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Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers

By NJ McNeill

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PROLOGUE

It was not by chance on that gray, humid day, when the sky was full of rum-tum-grumblings, I stumbled upon The Book in the woods near the lake. There it lay in shadow upon the sullied ground, entombed like some lost antiquity beneath a mound of decaying oak leaves—leaves hastily and cunningly laid by the gusty breath of a long-past thunderstorm—leaves sent to conceal for all eternity the wealth of secrets penned upon the volume’s primordial pages.
As I bent down and brushed the leaves from the book, my fingers struck the raised edges of an engraving; and when I pried the volume loose from the earth and withdrew it from the shadows, I was able to see the engraving in its entirety, a skillful rendering of a mountain carved in relief into the thickness of the book’s rich brown leather cover. I marveled that, despite the entombment beneath the moldering leaves, the leather had not one mark defacing it.
How rare and wondrous was The Book! —ancient by all indications—its weathered bindings smelling of antiquitous tombs; its parchment pages brittle and timeworn; its frontispiece, like its cover, masterfully rendered, reflecting a time long-past when artistry and workmanship were valued above worldly treasures.
As I gazed at the book’s frontispiece, I somehow felt as one with its subject, a pastoral scene of an animal kingdom laid at the foot of a great cloud-tipped mountain. So resplendent was the scene with scrollwork and fine embellishment that at once I was reminded of the family crests of houses blessed with great fortune, and it struck me as odd that I, an ordinary man, should feel such kinship to it.
Curious to know the book’s content, and seeing no title, I began turning the parchment pages one by one. To my astonishment, not a single word did I find to suggest the volume’s purpose. Surely such a finely-crafted book should have some content. Disappointed, I moved to close the cover but hesitated when my eye detected, deep within the volume’s bindings, a light, dim and barely perceptible. Bemused by the faint and fragile spark, wondering who or what could have bound it within the dark and lifeless volume, I watched it grow in brightness until its burgeoning beams permeated the parchment pages, causing them to gleam like sheets of polished silver.
Suddenly the light began to shimmer; the pages fluttered; and out from the book there burst a silver fountain that soared toward the heavens, then showered down like gentle rain to pool below the darkening clouds. Despite the grayness of the day, the great body of gathered light sparkled as does the surface of a wind-tossed lake when sunlight striking its myriad caplets turns it to a field of diamonds.
As I stood transfixed, my gaze locked upon the marvelous sight in the sky above me, there fell upon my ear a faraway sound like rushing wind. And I saw, cast darkly against the light, a shadow of bird-like proportion that soared and dove in great spirals, disappearing within the light, reappearing, transforming itself as it flew, turning shadow to substance, becoming, at length, the Great Winged Creature—the Nimbus! Though the pages I held in my hands were void of script, I sensed that words I could neither see nor hear had risen from the brittle parchment and summoned the creature forth.
Then earthward he plunged—this union of light and shadow—this Nimbus—downward, downward—riding the tail of a mighty wind whose gusty voice heralded his coming and called great billows of dust to rise about me.
I covered my eyes to shield them from the sting of wind and blowing dust, but managed still to see dimly the dark raptor as he stretched his blade-like talons toward earth. When the Nimbus touched ground, the wind, as if to humble itself before the creature, diminished to a gentle breeze, whispered syllables I could not discern, then fell still and silent.
And I saw, within the shroud of settling dust, the dark silhouette of avian form, whose wings, still spread, spanned the length of east to west. When the dust came fully to rest, I beheld the colossal creature himself, looming above me, folding his massive wings as he peered down into my eyes.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came forth. Perhaps the Nimbus spoke, or perhaps I merely sensed his words, but before I could attempt again to utter a syllable, I heard the first of a wondrous tale and found myself transported into the tale itself—to the very place—to the very moment the story began. Feeling no more tangible than air, yet fully possessed of my senses, I watched and listened as the whole of the story unfolded.
Permit me now to tell the tale from the beginning, just as it was told to me by the Nimbus.





CHAPTER ONE - THE GATHERING GLOOM


There is no need to fear the dark—the dark of night that does no ill—the dark that calls when light withdraws and sleep is cast upon the land and quiet voices bid creatures of day, “Come. Dream your dreams until the light sends us away.”
This darkness cools the summer day at its end and often yields a part of itself to the moon, inviting that great light of evening to spread a blanket of silver upon the land. This darkness watches lazily as the moon tucks its shimmering blanket into folds of hills and gently pulls it over tops of trees, then rolls it out in soft, downy billows across lakes and fields and meadows. No, there is nothing to fear in this darkness.
But there is a dark that’s ever black, and blacker still, that longs to cross our window sills—the dark whose name is Ancient, Death, and Legion—the dark whose name, when whispered, summons evil from the tomb—the dark that chills the evening’s shade—the dark they call the Gloom. In this, there is much to fear:

Beware the Gloom, dear child, that gathers on nights ill-
begotten; that crouches in shadow and creeps within shade;
that, cloaked in black, steals on goat’s feet through foggy
glades, entrenching itself in crack and cranny, filling rock
and rift with evil intentions, appearing to be what it is not.

Beware the Gloom, dear child—that thickety cloud of watchity
widgits—that rickety crowd of kratchits and kridgits that creeps
and crawls into caverns musty within the earth, dark and crusty,
seeking its master, the gnomish nib, asleep within his earthen
crib.

Beware the Gloom, dear child—that mutable menace that slips from
out shadow and slides from out shade, then flees to distant
dreary places, there to gather strength to sound the knell—
strength to wield with cloven claw the wand that strikes the
leaden bell.

* * *

Who can say what wisp of a hand stirred the boy from his sleep that night? Perhaps it was no hand at all. Perhaps it was the dismal croak of a deep-voiced bullfrog, who, while calling night creatures to wake, mistook Kurt for one of its own.
Or perhaps it was the sepulchral stillness that fell upon the air when the crickets stopped their chirping; when something cold at the west end of the valley dropped the temperature to such a degree it hushed the perpetual chorus that nightly lamented the long day’s demise.
Certainly it could not have been the voice of the old grandfather clock in the hall. Certainly not the steady tick-tock-tick so familiar to the boy. For every night the ancient oak timepiece thus ticked. And every night Kurt fell asleep to the beloved clock’s whispering, “Good night, sleep tight, sleep tight, sleep tight.”
But then, if one had listened closely, one might have heard within the steady ticking a message, muffled, muted, only faintly discernable, like words escaping a hand clasped over a mouth—a hand that sought that night to silence the old clock as it tried to warn, “Awake! Awake! Awake! The midnight nears! Awake!”
Perhaps the circumstance of Kurt’s waking was no more peculiar than the fact he slept at all. The late-August day had been disagreeably hot, and now the stale, humid air trapped within the bedroom hung over the boy’s bed like a thick, gray canopy poised to drop and smother him at the least stirring. Even the open window near the foot of the bed dared not draw a breeze or offer so much as a fresh breath to ruffle the canopy.
Nevertheless, Kurt did waken—suddenly, and with a start. Just as suddenly a piercing chill ran the length of his body, and the bed so familiar to him—the old feather bed that from his earliest youth had cradled him to sleep—at once felt cold and discomforting. Under the pale blanket of wan moonlight filtering dimly through the window, it took on the appearance of hard, gray granite—a rigid slab into which the soft folds of bed linens had been skillfully and deceitfully carved.
Quickly turning his thoughts from the bed, Kurt sat up and perused the shadows and darkish objects in the room, searching for something that might have fallen from a shelf or otherwise wakened him. But he found nothing amiss—unless one considered the grim, gray light itself a thing amiss; for unlike the silver moonlight of other nights, this drab imposter washed all traces of color from the bedroom walls and drained life-giving hues from curtains and furnishings and all else in the room.
Dismissing thoughts of his rude awakening, Kurt lay back upon the stone-gray bed and closed his eyes. He opened them again when the clock in the hall began to strike. By way of habit, he counted the ten clear, ambient chimes, taking comfort in the picture they spawned of the clock’s great silver pendulum swinging back and forth and back and forth, its movement perpetual, never faltering, always mathematically correct.
—Bong! —Bong! —Bong! As he counted the chimes, he was surprised at what seemed a slight hesitation at the commencement of each stroke. —Bong! —Bong! —Bong! Was it his imagination, or was the tone growing deeper as well?
When the last chime faded and the next singular stroke at half past the hour proved too fleeting to betray any peculiarity, Kurt allowed himself to fall back to sleep. Two quarters of an hour later, when the clock struck eleven, he found himself awake again and alert, for now there was, without doubt, a noticeable hesitation. Now the chime sounded heavy and belabored, as though the aged timekeeper wished not to mark the hour at all.
Though troubled at first by the faltering chime, Kurt soon set his mind at ease, blaming the burdensome air through which the sound had to pass. Or perhaps there was a weariness within the clock, he reasoned—a weariness brought on by too many years of steadfastly marking seconds and minutes and hours.
When at half-past eleven the clock struck once, a cold shudder passed through the boy’s body, for the old timekeeper spoke in a voice no longer its own—the voice of a soul dreary, dark, and dreadful. The low and ominous tone echoed through the hall less like a chime and more like the toll of a ponderous bell.
Gathering the bed sheets up tight around his neck, Kurt lay quiet, listening, certain that if he listened intently enough his ear would detect within the knell’s fading remnant some telltale element. But the dismal tone revealed nothing of its doomful origin. At last it disappeared altogether in the darkness, leaving only the clock’s tick-tock-tick; ticking perfectly metered; ticking that echoed the steady swinging of the great silver pendulum back and forth and back and forth in time with the pulsating chirp of the crickets, who again lamented outside the window, and the metered croak of bullfrogs, who now called unceasingly to the night creatures. The nocturnal rhythms, as delicately balanced as a fine orchestra, filled the air with night music, and once more Kurt drifted off to sleep as thoughts of the dim gray light and the bell disappeared somewhere within the folds of the bed covers.
Suddenly the ticking of the clock dropped to a languorous pace. Like an orchestra robbed of its conductor, the night rhythms fell to clamorous disarray!—it was as though a cymbal had crashed to the floor!—and again Kurt awoke with a start.
Perhaps the grandfatherly clock, in slowing the swing of its pendulum, wished to draw the child’s attention—to roust him from a stupor. Or perhaps it sought to stall the passing of time—to delay the inevitable countdown to some terrible catastrophe.
But time waits neither for boy, nor man, nor beast, nor keepers of time. Already, shadows moved quietly across the wall opposite the window in Kurt’s bedroom—dark shadows that drew the boy’s attention and sent him rushing to the window seeking the shadows’ source. Peering out, he saw that scattered nimbus clouds had formed above the valley and were drifting slowly across the moon. “Cloud shadows,” he told himself. “Only cloud shadows.”
As he grabbed the window sash to pull it down, he noticed a darkness building on the landscape toward the west. Billows, black and churning, were tumbling down the hillsides, gathering thickly on the valley floor. “Fog,” he told himself. “Only fog.” But gazing longer, he found himself unable to move, as though by casting his eyes upon the mysterious fog he had unleashed a binding spell from the wand of an ancient sorcerer. It was not until a gust of cold air rushed in through the window and whipped the white lace curtains around his shoulders that he was able to free himself and slam the sash shut.
The frigid gust of musty air disappeared in the space of the room, leaving behind a remnant of staleness, a trace of rancidity. The burdensome air already present pressed against Kurt’s chest, as though now it were imbued with some viscous, unbreathable substance.
Kurt jumped into bed and pulled up Grandmother’s quilt that lay folded across the footboard. The clock’s ticking grew louder and the boy’s eyes turned again to the shadows on the wall—shadows now hard-edged, black, and serpentine—shadows that swayed sinuously to and fro to a muted melody Kurt had no wish to hear. The darkly-piped strains twisted around the boy like strong black tendrils, filling his mind, holding him spellbound, locking his gaze upon the shadows dancing on the wall.
After a time, the melody faded and the shadows slowed to near stillness, then intertwined to form a singular black mass—a misshapen specter that loomed upon the wall. Kurt watched the grim apparition slip sideward and bend itself around a murky corner, then halt at the window’s edge. Ever so slowly, as though a hand—or many hands—had reached out to draw a deadly shade, a veil of fog descended the window glass, and the ashen light within the room dimmed to deepest gray, then darkened to blackest black.
No distinction was there now between the world beyond the glass and the world inside the room. All without, and all within, lay in cold, abysmal darkness.
Kurt could discern neither up from down, nor forward from back. He felt as though he would have fallen through the poleless darkness for all eternity had it not been for the fine thread to which he clung—the silver thread—the relentless tock-tick-tock of the old grandfather clock.
Then, from deep within the darkness, came the cold clash of hammer striking metal—the first stroke of midnight—the casting of a spell.
Kurt fumbled for the edge of the quilt, and finding it, quickly drew the cover up over his head. Again came the clash of hammer striking metal as the clock struck the deuce.
How the old clock struggled against the hour! Belaboredly it struck, as one who is forced to wield a hammer greater than himself.

Twelve times it struck,
marking the hour—

Twelve times it fought
to quell the dark power—

Twelve times it stood
for the terrible fight—

And then it fell still,
with the last stroke of midnight...

Midnight!
Kurt held his breath, afraid to breathe.
From the depths of the darkness came a tramping of feet—a multitude of feet—muffled at first and off at a great distance. The tramping grew louder, and soon Kurt heard it clearly. —An army! Its myriad legions thundering toward him!
The boy gasped for air. He thought to run, but could not move from the bed. Surely he would be trampled! —he, his bed, his house and all in it! But to his surprise, the grim army passed overhead. Legion upon legion it passed, tramping above him in the dark until the last remnants, having followed their vanguard far to the west, faded to a faint rumble, then disappeared altogether in the distance.
For some time after, no sound broke the silence. But the marching called to Kurt’s mind a tale his Grandfather once told him—a tale about a bell of dark countenance—a tale within whose dismal tapestry was woven a sullen warning. Now he remembered it as one remembers the dreadful shadow of a bad dream:

Well away from Whiskers’ gate,
Watchity widgits lie in wait.
Hiding far from human view,
Kratchits and kridgits are lurking, too.

They call to join them ghoulish cronies,
Darkish things and terrible bonies,
Hear them marching from the tomb,
The cloven feet of the Gathering Gloom.

Watchity widgits wield the wand—
They strike the bell and seal the bond.
Kratchits and kridgits echo the knell—
With gadgets and gidgits they strike the bell.

While ghoulish cronies howl and moan
And terrible bonies growl and groan,
The darkish things that lurk and loom
Blather and bleat to stir the Gloom.

Staring and glaring and sneaking and peeking
Down through the clouds, their sunken eyes seeking,
They wickedly watch the earthen crib,
Awaiting the stir of the gnomish nib.

Then out he rolls, the nebulous nob!
Thundering forth, the horrible hob!
And calls to arms the Gathering Gloom
That summoned him forth from out his tomb.

Now begins the terrible march,
The thunderous tramp toward the arch,
Stomping and tromping mid roar and rumble,
Stamping and tramping mid rum-tum-grumble.

Hear the thumping, bumping, clumping,
Stumping feet of the Gathering Gloom;
Moaning, groaning, scowling, growling,
Howling bleat of the Gathering Gloom.

Marching feet!
Howling bleat!
Hideous fleet!
The Gathering Gloom!

When the grandfather clock struck half past midnight, Kurt peeked out from beneath the bed covers and breathed in cool, fresh air. The black veil had lifted from the window glass, and the fog had rolled away. The moon, able again to spread a shimmering light across the sill, covered all it touched with a delicate blanket of fine silver. Shadows on the wall, now pale and diffused, were merely those of scattered nimbus clouds—soft, vaporous nimbus clouds—the kind that promise gentle, cleansing rain.
As the silver moonlight erased all traces of dread from the room, Kurt dismissed the nightmarish sights and sounds as having been childish imaginings. He knew nothing of the darkness that lay high and away, far to the west, waiting to call at dawn its master, waiting to wake the ancient Troll, waiting to summon the thunder to roll. For it cloaked itself well, this Gathering Gloom, waiting to call the Troll from his tomb.

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