Rend the Mountain

Here We Go

This is it. The final chapter in The Story of the Marsh Boy.

If you only missed the last chapter, or need a refresher on what happened, tap here.

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Here we go.

Rend the Mountain

Cole held his mother as the earth around them shook and split. Water from outside the rock was rushing into his underground chamber of blasphemies. Apkallu thrashed his fists as his temple, Erets, flooded. The water frothed with the fight and flight of the remaining Tannites. Bits of rubble crumbled from over their heads as the rock split in two.

A single bolt of violet lightning shot down through the crack and blasted Apkallu. The smoke that had been roiling off of him dissipated like a campfire that was doused with a bucket of water. The bolt crackled as it fell upon the throne beneath the now open sky.

Balls of purple fire erupted around the steps and electricity coursed through the damp air. From within the fire, Cole watched as a form of a man knelt on one knee. Purple charges sizzled in arcs between the man and the throne. The air smelled like fresh rain and spice. A pulse of light emanated from the man as he rose to his feet.

The being took each step lightly as it approached Cole and Lily. As the water rushed in, and the fire rose, a hand emerged from the electric fury and reached out to Cole. The boy swallowed and hesitated. Light pulsed through the flash that had fallen into the temple, and it extended its hand again. Lily gasped as she fought tears while she stood behind her son.

Cole took one look at the water rising around his feet, and another look at the lightning in front of him. With his right hand, he took hold of his mother, and with his left hand he reached for the lightning.

It snatched them up into its arms and carried the boy and his mother to the peak of the steps just below the throne. There, Apkallu spoke through clenched teeth. “You have no place here, messenger!” With a crystalline flourish, a pinion thrust from the light and whirled around the dark creature. Apkallu’s hands and feet were bound, his mouth gagged, and he was tethered to the throne. The messenger, as Apkallu had called him, raised his hand and the throne hovered up into the air with it. With a dismissive flick of his wrist, the throne and its shackled prisoner fell into the waters below.

Now the messenger held its hand up high and the steps below them shook. The sky opened and the ground beneath Cole and Lily’s feet began to move. Shards of light coursed through the waters and Tannites seized and choked and barked until their movement was swept into the flow of the waters. Purple light shimmered over the ground and with a jolt before it shot towards the open air. The rock grew, raising the three of them up out of Erets, leaving the rushing waters below.

Erets continued to split and Tannigath was laid wide open. The mountain, filled with green and purple prisms, exploded from the rock like a suffocating diver gasping a breath of fresh air as he comes to the surface. The mountain settled with a peaceful exhale, the first breath of its victorious birth.

“Ouch,” Lily said as she pulled her hand free from Cole. “You’re squeezing too tight.”

Cole looked around. The messenger stood in front of them and Cole felt his own hair stand on end. From its shoulders, the messenger had wings that were more like prisms of light than material flesh. They rippled with iridescent waves of purple and green. Cole fell down, trembling, and he hid his face. The messenger touched his shoulder and Cole felt, with pressure but no pain, an arc of electricity pop between them. The boy raised his eyes. The messenger motioned for him to stand up. As the water drained from the surface of the new mountain, Cole saw that he and his mother were not the only forms that had come out of the ground.

“The Marshes have served Apkallu all their days. When you would not give the dark lord power in your heart, you were the first in your family to break his curse. However, even this forgiveness you offered was a gift,” said the messenger. “It is all a gift. Your father running into Zeke on his way to the docks. Jeddy remembering This Little Light of Mine, even though he forsook it. That was all used to protect you in moments of trial and darkness. It kept your heart from hardening into stone, and because of all these gifts your heart was kept soft and able to forgive.”

“Your forgiveness kept your mother from becoming another victim of his millennia old harem. These fought, but they did not remain unscathed. They resisted, but they fought with their own weapons of warfare.”

Encased in shards of the new mountain, like cocoons of clear amethyst, were Jeremiah and Zeke. All human. Not a trace of Tannite. “The Father of Lights gives you all mercy and grace. None of you get what you deserve. Instead, he has chosen to place his favor upon you.” The messenger held his hands against each of the shards and they burst like fireworks. Cole felt the crystal shrapnel against his skin like the soft sway of a flower in the breeze. The men fell out of each shard and laid on the ground, breathing heavy.

“Now,” said the messenger, “you have been delivered from the mountain below. No longer is Apkallu’s name on the Marshes. You have been bought with light. Do not live as sons and daughters of the sea dragon for another moment.”

Jeremiah coughed and raised his eyes. “Lily? Cole?”

Lily hesitated when she saw him. She had wanted so much more. Apkallu’s promises still hung in her mind almost as deep as the guilt she felt for believing them. He held his arms out to her.

With slow steps, she walked to him and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face in his neck and held him tighter than she ever had. “I’m sorry, Jeremiah,” she said through tears.

Zeke rolled over on his back and let his arms fall out. He rubbed his face, which was in tact. He only groaned.

Cole ran over to his dad and hugged Jeremiah and Lily together.

“You did it, son,” said Jeremiah. “You were strong and didn’t give in. You’re a lot stronger than I was.”

“I wanted to give up.”

“But you didn’t. You knew how to struggle well. You won the day.”

“I just said I wouldn’t give in. I just said no.”

“And look what came of it.” He tousled his sons hair and patted him on the back.

“Why did we have to go through that, dad?”

“I don’t know, Cole. Some of it was our fault and we made the mess—.”

The messenger’s voice boomed and the air crackled with violet sparks as it interrupted. “This glory is not yours. You chose the temple. You chose your own way, in selfishness and anger and jealousy. Your family chose to seek refuge in all the promises of Apkallu.”

“We chose the dark, dad,” said Cole.

“It is all of the Father that you are not still in the dungeon below the waves,” said the messenger. “You chose the dark, and he has chosen to bring you into the light of day again. The glory you bear is the favor of the father.”

“Why us?” asked Jeremiah.

The messenger held his hands high and lightning shot out into the ocean. A green glimmer spread over the sky, back in the direction of home. He pointed towards the glimmer and stayed still. Jeremiah got the point.

Zeke rolled to his knees and coughed. “We best get on. He gon’ be sealin’ this up again. The nexus. It’s a gate. Keeps ‘em in.”

“How did we get in then?” Cole asked.

“Same way I got in. Pokin’ around in bus’ness y’aint got no bus’ness pokin’ ‘round in.”

“You’d been there before?” Cole asked.

“Th’only way I knew how to get through to your dad. Knew what it was like to be one of ‘em. I knew the song. ‘s’in our blood, I guess ya’ could say.”

The messenger pointed again, thrusting its finger. The prism wings flexed into a holy arc. The explanations were over. It was a clear command to leave.

Jeremiah followed the the messenger’s direction and saw The Herald anchored in the water.

“Come on. Let’s all get home.”

Lily sidled up next to Jeremiah with her shoulder beneath his arm and she rested her head against him.

The party of four stepped into The Herald and Jeremiah took the helm. As he piloted the boat away from Tannigath, the mountain crumbled in on itself and fell into the bay. The air shimmered purple as the nexus allowed them songless passage through the gate.

Cole shivered from the cool night air rushing over him, but it was light and sweet in his lungs. Zeke fell asleep where he sat. His parents were holding each other as his dad piloted The Herald.

It all changed in a moment. He had just been in a house of ancient horrors that up until now he only believed existed in fairy tales. He had crossed into an unseen realm that existed in between planes. He just said no. All the pressure. All the fear. All the darkness. He remembered the light and trusted it against all the gloom beneath that wretched rock.

The messenger had said even remembering that light was a gift. Why hadn’t his mind gone dark? What prevented him from falling and breaking the curse?

Now, outside the nexus, it was time to seek the light that had kept him from becoming a dragon.

The End

Thanks for reading The Story of the Marsh Boy.

I mentioned a few weeks ago I had some ideas in the pipeline for this newsletter, but I’m at a crossroads where I don’t know what the next step looks like for writing. The sails have been torn. The wind has blown. The ship is off course. The horizon is fogged.

Spiritual warfare is a real thing. Darkness is fought with light. Lies are fought with truth. Hurt is healed with forgiveness. We descend into deep dungeons of suffering on our own accord and then fortify that suffering by seeking our own way in our own methods in our own timeframe.

If any of our hearts aren’t hard, it’s a mercy of God.

If there’s interest, I’ll write one final post and pull back the curtain on the inspirations and themes that went into this story. Hit reply and let me know if you’d like to read that.

Otherwise, seek the light while it can still be found. Even your seeking is a gift.

~ J.P. Simons