heart with both sadness and indelible horror.

One night I heard cries from the cellar. It was my brother’s voice, unmistakably calling for help. I flew down the stairs. As I turned the corner I saw something I will never forget – believe me I have tried.

My brother was fully-dressed, crouched beside the body of the supine demon. He seemed as if ready to leave. Perhaps he planned to take the demon to the university scholars as he had originally promised. My first reaction was one of joy. Seeing the beast lying inert, I thought it was dead. Joy, however, soon gave way to terror.

“It passed in the night,” my brother said. His stilted speech was peculiar. When he turned to address me he did so with those golden, reptilian eyes – the eyes of the demon.

I shrieked and fell backwards, tripping on a wine barrel in my haste. As he approached, his white cravat dropped to reveal two fresh puncture wounds trickling blood in rivulets down his throat. Aghast, I scrambled to my feet. It was a small miracle I could move at all. Somehow I managed to process the unthinkable: my brother was gone, and this thing had taken his place – the beast had become my brother!

“You must understand,” it said calmly.

Like a horrible mantra, it repeated the phrase. Perhaps it was unaccustomed to its new body, for it moved awkwardly, its clumsiness allowing me more time to formulate a plan. This I would come to appreciate later though; my first thought was of flight.

After racing up the stairs, moving faster than I’d ever thought possible, I reached the study door, slamming and bolting it behind me. Chest heaving, I searched the room for inspiration. My eyes rested upon the hatchet.

“You must understand,” said the incessant voice outside.

Suddenly, a fist sailed through the door. This was no small feat as it was solid oak and an inch thick. Whatever eldritch powers the beast had possessed must have been transferred to the body it had stolen. The power it wielded was supernatural indeed!

The horror of what I was about to do made the bile rise in my throat, yet I knew it had to be done. I had no choice. For the good of humanity I must do what would otherwise fill my heart with grief.

My deliberation was rapid. I knew it would soon breach the door. To the creature, it was a child’s barrier. There was little time; the fiend’s progress was ineluctable.

Hiding behind a suit of armor, I waited for it to pass. It was now or never! It or me! My first blow was unsure. The glancing strike I delivered merely tore a piece from the scalp, and the creature spun to face me. Mortal fright now galvanized my actions, ensuring that my second blow was true. With a hollow, nauseating thud the axe sank into the skull, dropping the thing to its knees. The familiar face did nothing to mitigate my fury. I struck a third time! And a fourth! The axe flew forward to bury itself in that accursed forehead, splitting it like rotten birch-wood.

That last blow was probably enough, but I did not stop there. Sobbing and cursing, I struck again and again, until the room became a charnel-house and the object of my fury a red, pulpy paste – a ruin of a form once housing a noble spirit, my beloved brother.

In truth, I do not know how many times I struck that cursed shell. I am sure of only one thing – I was possessed by madness, a madness which has mercifully left me without any additional memory of those hideous acts born from feral desperation.

When I woke my hands were red, my nightgown stained crimson. As luck would have it, my neighbor, the tailor, had come calling. I had just finished his financial report, and rather than waiting for me to deliver it, he decided he would come claim it himself. You can imagine the terrible shock that greeted him. I’ve been told the door had been unlocked; perhaps my brother had done this before preparing to leave with the creature. I know not, only that it allowed my neighbor to enter and rescue me from my hapless fate. It was his cry of horror that roused me from my exhausted, murderous stupor.

I’ve also since learned that my brother was communicating with a colleague. He had actually made plans to give that accursed abomination to a university for scientific study. It was this which most likely precipitated his untimely demise. Poor Eustace! Bless his soul! He had intended to make good on his promise.

Shortly after my neighbor fled in terror, he returned with a pair of constables. I remember being loaded into a wagon, my garments heavy, sopping with my brother’s blood. I was whisked off to yet another terrible place, but I was finally free – free from the horror that fell from the heavens.

For this, I am grateful. To be free and still have my life. It could easily have gone otherwise. Unaware of my surroundings, I would have wandered upon the moors and perished in that icy wasteland, delirious and haunted by terrible images. As it stands, I am now in the company of men, and it is only when I shut my eyes that the terrors threaten anew. Would that I could only banish the thoughts that plague me!

Sometimes it is his face before me. Sometimes it is the demon’s. But always those eyes pursue me, those fiery orbs of hate. Whatever you decide, it can not possibly be worse than what I have already suffered.

So I ask you, members of the jury, did I do wrong? Would you not have acted the same? Would you not have slain your own blood, knowing that if unchecked the pestilence could spread its infection across the landscape of humanity? Would you not have killed the thing that fell to Earth?