"十三殖民地的血脉被黄热病扭曲成绞杀者的绞索,
只有阿巴拉契亚雪盐才能治愈.
寻找峰会的约翰——那个祈祷击中燧石的修士,
他的弥撒是燃烧穿过地狱屋顶的火把.
费城,1793 年夏天
热浪用腐烂的恶臭猛烈地砸在屋顶上;死亡车在严峻的重担下呻吟着,压碎了港口的喧嚣.风吹过特拉华州,水的气味被瘟疫的令人作呕的甜味吞噬了——黄热病在火焰中冒着热气,与渗入每个毛孔的呕吐物的酸味混合在一起.
在总统会议厅里,窗户紧紧地锁着,蜡烛火焰在闷热中颤抖.汗水浸透了弯腰坐在长桌上的政治家们的衣领.
"看在上帝的份上,看看外面!"国务卿杰斐逊猛地站了起来,指关节在橡木上发出裂痕.他的南方拖拉滴着毒液."看看尸体是如何与街道上的病人一起腐烂的!把人像囚犯一样关起来死——这是你们纽约绅士的补救措施吗?他锋利的目光刺向了对面的男人.
财政部长汉密尔顿退缩了,仿佛被打上了烙印."把他们锁起来?掰开你的弗吉尼亚棉头!他的北方树皮像铁砧上的锤子一样响起."瘟疫是地狱之火!熄灭火花,或者看着它燃烧我们联邦的脊梁!他抢过一个锡杯,吞咽着喉结抽搐——一头野兽吞咽着它的嚎叫.
陆军部长诺克斯的拳头颤抖着."军营...是灵堂.我们没有铲子来埋葬死者了.他沙哑的声音像棺材边缘的砂纸一样刮擦着寂静.
粗重的呼吸,压抑的咳嗽,指关节的敲击声.杰斐逊的拖拉——一把磨光的细剑;汉密尔顿的节奏——铁匠的雪橇.火药悬挂得足够厚,足以点燃蜡烛.
在桌子的尽头,乔治·华盛顿像阿巴拉契亚花岗岩一样坐着,沉默比颤抖的灯光更重.火焰在他饱经风霜的脸上划出沟壑.曾经扫视特拉华人的眼睛现在低低地盯着他自己的手——那只签署宣言的手,指关节像石头一样宽阔,但又像基石一样稳定.只有他绷紧的嘴唇线暴露了内心的风暴.一滴汗珠从他的太阳穴里流了出来,使他海军大衣上的金色辫子变黑了.他轻柔地哼了一声:"...十三殖民地的鲜血...黄热病的爪子扭动绞索..."
愤怒在他周围肆虐.闻所未闻.他的静止就像风暴眼中的一个老水手——在杀戮袭击之前绝对平静.
关键时刻像燧石一样击中了火种.一个满身灰尘的初级助手从会议厅柱廊的阴影中出现,他的低语在华盛顿的耳边幽灵般传来——这两句简短的话让总统的骨髓都充满了电.
就在杰斐逊和汉密尔顿之间的火药桶引爆时——
"够了!"
华盛顿的声音低沉,就像橡木攻城槌冲破堡垒大门一样,粉碎了这场骚乱.他抬起的眼睛闪闪发光,就像被扇动起来的积煤一样——现在不再沉思,而是充满了命令.
他站了起来.这个刻意的动作将他的影子拉过密室的墙壁,就像猛禽的翅膀遮住了小鸟一样."好吵架!看看你们自己——一群受惊的母鸡在栅栏上啄洞,而狐狸却在袭击栖息地!北卡罗来纳州那条碎石般的拖拉,像页岩上的马车车轮一样破裂,在紧张的气氛中鞭打着.笑声刺痛,但在笑声的下面盘绕着他天鹅绒手套里的钢拳."所有这些啄食...羽毛散落一地,但该死的蛋仍然完整!
"然而,上帝为我们指明了道路."他的音色加深为地下雷声."这场辩论结束了.昨天晚上...上天提供了无可辩驳的忠告.
他停顿了一下.眼睛比秃鹰扫视的目光还要锐利,然后将伦道夫部长压在角落里.在那令人心碎的目光下,汗珠在男人的太阳穴上变成了河流.
"In chaos, a brilliance enveloped me. Featureless, yet radiating sea-deep compassion. Soundless, but its will struck my soul like the great bell of Vernon Manor's chapel." Washington spoke each syllable with chisel precision. "It commanded: 'West! Scale the Appalachians! Seek the hermit John! With ancient prayers, light the purifying pyre! Drench Philadelphia's bloodshed with Mass!' That burning certainty—hotter than winter embers, truer than Martha's voice—was no phantom dream!"
"And now," his voice boomed like cannon shot, finger lancing toward the messenger—"our western scout, risking life and limb, confirms it!" He slammed his fist on the table like a gavel of destiny. "There in Kentucky's wilds—yes!—stands an old church hewn from stone and faith! Exactly as revealed! That mountain. That hermit. They stand waiting. This is no conjecture—it is God's own roadmark!" The silence rang with aftermath. "'Perhaps' has hardened to 'must.' We go to claim Heaven's aid. God preserve this Union—and our resolve!"
Washington's gaze snapped like flintlock hammers cocked, freezing Randolph in its sights. "Secretary Randolph!" The summons struck like hammer striking flint—final and absolute.
"Mr. President!" Randolph's spine straightened to parade-ground precision, bracing for a charge into cannon smoke.
Washington's command fell like a forge hammer:
"Scouts won't fetch a saint! Take my handwritten order! Bear the Great Seal of the Republic!"
"And the purifying incense consecrated by the Archbishop of St. Mary's—God's own grace made tangible!"
"Now! At once! Move! Cross those cursed Alleghenies!"
His arm slashed westward toward the brooding mountains:
"Find him—that anchorite John!"
The President's voice swelled with the fury of a winter nor'easter:
"Tell him—Philadelphia! Philadelphia bleeds foulness! It screams in agony!"
"We need his prayers! Need that ancient power he guards!"
"Need a—"
Washington drew breath like artillery priming, his roar shaking the chamber beams: "—GRAND HIGH MASS to scorch this hell-borne pestilence from our land! God save this Union!"
In the pitch-black hour before dawn, Randolph fled the dying city with four stout servants. The oaken chest bearing the Great Seal thumped against his saddle, while a brass reliquary pressed cold against his ribs—within it, the archbishop's incense-saturated linen.
Their path west followed trappers' blazes at first, dirt-packed and forgiving. Then the true mountains rose. Ancient hemlocks and sugar maples swallowed the sky, plunging the trail into perpetual twilight. The air turned damp and knife-cold, thick with the scent of peat and decay. Hooves sank into leaf-mold with muffled thuds, startling unseen birds whose shrieks echoed through the canopy. Far below, a river roared in its stony bed—a sound as distant as Judgment Day.
By the third day, they'd penetrated the Blue Ridge's stony heart. Granite spines arched like leviathan backbones. When the trail vanished, they inched up a bone-dry creek bed. Silence pressed down, heavier than tomb earth. Only the wind's moan slithered through rock fissures, answered by the long, lonely howls of things that hunted in darkness.
"Sir... these marks," Tom whispered, pointing to claw gouges on a boulder beside the creek. Three parallel furrows, deeper than any bear could make, edges polished smooth as if by something immense and patient. "Ain't natural..."
Randolph's fingers found the checkered grip of his short-barreled flintlock. The wood's grain bit into his palm—a grounding truth. "Eyes front, Tom. Mind the horses." His voice rasped like gravel on stone.
### Then—the wind died.
The river's roar vanished. Silence, thick and suffocating, dropped like a shroud. And beneath it... a stench. Slaughterhouse reek, coppery and rank, flooding nostrils, clawing down throats. Randolph gagged.
### *HRROOOAAAGH!*
The roar shattered the world. It came from behind—a sound of rage and bottomless hunger that vibrated in teeth and bone.
Randolph wheeled his mount.
It emerged from sword ferns taller than a man—a nightmare given flesh. Larger than the biggest grizzly, yet shaped with a panther's lethal grace. Matted fur, the purple-black of clotting blood, glistened under sickly light. Its face... a horror of raw scar tissue where a muzzle should be, bared teeth like shattered headstones, and eyes that burned with pure, mindless hate. Those eyes locked onto Randolph.
"*Nom de Dieu!* FIRE!" Randolph screamed, adrenaline scalding his veins. (*Sacre bleu!* God's name
The flintlock roared! A plume of white smoke erupted!
The hulking beast staggered—mere inches of flesh torn from its shoulder. Its answering bellow shook the pines as it launched itself at Randolph, moving with pantherish speed despite its bulk. Fetid breath washed over him.
Randolph hit the earth, rolling through thorn-choked brush. Needle-sharp spines raked his skin. Where he'd stood an instant before, the creature's claws splintered a wrist-thick branch like kindling.
Chaos erupted. Servants screamed, firing wild. The cacophony of snapping flints, gunshots, bestial roars, panicked horses, and tearing thorns fused with the stench of gunpowder, blood, and carrion stink—a maelstrom from hell itself.
Randolph scrambled up, drawing his hunting knife. Tom raised his pickaxe, planting himself before his master.
Too late. The beast pivoted. A swipe like a falling oak—Tom flew backward, his cry cut short as he struck an ironwood trunk with a sickening crunch. He slid down, motionless.
No pause. The creature whirled on Randolph. Fangs glistened inches from his face.
Survival instinct overrode terror. Randolph charged toward death. Diving beneath the descending claws, he rolled and drove his blade upward into the softer flesh beneath the beast's ribs.
An unearthly shriek! Scalding, copper-thick gore erupted—a geyser of foulness drenching Randolph. The stench seared his nostrils, blinding him.
Agony transformed the beast into pure fury. It twisted. Its tail, thick as a battering ram, caught Randolph mid-air. The knife flew from his grip. He crashed into a narrow cleft, skull striking stone. Stars exploded behind his eyes.
He lay gasping on moss-slick rock. Each breath drew in blood and decay. Ringing ears muffled the world. Then—a new sound cut through: *Hssssssssss*. A skittering, scraping tide from the cleft's depths, cold as the grave.
Randolph forced his head around.
In the shadows below, scales rasped on stone. Snakes. Hundreds. Eyes burned with an eldritch green phosphorescence. They writhed in a seething mass, moving with unnatural speed. Monstrosities—thick as a man's forearm, scales edged like razors, crowned with bony, coral-like horns.
One—thicker, darker—lifted its horned head. Emerald eyes locked on Randolph. Its forked tongue flicked, hissing like steam from hell's kettle.
Fear crystallized into pure instinct. His hand found the pistol at his waist—still there!
With a raw cry, he wrenched it free. No aim. No thought. He fired point-blank into that seething, icy mass of scales and horns.
*KRA-KOOM!*
The flintlock's thunder echoed through the gorge! Recoil hammered Randolph's arm numb. Gunpowder stench swallowed the serpent reek as scorching lead and flame tore through the coiling mass.
"HISSSS-SKREE!" An unholy shriek ripped the air. The stench of charred flesh exploded—a vile cocktail of blood, sulfur, and burning scales. Struck snakes thrashed like damned souls in purgatory, their bodies rupturing in geysers of acid-hot fluid that seared Randolph's skin. Survivors slithered back into crevices, leaving only twitching husks and the reek of damnation.
Randolph collapsed in the moss-slicked cleft, lungs heaving like bellows. Each gasp drew poison: blood, sulfur, serpent musk. The world muffled as if submerged. His clothes clung, icy and sodden with sweat, gore, and viscera. Every movement screamed agony. Limbs refused obedience; escape seemed a shattered dream.
Then—a harmonica's pure, liquid melody pierced the carnage.
Notes like mountain springwater flowed through the filth. Survival instinct surged. Randolph scrambled crabwise from the fissure, skin tearing on stone, eyes wild.
The gully lay butchered. Tom and others lay motionless. The beast—wounded but rabid—gathered itself for a killing lunge, eyes fixed on Randolph.
On the slope behind him stood the source: a man in patched homespun robes, wind combing his ash-gray beard. His face was canyon-carved by decades of wilderness, but his eyes held the clarity of high-altitude lakes. One hand held a carved wooden harmonica; the other steadied a Kentucky long rifle, its muzzle aimed at the beast.
"*Mon Dieu!*" Randolph rasped, half-terror, half-salvation. (My God
As the monster charged—
### *BOOM!*
The long rifle in Brother John's hands roared! White smoke choked the clearing as thunder echoed through the hollows. That shot—a frontier surgeon's precision—struck not at skull or heart, but pierced the beast's shoulder joint mid-lunge.
"YEEEEARGH!"
The monster's charge collapsed like felled timber. Its bulk slammed earthward, dust and dead leaves exploding upward. Dark blood gushed from its gut-wound, soaking the forest mold.
Jean moved with bear-paw steadiness. Tossing aside his harmonica, he drew a broad-bladed felling axe. Not toward the beast—but toward Randolph. "*Espèce d'idiot! Feu! Ça craint la lumière bénite!*" (You idiot! Fire! It fears blessed light His French-laced English twisted 'fears' into 'craint', 'light' into 'lumière', 'blessed' into 'bénite'.
Randolph fumbled for his pistol with frost-numbed hands. Flint scraped steel. Once. Twice. Sparks caught the matchcord—*hiss*—as the beast thrashed upward. At point-blank range, he fired into its reeking maw.
### *BOOM!*
Lead and hellfire erupted down its gullet.
The creature shuddered. Crimson eyes dimmed from frenzy to glazed confusion. A final whimper—*huh-uhng*—like a butchered hog. When the smoke cleared, only the stink of sulfur and copper-tainted blood remained.
Silence fell, thick as grave soil.
Gasping, Randolph slumped. Jean prodded the carcass with his axe-haft, crossed himself, and muttered a Latin dirge: "*Requiem aeternam...*" (Eternal rest...) He checked the fallen—Tom cold, three men breathing ragged—then hauled Randolph up. "Your *blessures*... she festair quick. Its claws carry *la pourriture des bois*." (Your wounds... they fester quick. Its claws carry the rot of the woods.) 'Fester' became 'festair', 'rot' became 'pourriture', 'woods' became 'bois'.
Half-dragging the secretary, Jean led them through twilight to a hidden cove. There, wedged against lichen-crusted cliffs, stood a church not built but grown. No spire. No stained glass. Just a cedar-wood cross nailed above a door. Smoke curled through a moss-chinked roof, smelling of pine pitch and something deeper—bone-deep-animal-deep-peace.
The door groaned open. Inside: gloom cut by tallow candles flickering on a stump altar. Walls bore a whittled crucifix and a Madonna so worn her face had melted into the grain. The air hung heavy—old timber, dried sage, and the breath of centuries sleeping beneath Appalachia's ribs.
Brother Jean moved with a field surgeon's precision, igniting the hearth. Firelight carved shadows on his granite-hewn face as he cleansed Randolph's wounds with homemade rye whiskey. The secretary's jaw clenched, swallowing curses like musket balls.
"*Nom de Dieu!* You live." The monk wiped his hands, fixing Randolph with a bayonet's stare. "Now tell me, Philadelphia's polished son—why does *Vash-een-ton* send a walking target into these mountains? And how did you rouse a *Bête du Sang Maudit*?" (Washington) (Cursed Blood-Beast) His French-laced English bent vowels like rifle barrels—'Washington' became 'Vash-een-ton'.
Randolph produced a brass box stained with ichor. "Yellow fever... the city reeks of death. The President claimed a blazing white figure spoke to him: 'Seek John... light the purifying fire...'"
Jean examined the presidential seal with fingers calloused from decades of wilderness survival. When he spoke, his voice cracked like aged parchment:
"*Coïncidence divine...* At sunset yesterday... I felt Philadelphia's cry." He gestured to a wooden cross silhouetted against the night like a scar upon the stars. "That beast? *Satan's* hound. It smelled the *feu sacré* kindling here." (Divine coincidence) (Satan's) (sacred fire)
He packed a worn knapsack: tarnished chalice, Latin breviary, flintlock rifle—and a hatchet forged from a bayonet. "We ride at dawn. Your President seeks a Mass that shall ignite the fires of Heaven? *Bien.* Let us see if *le bon Dieu* favors gunpowder alongside incense." (Good) (the good God)
"You cannot come with me, *non*?" Brother John's tone brooked no argument. He gestured sharply at Randolph's bandaged shoulder and leg. "That wound, *mon ami*, she needs rest—days of it. Push hard, and the rot sets in. You die on the trail. Stay. Wait for my *frères*... my brothers... they tend sheep in the valley. They come back, they tend *you*, your men. This chapel, she is small, *oui*? But under God's eye, she is safe. Safe enough."
"But Father! My duty—" Randolph struggled to rise.
"Your duty is *to live*, *mon fils*! To carry the word back to Philadelphia!" John cut him off, his gaze fierce as gunflint. "But *not* today. Believe me, boy. You alive now is worth ten dead messengers tomorrow. *I* go. Now. Night and day, I travel. *Le bon Dieu* lights my path. I wait for you—or your men—at Saint Mary's in Philadelphia. *Comprenez-vous*?" (my son) (the good God) (Do you understand?)
Brother John shouldered his worn pack and picked up his harmonica. His eyes lingered for a final moment on the candle flame flickering on the crude altar. "*Que le bon Dieu veille sur vous*, Edmund Randolph. And on Philadelphia." (May the good God watch over you) With that, he pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped into the ink-black embrace of the forest. No farewell glance. Only the heavy crunch of his boots on the frost-hardened ground and a single, hauntingly pure note from the harmonica that hung for a heartbeat in the frigid night air before vanishing utterly.
Randolph slumped back into the chair, the weight of exhaustion and a strange, hollow relief crashing over him like a wave. The mission, it seemed, was accomplished. The priest was on his way. Yet an immense weariness, the bone-deep residue of terror survived, smothered any sense of triumph. The chapel held only him, three unconscious servants, and the shrouded forms of Tom and the other fallen man. Silence descended once more, making the sharp crackle of the dying hearth seem unnaturally loud.
He collapsed onto the rough plank bed and fell into a fitful, nightmare-haunted sleep. Visions chased him: mountains of corpses choking Philadelphia's avenues; the purple-red horror of the beast's gaping, stinking maw; the burning, unyielding eyes of George Washington himself...
He couldn't say how long he slept. He was jolted awake by a sharp, urgent rapping at the door. Pain lanced through his wounds as he gasped, sucking in a breath that tasted of ice. Thin, grey light seeped through the doorjamb. Dawn was breaking, cold and bleak.
"Who is it?" Randolph rasped, his hand instinctively closing on the empty flintlock pistol at his belt, his voice rough with sleep and pain.
A voice thick with a mountain drawl, trembling with terror and desperation, came through the door: "Father? Father John? In the name o' God, help! Help my boy! He's froze stiff on the mountainside! Dyin', I tell ye! Please, help us!"
Randolph hauled himself painfully off the crude cot and limped to the door. He peered through a crack. Outside stood a man wrapped in a threadbare jerkin of animal skins. His face was raw and blotched with frostbite, eyes wide with panic and despair. His hands were crimson and stiff with cold, rubbing together frantically. He looked like a woodcutter, utterly broken and desperate against the harsh mountain winter.
"The Father... he... he left for Philadelphia before dawn," Randolph explained, his own heart sinking at the instant, sickly pallor that washed over the man's face. "What's happened? Your child?"
"Gone?" The woodcutter let out a choked sob, his legs buckling as if they would give way. "Sweet Jesus... I.. I found a cave back o' the ridge... buried deep in snow... Thought to shelter from the storm... But inside... inside were movin' things! Horned black serpents! Bit me arm! My little Billy... he got scared... ran off! Right over yonder, behind them rocks on the slope!" He gestured wildly towards the steep incline behind the chapel. "Snow's comin' down harder now... he ain't got but a thin shirt... He'll freeze solid! Sir! You look like a proper gentleman! Show mercy! Give me... give me some fire! Just somethin' to strike a light! I... I gotta build a blaze! Scare off them devil snakes in the cave so's I can fetch my Billy! Please! Just somethin' to make fire!"
The man's words tumbled out in a frantic, tear-streaked torrent. He pointed urgently towards the jagged rocks behind the chapel, his whole body shaking like a leaf in a gale.
Randolph's gut clenched with dread. A child freezing? On the mountainside nearby? Brother John's shepherd friends were God knew how far away. He looked at the father's raw terror, listened to the howl of the wind outside, and felt the cold bite deeper. His fingers brushed his pocket. His flintlock tinderbox and a few lengths of slow match were still there.
"Wait here," Randolph said. He turned and hobbled deeper into the shadowed chapel. He recalled the niche in the corner where Brother John had kept supplies while tending their wounds. Groping in the dimness, he found it. Inside the rough recess sat several small clay jars and... and a small, ancient-looking oaken cask. Its surface was heavily weathered and coated in dust. Faint symbols or letters seemed etched into its sides, but the light was too poor to make them out. The bung-hole was sealed with thick wax and bound tight by rusted iron hoops.
Randolph's gaze slid past the cask. In the back corner of the niche, he found a few dry pieces of tinder and a small bundle of spare slow match. He grabbed the tinder and the matchcord. His hand then fell on a small, unglazed earthenware jug that looked like it might hold lamp oil—or perhaps holy chrism?
He returned to the door and thrust the tinder, matchcord, and the little jug into the hands of the shivering woodcutter. "Here. Take these. Go save your boy."
"Bless ye! Bless ye, kind sir! May God watch over ye!" The woodcutter's gratitude poured out in a flood. He clutched the items desperately, then turned and stumbled away into the growing storm, his figure quickly vanishing among the stark, wind-scoured boulders and swirling snow.
Randolph shut the door and leaned heavily against the rough wood, releasing a long, slow breath. He'd done a good deed. Despite the bone-deep weariness that clung to him, a faint sense of lightness touched his spirit. Dragging his injured leg, he limped back towards the meager warmth of the hearth, intending to add more wood.
The fire was nearly out, reduced to feeble embers casting long, dancing shadows. His gaze, drawn almost against his will, flickered back to the shadowed alcove in the corner where the supplies were kept. The flintlock tinderbox was still in his hand. He needed kindling.
He approached the niche, intending only to grab some tinder. But his eyes locked once more onto the small, nondescript oaken cask, coated in grime and dust. One patch of the thick wax sealing the bung-hole seemed darker, thicker than the rest, almost like a stain. In the failing light, the shape of that stain... did it vaguely resemble letters? He bent closer, his sleeve brushing roughly against the cask's surface, scattering dust.
Beneath the grime, letters emerged. Deeply carved into the wood with what looked like dark red pigment— vermilion, perhaps?— they formed words in Latin, the script archaic and stark:
**AD GALLUM APERIENDUM**
Randolph couldn't read Latin. Yet the words held him fast, their shapes exerting a strange pull. An inexplicable curiosity bloomed within him, tangled with the fragile relief from his recent brush with death and his act of charity, and something deeper— a profound weariness and disorientation he hadn't acknowledged until now.
"AD GALLUM APERIENDUM..." he murmured aloud, the pronunciation awkward and foreign on his tongue. What did it mean? "To open the rooster"? Or something else entirely? What lay within? Sacred relics? Some ancient medicinal cordial hoarded by Brother John? Or... perhaps... something of great value?
A dying ember in the hearth flared weakly, then almost guttered out. The chapel plunged into a deeper, more penetrating chill. Randolph shivered violently, his wounds throbbing anew. He *needed* fire.
His eyes fixed on the heavy wax seal and rusted iron hoops binding the cask shut. It was sealed tight, unnaturally so. *'Maybe it holds pine pitch blocks? Or dried herbs good for tinder?'* The thought flashed through his mind. The woodcutter had needed fire to frighten snakes... perhaps this cask's contents could serve the same purpose? And if not... what harm was there in looking? He'd handled the President's own correspondence. What was one old monk's cask? Just curiosity. Simple curiosity.
Hesitation vanished. He stuffed the tinderbox back into his pocket and drew his hunting knife (blade nicked and dulled, but still serviceable). Crouching down, he carefully worked the knife's tip under the thickest portion of the wax seal. The substance was hard, like ancient resin. He pried, levering with effort until sweat beaded on his forehead. Finally, with a brittle *crack!*, the heavy seal yielded and snapped free