The Chronicles of Quat Short Story: A Night at the Pools of Ar'Dynn

The Chronicles of Quat Short Story:

A Night at the Pools of Ar'Dynn

by Bryen O'Riley

Tad peered through the thickening fog, he couldn't see anyone. It had rolled in so quickly, taking the midnight trespassers by surprise.

“Etan?” Chet?” he called out to the others, his 12 year old voice cracking as ever, but his words were muffled by the fog that hid even the light of the full moon.

Tad held his lantern closer to his face, seeking the comfort of the small flicker as his mind inevitably considered the impossible legend of the Mists of Ar'Dynn.

The story was a favourite of the older people in Idynn, especially at the harvest festival when they liked to scare the children.

Tad forced his feet to move, he hoped, toward home. He warily watched the fog that was now swirling oddly around him. He'd never seen mist move like that before— it seemed almost alive.

No, he couldn't think like that. He knew that mist couldn't devour a person's soul— yet in that dark, solitary moment Tad believed it and even if it wasn't true he wasn't willing to risk it.

Besides, what's a soul? He thought wryly. He remembered when Vetton had asked that during the fall celebration last year. The old people didn't respond, they'd only complained that 12 year olds should be hauling wood for the bonfire not listening to children's stories.

Later Vetton had confidently assure both he and Chet that such a response proved the adults didn't know what a soul was either. Tad reminded him such a hypothesis was hardly verified. While Chet argued that it just meant it was too scary to explain, even to 12 year olds.

A scream pierced the fog, and his thoughts. Tad nearly dropped his lantern in surprise but it was only a split second before he was running at full speed toward the sound. He and Chet had finally been invited to join Etan and his friends for one of their nighttime adventures, proving they were finally growing up, but Tad hadn't seen or heard any of the others since the mist had rolled in.

As Tad ran through it, the Mists of Ar'Dynn swirled and seemed to reach for him. He was frightened by the unnatural fog and just behind that thought was the knowledge that all of their parents had warned them to leave the Pools of Ar'Dynn alone. Had they known the fog was like this? Did their warnings prove it was more than his imagination? Was it really real?

The scream came again, followed by a low moan of anguish. From his proximity, Tad knew he was close— he barrelled straight for the noise. His eyes barely distinguished branches and bushes in the dim lantern light before he needed to avoid them.

With his eyes constantly forward as he crashed through the woods, Tad did not see the ground drop away before him. His lantern dropped, the candle flame extinguished as it fell. He slid down an embankment toward what could only be one of the pools below.

 
Tad knew a moment of panic. The pools are forbidden! his mind shouted. He tried to grab any root or handhold he could find as the mist rising from the pool tried to grab his legs. He swore the claws were real, swore he could feel sharp nails tearing into his flesh. He kicked, trying to keep those desperate hands from getting a strong grip on his ankles.

At last, Tad grasped a sturdy root and managed to keep a hold as the weight of his body tried to pull him closer to the water. His grip held. Somehow he had managed to stop himself before even his boots touched that sacrosanct water. After heaving a huge sigh of relief, Tad began hauling himself back up the bank.

Immediately, the fog receded and the full light of the moon could once again be seen. As Tad reached the top of the bank and scrambled over he glanced back at the pools— they innocently reflected the moonlight with no sign of the wildly grasping mist that he swore he'd been able to feel moments before.

A low groan reminded Tad of the reason he had dashed headlong into the pool. He scrambled over to a figure huddled low to the ground.

Tad grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him toward himself. It was Jendar, a friend of Etan's and older than Tad by four years.

“Are you hurt?” Tad asked, peering at Jendar's face and head.

“It grabbed me,” Jendar mumbled, his eyes wide and his shoulders shaking as if with cold.

Tad scanned Jendar's body, looking for blood or a break.

“It pulled me toward the pool but I got a hold of this bush. It—it kept pulling— thought it'd tear me in half…” Jendar shuddered and looked at Tad directly for the first time, “But then— it stopped. It left— like it found something better.”

Tad gulped. He had been running toward Jendar by that time. He must have been pretty close. Had the mist been after him?

Tad shook his head, trying to clear it. It couldn't be. Hadn't they just allowed their fears, put into their heads by that ridiculous legend, to imagine that monster mist? Even now, in moonlight that nearly mimicked day without a tendril of mist to be seen, Tad couldn't quite believe that he and Jendar had both imagined such a real horror. How could their separate minds imagine the same terrible dream? He could still feel the cold, wet tearing grasps of that desperate killer on his legs.

Tad got Jendar on his feet and, although he was still shaken, he mastered his body before they ran into the others. Rynn found them in the woods only a short time later. The entire group jumped when she seemed to appear a few paces beside them. No one had seen her approach.

To Tad's astonishment, Rynn had been so boiling mad that she had lambasted them in front of the other boys. In fact, she included the other boys in most of it. It wasn't until they got home though that she spoke more plainly to just Etan and Tad.

“If I ever catch you near those pools at night again, I will skin you myself! Is that understood?”

“It was just some mist, Ma, and even if we had fallen in,” Etan glared at Tad and his muddy clothes, “we are the strongest swimmers in Idynn. We would have been fine.”

“There is more than drowning to be concerned with at the pools at night, boys.” Rynn rubbed her forehead tiredly.

“You don't believe that old legend of Ar'Dynn do you?” Tad asked in what he hoped was a scornful tone. To him it sounded a little too wobbly for that.

Rynn leaned against the heavy wooden table that she prepared food upon every day, “I think that the world is a very complex place and little boys—”
Etan cleared his throat.

“Little boys and young men shouldn't put themselves into harm's way. Whether that harm be getting lost, drowning, their soul being devoured by mist, or their body being devoured by lions.” She smiled when she said lions.

Tad grinned. She was just worried about them getting lost or drowning then. Lions were as made up as the Mists of Ar'Dynn!

There was only one problem. Before Tad laid down that night he found scratches on his legs. Could the scratches have come from the mist? Or perhaps from a thorn bush he hadn't noticed running through? He wondered if Jendar had any scratches.

Tad and Jendar never spoke of that night again. Sometimes Tad thought that Jendar had forgotten his horror of that night but Jendar never went near the Pools of Ar'Dynn again. Not even as far as the forest surrounding them.

The End