Tales from the Uplands Page 3

  Unto the Hills

  The cream-colored stone of the walls appeared as the man clambered up the slick damp grass of the hillside. The small wet dripped from the trees to his right, not enough to soak through his heavy coat but enough to keep him uncomfortable and to make the scramble up the slope dangerous. He could see the remains of a set of steps under the long green draped over the hillside, but trusted them as little as he trusted the roads. The steps had been built by the lowest bidder, and he remembered shaking his head at the workmanship when he’d first visited the ancient church, some years before the onset of the Trouble. A few looked frost heaved, and others had cracked, starting to crumble into grey gravel. He staggered up the last bit of the slope, hid behind a large tree and stopped, panting a little, looking at the buildings.

  The university and government restorers had taken great pains to change the details in the rebuilt monastery so the careful eye could tell new from ancient. He could see the difference, but most tourists wouldn’t have. Several years had passed since then, but as the man studied the low buildings, he thought they had remained solid. The silence around him also remained solid. Grass grew thick over the paths, interrupting the gravel and pavers. After several minutes of watching and listening he moved from tree to tree, looking for signs of other visitors. He found nothing. No fresh ruts disturbed the dirt in the parking area up-slope from the old monastery, and when he ventured up the edge of the short paved turn-off, he found a locked pole gate. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, feeling tension easing for the first time since he’d left the city. Nine centuries before, French monks had sought out this place of refuge from the world, and he’d repeated their quest.

  The man returned to the reconstructed monastery and popped the simple lock on the door. It opened without a sound. When no animals emerged, he removed his heavy backpack and dug a small flashlight out of the side pocket. He flicked it on just long enough to find a light switch. He flipped the switch but the dimness remained, as he’d expected. The long-distance and rural power lines had been the first ones cut once the Trouble began, after all. His memory remained true, however, and he found the kitchen. The chimney seemed intact, but he decided to open a shutter and let the smoke out that way, at least for now. Not that he needed a fire yet. He had clothes and supplies enough for now, and even here at the edge of the mountains, the nights remained warm enough for safety. Later, though, he’d need a fire, and to stockpile good, dry wood. He left his pack and gear, but not his weapons, in the cooking area and explored a little more. The diverted stream still flowed through the washing room, clean and safe. He’d still need to look upslope for surprises, but the mines and quarries had closed three decades and more before, and the people moved down to the towns. Satisfied that he had water and shelter, the man made his way to the church, unlocking the side door the same way he’d opened the monastery. The simple locks that had kept vandals and animals out posed little challenge for a man with his skills.

  The door opened with a creak of complaint and he froze. Nothing else moved, and he bowed, crossed himself, and entered the dim, echoing space of the Cistercians’ church.

  Austere and pale, the stone walls rose up to a simple arched ceiling. He’d worried about the roof, but it seemed strong and he couldn’t smell water. The faintest hint of incense, a ghost of a memory perhaps, touched the air, and he saw the remains of long-wilted flowers on the high altar. “Requiscant in pacem,” he whispered to the souls of those who had last ventured up the mountain to worship. Fading embroidered silk banners stood in holders on the east side of the nave, as he’d remembered. St. Stephen of Hungary and St. Bernard of Clairvaux looked out from side chapels, while the Madonna of Sorrows cast her too wise, pitying gaze down on him. He sank to his knees and gave thanks for refuge, however temporary. Then his training reasserted itself and he searched the church for interlopers, testing the lock on the main door and climbing into the organ loft below the rose window. He found a few feathers but no sign of men. Comforted by the lack, he returned to the monastery, closing but not locking the door behind him.

  The man spent the next few days making wider and wider circles around the Cistercian monastery’s walls, looking for other people and gathering supplies. Rose hips and fern clubs, trout tickled from a stream, and the first nuts of fall helped stretch the supplies he’d brought with him. He’d seen rabbits and debated making snares, but decided to wait for another few days until he knew absolutely that no one had made a claim to the monastery’s shelter. He’d come too far to die from carelessness. He did find a cache of someone’s abandoned firewood, and removed the driest wood from the neat stack. It irritated him to leave the plastic sheeting over it loose, the way he’d found it, but again, he couldn’t risk leaving signs of his presence. He didn’t fear the authorities, because there were none. The only authority remaining was the strong arm of man, and perhaps for some, the word of God.

  He built his fires inside the monastery kitchen, watching the thin trickle of smoke easing out of the window and mourning. The flames danced on the dry wood, and he wondered if the cities had burned in the same way. So many people had fled to the cities instead of away from them, he mourned. Had the government recommended seeking safety in numbers? If so he’d missed the broadcast. Or perhaps it was the old instinct to seek shelter and company in times of danger. He’d always been different, a little eccentric according to the neighborhood gossip. He poked the fire and prayed for the souls of the dead.

  Just before the next full moon he spotted other smoke. A thin wisp rose from a fold of valley at least three kilometers to the west, barely visible in the moon’s light. The next day he moved the rest of the wood pile into the monastery, along with the plastic sheet, and moved his snares east and north, higher into the forest and away from the old church. He saw evidence of deer, and wished he’d brought more ammunition. He’d need something more than rabbits once winter set in. He gathered more nuts, taking care never to follow the same route to and from his sanctuary.

  Other than the bit of smoke, he saw no sign of other humans until Christmas. He returned from checking his snares, glancing at the side-door of the church as he did. Shoeprints and fresh dirt marred the creamy stone threshold. The man’s blood ran cold and he returned to the cover of the tree line, watching and listening. He’d grown careless. Nothing moved other than birds. Still he waited until almost sunset before approaching the monastery building. No one had ventured close, no tracks appeared, and the little telltales he’d left against the door remained in place. The man relaxed a little and ducked inside. He barricaded the door but slept lightly.

  The next morning he visited the church, as was his custom. Someone had taken their muddy shoes off by the door. He could see traces of dirt and smears, as if they had tried to clean up as they left. To his surprise, fresh late-blooming flowers rested on the high altar and in the holder in front of the Jesus altar. Whoever had come had been as careful as he was, almost. Still, the intrusion shook him, and for the next few days he kept his fire as small and smokeless as possible. The intruder did not return at Epiphany, and he relaxed. A few days later, snow fell.

  He encountered no people during the next months. He saw a few more smoke threads, and once thought he heard a gunshot echoing from the old quarry above the church and monastery, but the man saw no tracks and heart no voices. Just after the first frosts he’d risked venturing to the edge of one of the abandoned hamlets, too small to have been a village, and removed cooking pots from a house. After that he stayed away. With the cold, any two legged, or four legged, stragglers would find the shelter of the old settlements attractive, and stragglers brought predators. Although, he mused, the Trouble had likely caught as many of them as of the innocent. The city packs couldn’t function outside of their native environment. Unlike Rome, the plumbing systems of the modern world needed more than gravity to continue to function, and more than a little clay and a bit of cattail heart to fashion a light.

  Just after the spring equinox,
a heavy, wet snow fell, covering everything in over sixty centimeters of snow. After a night and a day the skies cleared and cold air spilled down over the mountain from the north, so cold the stars seemed to burn with white flame. He huddled close to the fire. The next day he ventured out, squinting against the harsh light of the sun on the snow, even though his dark glasses. The Carpathians rarely saw this kind of snow, and he struggled to get up and out onto the top of the mess. To his surprise it held his weight if he moved carefully. He stayed close to the church clearing. Just before dawn the next day he ventured farther, going up the slope behind the clearing. After an hour he heard sounds like an animal in distress. The man moved quietly, his boots making little ice squeaks on the still-hard crust. The trapped deer, struggling against the crust holding its legs, did not hear him until it was too late.

  He field dressed the animal and dragged the meat and marrow-filled bones back in the hide. The snow had started softening, at least in sunny, open areas, and he guessed that his tracks would vanish soon. He returned to the clearing and stopped, looking and listening. Tracks, fresh tracks, led around the other side of the old church. The man’s heat pounded and he hid the deer in a deep, shadowy bit of cover. The tracks entered the church by the front door, and the lock hung open. He started to follow, then stopped.

  Instead the man opened the side door. He heard a gasp, and another man’s voice whispering, “Get behind me!”

  Something clattered onto the stone floor and the man shoved the door farther open, then ducked to the side of the door, out of the sunlight and into the shadows. A woman whispered, “Who, who is it?”

  “Shhh.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, the man saw the pair. A pale man crouched over a dark-clad young woman, staying between her and the stranger. A flicker of light caught the man’s eye and he discovered that they’d lit a large white candle, placing the fat pillar on one of the iron candleholders by the image of Our Lady. The man thought for a moment then said quietly, “It is the Feast of the Annunciation.” He recited as much of the litany as he could recall, and the couple replied, hesitantly at first, then more confidently when the man neither moved nor threatened them. As the woman stood, he could see that she was pregnant. For the first time since the Troubles began, hope filled his soul.

  When the three finished as much of the litany as they could recall. The younger man ventured, “Are, are you a priest?”

  “No, I am merely a guardian.” He considered. “You came for the feast of Christmas.”

  The woman nodded. Her scarf slipped a little and he caught a glimpse of dark hair braided tight against her head.

  “It’s almost sunset. You’d better go now, unless you can see in the dark,” he reminded them.

  The couple genuflected to the altar, then left by the front door. He heard them locking it and wondered how they’d found a key. Well, it was a very common sort of lock, and perhaps they’d been fortunate. Or had known one of the former caretakers.

  By midsummer more people emerged, staying in the valleys, reclaiming abandoned vineyards and farms. They avoided the church and monastery for the most part, aside from a few believers who ventured up to worship and to leave small offerings. The man traded a little. One of the families rediscovered a salt spring and traded salt for help mending a wall. All went armed and wary, staying close to their own patches of ground. Only the man ventured between them. He recalled a little of his long-ago medical and first aid training, just enough to help in dire emergencies and to set bones or pull teeth. He also helped with construction. He’d been a combat engineer during his required military service.

  The second spring after he fled to the monastery site, the man realized that a tiny hamlet had formed just up the valley from one of the old villages. The people plundered the old town for building material and supplies, what little remained that had withstood the weather. No one molested the settlement. A few traders, or people who had spoken with other survivors in other valleys, relayed tales about people trying to set up little fiefdoms in the lowlands, returning to feudalism of a sort, or built armed villages. For whatever reason, the mountains remained unmolested. A few people died of illness or accident, and babies emerged into the world. The population grew slowly, until by the next Christmas a score of hardy souls ventured up to the church, coming in ones and twos. The man led worship as best he could, providing a little advice and relaying information to visitors or when he went out to trade and forage.

  Sheep appeared that next spring, driven over the mountains from the north. “Mountain folk look to themselves,” the shepherd said. “Need pasture.” The village built a sheep pen and some of the older children helped the shepherd. A few other people crossed the ridges, including a former deacon who accepted the man’s invitation to move into the monastery. The deacon had brought books, farming manuals and pamphlets from a living-history museum about building plows and wagons and such, along with prayer books and a copy of the Scriptures. As word spread, the villagers brought other books, and blank paper and pencils and pens scavenged from who-knew-where. A small library began to grow in the old monastery.

  Fifteen years after the Troubles, the man died, succumbing to the hard winter. The villagers, led by a new deacon and one of the older women, said prayers for his soul and buried him in the little graveyard they’d carved out of the woods uphill of the church. Two men, urged by their wives and daughters, built a little shrine over the wooden grave marker to protect it until they could replace it with stone. Stories about the man’s kindness and his help grew, and every so often a person struggled up to the site, sometimes with flowers or a rough candle or lamp, and asked the man’s spirit to help intervene with their god for assistance, or to give them advice. The shrine grew as word spread about the man, and a few began referring to him as a saint, sent to help men in their time of distress.

  And so the old, old process began anew.

  That Which is Hidden

  The rental car lurched left, then right, each tire finding a bigger hole in the road. “Damn it, when did they last repair this? Just before the Soviets invaded?” Gregory kept waiting for an axel to break, or to discover that the water in the holes hid something too deep to get out of, even in first gear. “So much for reaching Eger before dark,” he grumbled. The shadowy face of the mountains loomed to the north, and as he jounced back and forth, Gregory wondered just where the hell the GPS had taken him. “Last time I do this without a back up map,” he grumbled.

  The road smoothed out over a bridge, then returned to its former state. Dear Lord, what will this be like after winter? It’d be easier just to let it crumble and grade the remains than to patch, he thought, wincing at an especially loud scraping sound and vibration. But the little Skoda slugged on, somehow, and just as the sun touched the tops of the trees, the asphalt strips separating the holes expanded and blended into what he’d call a paved road. “Thank you,” he whispered. He managed to make it up to third gear and 50 km/hour before a few houses appeared and he slowed again. The hamlet looked safe enough, and Gregory glanced around for a place to pull over and check the car. It sounded OK and the steering felt right, but he didn’t want to discover after dark on a narrow road in a strange land that he’d lost his oil pan or something equally important. He rounded a rising curve and saw a church. “Perfect.”

  Gregory pulled into the bare dirt of the parking area. He dug a small flashlight out of his travel bag and stepped out of the car. The air smelled of moist soil and wet leaves, and the westerly wind carried a bit of chill. He crouched down, snapped on the light and studied the Skoda coup’s wheels and as much of the underside as he could see without laying down on the rain-damp ground. “Huh.” Everything looked good, and he didn’t smell oil or transmission fluid. The muffler remained firmly attached, and all four hubcaps sat where they should. Apparently Skoda still overbuilt everything, including little blue passenger cars. Gregory flicked off the pocket flashlight and straightened up, looking closely at his surroundin
gs for the first time.

  The church sat in a fold in the hills leading to the dark mass of the Matra Mountains. A lush, grassy yard surrounded the building and a gravel path led to the door. Had there once been a cemetery beside the church? He didn’t see any markers, but the large open area had that look to it. The village, whatever-its-name-was, lay to the west, spilling down the hillside to the stream that he’d crossed on the smooth bridge. He could see lights in a few windows, and a larger village to the west, across the valley. Several ridges farther away, a now-decommissioned Soviet-era power plant’s cooling towers loomed against the setting sun. The day’s storms had passed on, leaving the western sky clear for the first time in a week, or so it felt. Gregory stretched, ran a hand through his hair and wondered what next.

  “First I reboot the GPS.” He reached in the open window and hit “reset.” The magic map box needed a few minutes to find itself, so he stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and walked along the gravel toward the back of the church, looking for a convenient bush out of the view of passers by. Pipes drained, he strolled around to the door of the old church. Instead of the usual Latin cross shape, this one seemed to be a Greek cross, with four equal arms around a low dome, all covered in thick, light-tan plaster that smoothed the corners and edges. Gregory heard nothing but his own steps crunching on gravel and a faint flutter of leaves on the evening breeze. Maybe they didn’t have Sunday services out here, at least not evening ones. But as he turned the sum-warmed iron handle on the aged wooden door, it shifted. Latches slid open and hinges creaked a little as he pushed the heavy panel open and made his way into the church.

  Gregory caught himself before he fell down the worn stone steps into the sanctuary. “Hello? Jó estét?” He called, glancing around. Two rows of little white candles flickered in a black metal rack in front of a statue of some saint, and the dim red glow of a Presence candle marked the main altar. No one replied and Gregory shrugged, looking down at the uneven steps to make certain he didn’t fall. He couldn’t imagine why someone had dug almost two meters down from the front door to make the main floor of the church. He didn’t see any chairs or pews in the nave, and wondered if worshippers were supposed to bring their own. He turned right and walked over to the saint, feeling gritty sandstone under his shoe-soles. The church’s walls still held the day’s warmth, and he smelled incense left from an earlier mass.