The woods served as both refuge and trap. It concealed him from the stares of the Purifiers yet it also silenced the outside world leaving only his aching injuries and the reverberation of Nicolette's sacrifice, in his solitude. You're my kingdom's investment. The phrase brought solace. An investment might be. Abandoned.
He journeyed under the moons glow a ghost, among the pines gliding alongside the valley floor yet remaining concealed in the cover of the treeline. His aim was no longer a destination but a frontier. He had to escape the Scarlet Kingdom moving beyond the grasp of both Greta's justice and the Host's purification patrols. He required room to breathe to reflect, to allow the tale of Oberalp and the riverbank skirmish to embed itself into the foundation of folklore.
His journey took him into the secluded valleys to the south of the Lötschental an area characterized by stark beauty and sparse population. The atmosphere was crisp and rarefied cleansed by gusts descending from the frozen cliffs of the Bietschhorn and the Jungfrau. In this place the intrigues of Silberbrücke seemed like a off delirium. Here the conflict was the climate and enduring was the command.
On day four he encountered the hermit.
It was a shepherd's mayen more rundown than the one in Val d'Hérens its stone walls bowing, its roof a bare skeleton, against the sky. Yet smoke, faint and persistent wound from a chimney. As Alexander neared with care an elderly man appeared, draped in furs that matched the mountains hue. His face resembled a chart of fissures his eyes the light blue of glacier ice. He gripped a twisted staff not as a weapon but to serve as an extra support.
"You're either misplaced or you're the subject of their murmurs " the hermit spoke, his tone resembling stones scraping each other. "The clattering spirit."
Alexander paused. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Interference is a notion humans have " the recluse muttered. "The mountain couldn't care less. Step inside. The breeze is growing stronger. You appear as if you've been wrestling with it."
Within the hut there was one room, centered around a hearth with a modest steady fire. The atmosphere was heavy, with the aromas of woodsmoke, dried herbs and melting cheese. The hermit, unnamed offered a meal of tough bread, cheese and a sharp herbal tea. He made no inquiries merely watched Alexander with those vivid eyes.
At last as twilight colored the mountains beyond in hues of pink and purple the hermit said, "You possess two silences within you. One that existed before. One that lies ahead."
Alexander glanced away, from the flames. "You've noticed it?"
"The skin of the world is where I reside " the hermit spoke. "I sense its quakes. The ancient quiet… it is profound. Enduring. It dwells within the bones of the mountains at the core of the glaciers. It is the recollection of what came. It harbors no hatred. It merely… exists." He nudged the fire. "The silence… it is a craving. It originates from, beyond. It seeks to soften the edges to hush the tremors. A gardener is the one who regards a wildflower as a weed."
Alexander experienced a recognition. This unlearned individual in his mountain cabin had grasped the difference, between the Hölloch's embracing darkness and the Angel's forceful refining light.
Alexander spoke softly "The gardeners are arriving."
"Aye.. The profound ancient stillness is… awakening. Not to battle,. To… recall its essence. To give what it has forever given." The hermit held his eyes steady. "You have visited both realms. The profound. The brink of the gardener's knife. What brings you here in the middle?"
"To say the between is worth keeping."
The hermit exhaled sharply. "A senseless pursuit. The middle is where things get broken. Yet…" he paused to drink from his tea "…it's also the sole spot where growth happens." He pointed to a resilient alpine flower sprouting from a fissure in the stone ground reaching toward the light streaming through the open door. "That flower. Thrives in the pitch black nor, in the gardener's flawless sanitized bed. It thrives where the stone is fractured where the light is severe and the wind attempts to rip it. Its being is an act of defiance."
They remained quiet for a period. The hermit's statement acted like a blessing, a recognition that his futile struggle had roots, in the fundamental character of the world he sought to protect.
The morning as Alexander was about to depart the hermit placed a small leather-bound package in his palm. "Goat's. Travel bread.. A caution. The route down the slope to the following valley… it is guarded. Not, by humans. By something that senses disharmony."
Alexander expressed his gratitude. Began his journey. The southern side was a scree slope, a flowing stream of unstable stones. He descended cautiously the hermit's caution echoing in his thoughts.
He was down the valley's base a green blur far beneath when he noticed it.
A flash of white.
Not snow. Not stone. Hair. And a glimmer of dark fabric, like a shadow given elegant form.
It was located in a ravine, a crevice, on the mountain's surface partially concealed by a protruding rock. A silhouette stood motionless watching his climb down. The faraway view made details indistinct. The overall sense was clear: light nearly glowing hair, accompanied by an aura of calm hunting interest. It lacked the stare of a Purifier. Instead it was clever, evaluating and completely otherworldly.
Dorothy Charmaine.
She remained still. She gave no indication. She merely observed, like a queen's counselor monitoring a piece gliding through a off part of the chessboard. Her being served as reassurance. The Abyss was following him too not to end him or halt him but to comprehend him. He was the element, in their age-old formula.
Then a thin cloud drifted across the sun altering the light. She vanished. Not by leaving. Because the mountain's shadow appeared to grow darker and engulf her entirely. One instant she was visible a flash of white, against the grey stone; the next just a vacant ravine remained.
Alexander's heart pounded within his chest. The hermit's warning was accurate. He was being observed. From both factions. He had ceased to be a runaway; he had become an exhibit under scrutiny. A compelling oddity, amidst the clash of two absolutes.
He completed the descent with heightened haste sensing vulnerability on the incline. The sight of white hadn't posed danger. It represented something troubling: a sign of his insignificance in their elaborate plans yet his complete importance, as an emblem. They were allowing him to move freely letting his narrative circulate possibly to observe what might emerge from the doubts he sowed. To determine if the "between" he advocated could yield anything beyond shattered blossoms.
He arrived at the valley bottom, a slender, verdant strip of meadow. A little brook gurgled over rocks producing a noise of unfeeling existence. He crouched down. Sipped, the liquid cold and pristine.
He was a man trapped between a chisel and an abyss observed by haired thinkers of entropy and gold-adorned zealots of order. All he possessed was a tale some wounds, a scrap of bread and a rock.
He remained standing gazing again at the vast unyielding facade of the mountain. Above nestled in the rocky shadows, something old and mournful had briefly met his gaze.
He turned south and began to walk again. The glimpse of white had not changed his path. It had only confirmed its terrible, necessary truth. He was the noise in the signal. And he would keep making noise until either the silence took him, or the world remembered how to listen to its own messy, beautiful, rebellious song.