A Power Beyond Man by Ryan Matthew Harker (free reads txt) 📕

Once upon a time, up a mighty river, across rolling plains of grass, and over majestically snowcapped mountains, a little girl lived in the Bright Land. She lived in a large but comfortable home surrounded by tall hedges of impenetrable briar and bramble; the only way out through a tight aperture guarded by an iron wrought gate discolored and corroded with age. Though as a young goddess she was constantly attended by many wonderful people who cherished her there was something missing, forever dancing just out of her mind’s reach.
Over majestically snowcapped mountains, across rolling plains of grass, and down a mighty river a man lived in the Dull Land. He lived in a home dug from the earth itself, covered with a finely woven frame of small, flexible limbs and saplings planted with sod. This simple structure dwelt in a little glade surrounded by wood through which deer and other such small woodland creatures quietly wandered. A single footpath led to and from this glade and other than the feet of the man and his woodland companions had seen no travel. Although drunk on the peace his solitude brought him there was something missing, forever dancing just out of his mind’s reach.
Little though they realized but their discontent quietly called out to one another, silently pulling at their hearts, a magnetism of blood that would never be quieted while apart. Though they existed in secret from each other, the discomfort bred through their discontent grew to consume their separate countries with a malignant disquiet. Innocent of their involvement though they were neither the little girl nor the man were unaffected when this disquiet became physically manifest. A dark cloud of insecure loneliness blocked out the sun of the Bright Land and cast darkness across a place for which the absence of light was but a legend while bright rays of fiery anger burned away the gloom of the Dull Land and brought light once again to its darkest corners.
Much uncertainty came into these two countries with the passing of these events and the uncertainty rose to create a tension among the people who inhabited the Bright and Dull Lands.
It was the power of this tension that gave life to the Spirit Render. It swirled out of the tension from the people of the Bright and Dull Lands and joined with the fiery rays and the dark cloud. The innate need of the universe to sustain balance in all things being known this gentle beginning to such an intrinsically evil creature should not have been unexpected. It fed solely on the raw negative energy of the universe and it did this until the natural balance was disrupted; causing what remained of the universe’s positive energy to fail and the space in which the Spirit Render resided to collapse into itself like a miniature Black Hole. If not stopped at this time the insatiable entity would move on and perpetuate its cycle of destruction elsewhere. As a creature fueled by anger and driven by loneliness it would not stop on its own until the entire universe was obliterated.
As the peace of his little glade was shattered the quiet Push within his mind told the man it had been of his own doing. A combination of reason and faith the man always listened to the Push, if there was a god the man imagined this was as close as it came to speaking with mankind. It told the man that regardless of the circumstances in the world around him it was he and only he who had made the decision to settle the glade. Poked and prodded along by fate’s sometime harsh finger as he may have been, it had still been he who chose to remain alone in the Dull Land, just another unsung product of free will.
It had not always been so. Fate had offered up many opportunities for pure happiness but the man had squandered them all, never able to appreciate what he had until it had slipped through his fingers, fine grains of sand lost to the passage of time. It was in part these intimate glimpses into his core character, brought so clearly into perspective through his own failings in these situations, that had led him to his latest realization.
More of an epiphany really it had come on slowly, creeping upon him like a panther in the night, a black shadow silently stalking his subconscious with stars twinkling in its eyes. Eventually growing tired of the hunt it had finally pounced and it was then the man knew what he had to do.
Packing only what few belongings he deemed necessary for a long journey the man settled the hobo’s staff to which the bundle was attached across one shoulder and turned to transmit one final farewell to his home, a plethora of fine memories flooding his imagination as he did so.
It was at that moment a deer stepped from the border of trees to shyly stand next to the emerald green mound in the glades center. The man smiled at the rightness of such a send off. Raising a calloused hand, at once a greeting and a dismissal, he called out, “So long my beautiful friend. I’ll love you always and forever and fervently hope we meet again!” And lowering his hand he blinked from his left eye a saline drop as solitary as his existence had been, turned and began the long journey down the footpath to civilization.
However, the little girl did not know how to incorporate the dark cloud into the brightness of her existence. Its shadow contaminated every facet of her life until even a goddess must begin to wilt. And the more she wilted the more those who kept and cared for her tried everything in their knowledge to nurture and nourish her spirit but alas, to no avail. They could not understand it, could not comprehend for their experience had not given them the capacity for this brand of understanding, and to be honest there are but few mortals who have the empathy to understand a goddess.
So they lovingly tried, so they continued to fail and so the little girl grew very ill. She grew ill until she was sick unto death and knowing not what else they may do her caretakers placed her into deep stasis until such a time as a cure for her affliction had been discovered. Inexperienced and uninformed as they were they never paused to consider the coincidence of the girl’s illness and the Spirit Render’s appearance in their world and so the connection between the creature and her decline was left unmade. In this way the little girl slept unawares while the evil of the Spirit Render selfishly consumed the world around her.
On the other hand the man was wise with intuition and if his time alone had taught him anything it was to trust his instincts when they cried out to him. They were crying now and their cry was one of guilt. He knew it was only to remind him, remind him of the choices of his past no doubt but which ones were unclear. Who was to know what particular choice had left him guilty, there were at least a couple that may claim the honor. At the time he had thought it mattered not which intersection plagued him only that through his guilt was he guided to the realization that in some way the Spirit Render had come from him. From somewhere deep within that he was blissfully unaware of until the guilt.
It had always amused the man such feelings could seemingly come spontaneously from nowhere, having no real connection to what he was experiencing in the moment, their relation to the moment only revealed through future moments. He smiled inwardly as he considered all of the times this misconception was proven wrong until it had finally forced him to admit he had been deceiving himself. Thankful it had made him that his path had humbled him in this regard. He dreaded to imagine what might occur if he had remained unaware.
The man had absolutely no idea how he might expect to be able to reign in a demonic presence as awfully all consuming as the Spirit Render. Such a force was capable of destroying the universe if left unchecked, slowly and methodically upsetting the balance of things until the whole system collapsed. At least his feet were on the path to redemption instead of lollygagging somewhere along the wayside, all the distraction just the curriculum of life meant to teach him the truth of his own existence.
He believed this to be one of the ways in which a person may fail themselves and, by doing so, fail those around them. It was hard for them to believe they do not have any real power over any existence other than their own but the only power one may have over another is the power that is given to one by another and this can be taken away, therefore is only the illusion of power and should be treated as such. Just another reason he preferred to be alone. When you expose yourself to the realities of others your own reality can become infected, this may at times be pleasant but is oftimes a cruel and torturous experience. Better to be alone, at least this was what he had thought before the Spirit Render, before the guilt.
He glanced to the northeast and tried not to think anymore on the Spirit Render. His feet were on the path and for now the path led him to Port City. He hated the thought of going to Port City, it meant without an exhaustive detour he would have to travel strait through Cougar Country. Images in his minds eye of the great cats made him grip the haft of his knife tightly though it were not the worries of traveling through this country that made his heart ache with sudden cold pains. Rarely did he dwell on the subject so his mind shied away from this topic as well and having nothing else with which to be occupied latched again on Port City.
Oh, Port City, sleazy river slum and largest pirate town off the northern arm of the Western Ocean, how he truly wished he could avoid making that stop. Unfortunately he stood the best chance of finding passage upriver from there and the man felt time was of the essence as well as maintaining an easterly course.
He could not say with any certainty what prompted him to believe the former but it was definitely the Push urging him to the latter. Listening to the Push when it came to these matters had become second nature to him over the course of twenty years, so there was never a question in his mind as to which direction he was to travel. No, the question was more one of distance for he had not a whisper as to how far he was to go.
Oh well, the man had an ability to withstand even the