Tell Them Increase

Honourable C.S.H.M:

To-day is the anniversary. I was there when it started all those years ago.

I, the baker and Mathias, my friend the farrier. We walked the quiet cobblestone streets of our town that night as we did most, houses unshuttered,
the trees at ease,
the glow of a far-off lantern or two standing modest sentry.

The cooler weather we thought better for Mathias's poor health,
and I myself liked to pick mushrooms along the path.

“Feeling much stronger,” muttered Mathias.
“Stronger still tomorrow,” I replied, pocketing some fleshy caps and patting him on the back.
I was a lone soul; so was he. We set no goals but to expunge the creep of solitude
which increasingly threatened to intrude upon our chosen peace.
He kicked a stone and grunted a response as I looked up and into the sky.

This night felt quite different.
The usual character it assumed of an unspoken third companion,
a magician who disappeared the day
and could transform its mundanities into newfound mysteries
betokened by the teasing wink of stars at play,
had been vacated. In its place slid a hollow impostor
reflecting feebler constellations.

By the end of our stroll all things had seemed to cease:
The distant barking of dogs, gentle footfalls over the streets,
the roll of the clouds,
our very heartbeats.
This night loomed pregnant with frozen expectation.

Its delivery was marked by great flocks of silverbeaks from the north;
Streaking arrows through the moon, they broke a wall of night-mist with unified, alien purpose.

Never do they fly south so early.

The din of their passing above, jarring though it be, was soon surpassed in alarming effect by another, softer sound:
That of uneven padding somewhere in the fog.

We stopped, perked, spun round, listened.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.
To the left a spell...right...then dead ahead.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter.

The fog spit forth a ghost.

It was a terrific fright the way he appeared,
a mirage made manifest,
crazed, restless,
running straight for us,
clothes tattered, boots ribboned,
dripping with perspiration and fear.

Mathias anchored both hands on the poor bastard's shoulders, trying to keep him still.
“Good Lord, man, what is the matter?”
He was tall, gaunt, hairy I think; too blurry in his squirming to recall every detail with clarity. He repeated a single phrase,

“Tell them Increase! Increase Mather!”
whilst struggling against us.

He spoke in a watery accent that sparkled through ears like bells
yet seemed chased across the rolling hills and dells of its rhythmic cadence by Death itself.
The lilt identified him as one from the villages to the north, a friendly folk not yet touched by higher arts
with whom we sometimes traded.
Our eyes locked for a moment, his spelling brief acknowledgement as they scanned each tic of my own.
I wonder what he read in them before I had to look away.

Again the words:

“Tell them Increase! Increase Mather!”
as he broke our grip and ran off;

back into the night he faded.

We were left with naught but stillborn thought to guess a lofty mystery.
Over and over that name I turned -- Increase Mather, Increase Mather -- being rewarded with precious little. Across seas of lost recognition its syllables might churn --
Few were the juttings of remembrance at beacon's foot.
Vaguely familiar, the name conjured half-cogent memories of schoolroom lessons,
nigh-mythic tales of town founders and historic deeds
instilled, with luck, in adolescents' minds
that they should grow as seeds of ideal morality.

The beacon flared in a trice and was gone.

I so wish I could remain on that spot, content to forever turn that riddle of a name like a fine wine, drinking partner yet at my side!

For what came next was far worse than perplexity hitherto benign.

You see, it's a funny thing from the right angle,
that we might consider such puzzling moments as a mild if persistent gnawing at our being,
when only with retrospection is it seen
we were, in fact, morsels in a dragon's jaws.

Musings be damned -- now came the true cause of silverbeak exodus:
First the beat of drums, slow and steady,
a throbbing heart waking in darkness,
then the clashing of cymbals,
my dragon's hissing tongue one instant,
its gnashing teeth the next.

And finally out of the fog spilt a medley of grey shapes, hazy edges congealing as if molded from the stuff like clay.
Silhouettes, boxes -- closer they came -- people now, marching, cages in tow, movement within -- closer they came --

Beating, clapping, hissing, ringing, closer they came, this raucous procession of untold numbers...

Bestial dancing animated the spaces separating bars, but human were they --
just barely. We saw how the occupants crouched and squirmed, and shook their jails,
or flailed their arms or beat their heads and breasts -- for they were all of them women displayed in cages,
a vulgar mockery of the floats in the annual harvest parade.
We could only stare at these frail, wispy things with eyes of coal that refused all light,
viscous globs dropping from misshapen heads -- flesh or hair, impossible to guess --
naked, emaciated bodies caked in filth, surely leprous,
a horrible sight.

We stepped aside to make room for this macabre column. Cage after cage rolled past, flanked by steady streams of marchers, and each of these clad in violet monastic habit with drooping cowl and golden sash,
some with their drums and cymbals, others holding torches,
all assuming stony scowl.

We were ignored at first, which gave us time to gape, until three broke off from the line
with the swiftness of a spider's twitch
to confront us face to face.
One kept eyes fixed upon mine, whilst two presented four cupped hands to Mathias and implored,

“From whom do we come?”

“Who the devil are you?” he retorted, batting them down. “What is this vile pageantry?”

The cupped palms calmly rose again. “From whom do we come?”

Mathias wiped his brow and squinted. “How the devil should I know? Tell me, man, what is this?” He made another, half-hearted attempt at the hands.

“From whom do we come?”

He spat at their feet. “I do not care to know! You stink of piss and lies anyhow!”

“Mathias.” I regarded my friend, noting the sweat beaded round his glaring eyes. He looked ill, colour draining, a fever perhaps flaring. “I think it best we now-”

It happened in the span of a blink: a blur of purple, followed by a sharp crack. Mathias stumbled backward, and were it not for the red trickle at his temple, I'd have never known he'd been struck.
But now I saw their bludgeons as he hobbled,
saw all too well as he raised his arms to check their attacks,
as they beat them down,
then beat his head,
then beat his body to a lifeless pulp, crumpling,
and watched his blood fill the gaps between the cold cobbles.
I could not comprehend. I could not move, could not act.
I could not help my friend.

They wiped the blood from their clubs with the golden sashes of their robes before secreting the weapons back into the sleeves,
then levelled attention on me.

“From whom do we come?”

Their hands opened, revealing a queer brand of interlocking snakes and crosses rising from the surface of each seared palm. My head reeled, my legs buckled, and before I knew it, I was kneeled at their feet, too dizzy to remain standing. They seemed pleased with this act of involuntary submission.

“From whom do we come?”

In the flicker of fire the snakes appeared to writhe beneath the skin.
Echoes of the northerner's voice bubbled within my mind:

Tell them Increase! Increase Mather!

So I did.

“Excellent,” responded the nearest figure in sibilant tones. “It is good you are not blind.” Their hands lowered, veins pulsing with quiet fervour. “We are the new intendants of this town and its people. We bring with us witches, powerful witches, and seek others of their kind."
The second chimed in, hushed: “The wicked shall perish. The ignorant shall perish. God alone prevails. You have nowhere to go, so stay."
Then intoned the third: "We are the new intendants of this town now, and it would be good you do as we say.”
They clasped their hands and melted away into the procession. The cages rolled on through the mist. The clamour dimmed to a low buzz as I felt something in my hand --
a few forgotten mushrooms I'd picked, squeezed to a mash in clenched fist, and I thought of
but could not turn
to Mathias's body.
I let them drop.

There were others so blessed as me -- thank providence, thank the northern crier, remembered lessons, sheer dumb luck -- who survived the question and carried on as best they could. Undeniably though, a pall had been thrown across all the land,
a cloak of fear and doubt in the wake of tyrannical cleansing.
No one could resist the intendants' strange influence, cast as it was on long lines through our streets and our homes, wound round our minds,
invisible strands to choke our hearts,
to hook fast our souls and keep us near
whilst keeping us apart.
“One more day,” we repeated in vain. “Just one more day.”

The days added up, and they were colder from then on. The wind blew harder, ripping right through us, biting skin and rattling every bone as it went. Owing not entirely to the elements however, we felt a coldness which seemed to radiate beneath our very feet wherever we stepped,
a coldness which wove itself into the fabric of our clothes
and slept with us under the blankets;
it froze us, sapping the will to resist in ways I can neither describe nor understand.
And as famished for warmth, as starving for solace as we sorry lot were,
cries of protest vanished faster than the clouds of our breath,
replaced by hardened faces of indifference.

The new masters made good on their vow of retribution with terrible industry.

The witches were hung from the trees that lined our cobblestone streets,
swaying softly in the autumn breeze.
But they were not dead,
for they were powerful witches.

They lifted drooping heads on crushed necks as I walked the main avenue,
pointing and laughing and spitting curses in my direction.
I kept my own head down, hands stuffed in pockets,
feet
moving
brisk
to set greater distance from them. Alas, it mattered little, for their cackling travelled far, farther than was wholesome, and stung about my ears like gnats.

At day's close their bodies were doused in oil and set ablaze so as to hasten their passing, and to act as torches for our benefit. The evil of Hell's devilry makes for potent fuel, our intendants told us. Truly they burned well,
their dark cores thrashing within halos of cruel brilliance.
But they did not die,
for they were powerful witches.

By morning the charred remains, still smoldering, would stir and snicker at my passage. Withering fingers would raise and aim,
black and white with ash and bone.
From them came noxious fumes to chase after me down the road, vapourous snakes slithering through air all the way home.

How I detested such wretched fruit our once-beautiful trees had borne! Yet time's touch, if overdue, proved merciful:

They blew away in the wind even as they blinked. Dead at last, their ashes spread and massed across the hex-infested bark of their gallows, thereafter causing the branches to grow to gross proportions in contorted directions,
forms suggesting the ossified corpses of monstrous ogres.

These trees were forever cursed. It soon became apparent they were the only things our intendants feared. They leered at them from afar,
seared palms turned heavenward as cryptic prayer escaped their lips.
Well-attested rumour said
that to touch the wood of a witch-tree spelt certain death
for any member of Increase Mather's secret sect.

Where now was their special brand of faith? Where indeed had resounded but into the unbounded aether that once-galvanising cry of the priest,
“I will not fear; what can a Satan do unto me?”
Among the Devil's mille nocendi artes, 'tis unsurprising one at least should be fated to have incarnated in souls more corruptible than mine!

Our intendants gave us axes that we may chop down the trees and burn out their sin in divine fire. But we'd grown stronger. We devised plans of our own, and the ensuing flames would never know the taste of this strangely seasoned food. The entire town took great pains to seclude this truth.

Instead we waited patient,
ever so patient,
having cut and shaped,
hiding,
hoarding,
biding according to our plot.

And then we built.

The masters gladdened at the sight of the houses. “Good,” said they. “It is good you stay productive. In all toil is profit attained.” We smiled, grew cordial. Why should we loyal servants not? We were unafraid. Time and familiarity ought to soften chain,
blunten throat-held blade,
slacken line between pole and fish,
ought they not?

We invited them into our homes.

They seized the opportunity for closer scrutiny and walked about the rooms with all the pomp befitting a royal dignitary. They clustered in the corners to whisper and titter at our insipid presence, right in front of us. We smiled still.

And they began to waste. One by one they grew ill;
sores speckled their leathered flesh,
joints popped and festered,
thick secretions of viridescent pus seeped from their pores,
and hair dropped out in chunks:
At last from chaff had true sin been threshed!

Still they prayed for salvation,
tried to govern according to their god's will,
but too few were they,
and so left as shadows in the rising sun
on the charnel winds which blew them in.
Their sickness drifted after. A vacuum burst. Fresh air rushed forth.
The stars in our sky began to speak again,
a thousand beacons of hope.
They winked the wordless message:
Lifted is the cloak. Lifted is the cloak.

Likewise did the tainted housing rot, and with it the final vestiges of our intendants' collected witches. As you well know,
venerable young Mather,
I tried to invite you to our town, to make you acquainted with the last of the witch-wood houses. Most were content to start anew and bury the past, but I could not.

I could not bury Mathias and countless others who suffered at the hands of so misguided a lineage as yours,
its corrosive scope yet growing through forking lines of odious descent.
I could not forget the million tears that sowed our lands with endless grief,
nor the blank expressions worn by those too numb to favor hope,
not in light of things I learned throughout those years without relief.

For I know what truths stay hid from history books, the record writ by kith and kin.
I know how he can steer the wheel of time who charts the course with grim design.

How fortunate then that I --
I! --
traced you through the ages, found your name betrayed in the pages of a simple book of genealogies.
How fortunate I was able to write you.

You politely turned my invitation down in courtly correspondence, scorn peeking furtive from your every cursive word,
complicit in your denial.
This you know.

Let me tell you what you do not know.

The last of the witch-wood houses is no more. It collapsed in a great cloud of fungal dust. I retrieved some of the timber, just enough for my purposes.
I pulped it,
pressed it,
laid it on a frame,
rolled it,
squeezed it,
and cut it such that it became the paper
onto which I have written this letter you presently hold.
So you see, young Mather, since you would not come to the house,
the house has come to you,
and you shall know it,
for they were powerful witches.

Reflect well on what you have read
so long as you breathe.
Know that your kind shall abate. Know that I walk these quaint cobbles at night,
alone,
to pick mushrooms by the moon's light,
and with each cry of silverbeak,
grieve.

With warmest regards,

The humble baker.