Robert Charrette - Find your own truth

He repeated his demands and they laughed, an animal sound, wild and dangerous. One came forward and shouted something incoherent into Father's face. Another crept out and swung a fence board against the back of Father's knees. As the elder Verner collapsed, the one who'd shouted at him sidestepped to let him fall to the sidewalk. Then the mob rushed in, beasts tearing at the fallen foe.

Oliver rushed forward, disappearing instantly among the surging crowd. Sammy heard screams, but they sounded too high-pitched to be Oliver's. They sounded like a girl's screams. Twist knew better.

The mob reached them. Mother shoved Sammy and Janice behind her, but someone tore her away. Sammy grabbed his sister and ran. A howling rose behind them, and he dragged her along even faster. Turning down the alley between the Foster and Lee places, he knew he couldn't outrun the mob; he was just a kid and he was carrying his little sister. Pulling Janice into the deep shadows around the Fosters' shed, he crouched there, rucking Janice against the building and covering her head with his arm. He'd protect her as best he could. He tucked his own head down and closed his eyes.

He wanted to run away from these awful people, find a better place to hide. Twist understood as the terror-born, desperate need of young Sammy Verner called to the city spirit, wrapping its protection around him and his sister. It was only a small, weak spirit, much too small to have covered and hidden the whole family from the mob, even if it were not already too late.

A tentacle of the mob surging down the alley brushed unseeing past the huddled children. Not finding its victims, the tentacle retracted back to its parent body as the mob moved on down the street. Now they turned their fury against the Andersons' house, burning it completely before moving on again.

Sammy stayed huddled where he was, hugging his sister. Sam didn't dare move even after she had cried herself to sleep. She needed her sleep. Mother had said so. He cried, too, but would not let himself sleep. Then a man came walking down the street and crossed the mouth of the alley. He was dressed in fine clothes. The flickering light of the fires glittered from gold on his fingers and from the head of his cane. He looked like a rich businessman, out of place in the burbs. But he didn't act out of place; he acted instead as though he owned it all. Sammy Verner didn't know him, but Twist did.

The man was Mr. Enterich, an agent of the dragon Lofwyr. Ever since the Haesslich affair, Enterich had been a symbol of duplicity for Sam, the perfect corporate false front for the savage and duplicitous ma-neuverings of the worm that gnawed at the wood of society. Twist had no memory of Enterich being present that night.

Sammy Verner watched the well-dressed man stroll down the street until he reached the broken gate of the Verner house. Leaning on his cane, the man contemplated the fire. At length a shadow flitted over Sammy and his sister, moving across the street in a curving arc before it vanished. But it returned again, and this time Sammy looked up to see enormous bat wings spread against the paling stars. It was a dragon. The creature banked and came to a silent landing at Enter-ich's side. It was not Lofwyr. "Success?"

"No trace, no trail. The line must be extinguished. " The dragon exuded satisfection. "The losses of time spent dreaming are recouped this night. The herd is culled, and the small rivals shall find no allies. They burn. Everywhere, they burn. Are not the flames wonderful?"

"Perhaps," Enterich replied. "I fear this noise that echoes around the world tonight. It is out of control, and the resulting chaos might demand a high price." "Temerity. But dawn comes and we must be away. " The dragon stretched its wings. Sammy hid his head. Despite his own leavening of experience Twist was overwhelmed by childish terror and hid as well. Together the boy and man consciousnesses huddled in fear.

The sound of the beast's passage was a roaring moan. It might have been wind displaced by the force of the beast's wing stroke, or it might have been the voice of the mob. If indeed the two were different. Sammy loved symbols, and dragons were among the best. They were huge and powerful, strong and dangerous. They were elemental beasts that Twist could envision as chaos embodied. When he got up enough courage to look again, the dragon and the man were gone as though they had never been. Maybe they never had.

But his parents were really gone. His brother, too. Only their memories remained in his heart.

A skinny old Indian in a breech clout stood at his side. Howling Coyote. "Would you give your life to see them live again?"

Sam thought about that for a while, then shrugged. "What good would it do? They wouldn't like what the world has become. Sooner or later, naturally or not, they would die again, and I'd be responsible for making them face that trial again. They already died once. Let them be in peace."

"And if you had the power to change the world, to make it so they would like it? Would that make a difference?"

"No. They've earned their peace." Sam stood up. He was just Twist now, though the child Janice still sheltered under his protective arm. "But I'd change the world anyway. We all have the responsibility to make things better for ourselves and for our families. We all have to do what we can to make the world a better place."

"Better for your own ends?'' ' 'Better for everybody.'' "What about the cost?" Sam looked at the bodies of his parents. They were

even as the scene of the old neighborhood was fading. Even the child Janice was fading. "Can I pay less than they did to live up to my beliefs?"

"Very easily," the shaman said gravely. "Most people don't stand up and pay when it comes down to it."

"There's a price for everything. Sooner or later, you have to pay."

"Hey hey, Dog boy, there may be hope for you yet. That's the first step in the dance." Howling Coyote spun and capered away. "Or was it the last? I forget. I'm an old man, ya know."

Sam shook his head sadly and followed the shaman into the dawn.

Sometimes the tunnel to the otherworld appeared in different forms, though its nature always remained the same. This time it seemed more an organic tube than a cavern, its rugose walls looking soft and seeming to radiate heat. The odor pervading the place was rank and slightly stale. Sam had the sensation of being in someone's mouth, which made him feel distinctly uncomfortable.

He probed ahead with his senses. The Dweller on the Threshold was out there, as always. Like the tunnel, it didn't always look the same. Once, the Dweller had been perverted by an evil wendigo and warped through some unknown magic to bar Sam from the totemic plane. Sam had faced his fears to overcome the barrier and ultimately defeat the wendigo. He had learned something of the nature of the Dweller in that experience, and believed he would know if the Dweller were ever more than its normal etheric self again.

He found the Dweller waiting for him. It felt ordinary, though its form was unusual. This time the Dweller manifested itself as a tightening of the passage. Stalactites hung in jagged rows, moving and clashing with stalagmites. Slime dripped and spattered from them, like spittle from the teeth of a hungry carnivore.

Hoping Howling Coyote had some advice to offer, Sam turned to him. As on previous occasions, the old shaman's appearance surprised him. Here on the astral, Howling Coyote still looked like an old man, scrawny and weather-beaten as in the mundane world. Sam would have expected such a powerful shaman to look more… well, powerful. The shaman sat on a rock that protruded from the cavern wall and leaned against the side of the shaft. It had been Howling Coyote's idea to take this trip, and die old man's apparent lack of interest irritated Sam. "What are you doing sitting there?" The shaman's eyes were closed and his face composed. His right shoulder twitched in the barest hint of a shrug. "Waiting."