The Hope of Kinfold: The Hope of Kinfold, #1

By Matthew Tait

Half a world away from the concert arenas of Europe and the United States, Adam Lavas has finally returned home. After gaining momentum in the alternative music scene from an early age, his band Solid State became a global sensation known throughout every continent.

Yet fame has a price – an expense that commercial and critical success cannot hope to balm. For in the corridors of the creative heart, dark things have always lurked – taking the forms of depression, alcohol addiction ... and some things even worse. So when Adam discovers a mansion named Meridian hidden within the foothills of Adelaide, it seems like the perfect place where he can terminate his celebrity status and perhaps discover a form of happiness again.

Step into Meridian's hallways, and discover a doorway into another world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Crib Publications
• Release date: Jun 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224076871

Matthew Tait

A vociferous horror columnist since 2005, Matthew Tait published his first collection of dark fiction in 2011. Since then, he has won the the prestigious Shadows Award for the novel Deception Pass. Described as writing 'the sort of horror Clive Barker must read on his days off' Matthew's fiction often treads the line between the familiar and the fantastic.  

Book preview

The Hope of Kinfold

Dark Meridian

Book One

Matthew Tait

Copyright © 2024 Second Edition by Matthew Tait

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Artist: Tom Tait

Layout: Duncan Ralston

First Published: October 2013

Praise for Matthew Tait

‘Inventive and suspenseful, Dark Meridian is a story of epic proportions, told in Tait’s distinctive, genre-blending style. Here is an Australian speculative fiction writer to watch.’

-Tracie McBride, author of Ghosts Can Bleed.

Also by Matthew Tait

Novels

The Hope of Kinfold: Dark Meridian

The Hope of Kinfold: Olearia

Slander Hall

Davey Ribbon

Providence Place

Schizoid

Deception Pass

Random Stairs

Non-Fiction

Different Masks: A Decade in the Dark

Collections

Ghosts In A Desert World

Contents

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

About the Author

Prologue

1835

Through mist and rain, through fog and cold, the figure of a robed man could be seen as a small speck clambering the western side of the mountain. This region of the Andean Cordillera was treacherous – littered with rock, ice, and vegetation even native species had trouble adapting to.

Brother Chabuca Cristal averted his gaze from the small black figure, scouring the regions beneath where potentially it might come to rest. Behind him, the guards emitted white plumes of trepidation.

‘We cannot pass it,’ he said.

To the left, a guard choked out a nervous cough. ‘Look close, Brother, and you’ll see an inlet above the cusp of the river. We might be a match for the current.’

Chabuca squinted through eyes that felt bug-bitten, the lids chapped. Though the guard appeared to be correct, they were going to need horses to cross the river at such depth. Turning back toward the armed congregation, he noted some were shivering with dread.

Stroking his beard, he said, ‘We will not be cowards in the face of God. I ask you to forget what you saw until Meridian is captured. As monks, we can only do God’s work, and not dwell on the terrors that come with it.’

Some appeared appeased.

Others looked pale – as though the notion of God were nothing more than a child’s fairy tale they’d been tricked into believing their whole lives.

Chabuca was astonished to feel he was leaning toward the latter himself. A devout catholic since performing altar boy ablutions a lifetime ago, it was shocking how easy faith could be removed from the lens of belief.

Hooded magenta forms awaited his instruction.

‘You will each take a horse and a partner down. If Meridian is not captured by full nightfall, I will assume that thing has returned. Do you understand?’

The guards gave grunts of resignation. In the polish of their helmets, he caught sight of his reflection: a grey beard sluiced with rain; an Adam’s-apple bobbing to the rhythm of his pulse.

Speaking in native Spanish this time, he regarded the two remaining monks, telling them to return to the temple.

Before either responded, he had to repeat the order twice.

Both were muttering some kind of prayer.

Once he was alone again – and the blistering sound of hooves departed – Chabuca dared to look at the region where his Order had last glimpsed Meridian running as if the Devil were on his heels.

Perhaps it was the Devil …

Though surely not.

As far as he could tell, what the church of Sant’Antonia had witnessed pertained to nothing of evil.

Only an overwhelming sense of awe.

By God, they were cowards.

Spending their whole lives ranting about divinities and miracles.

And when miracles presented?

Chabuca cursed, this time in Aymara, and spat on the ground in frustration – something he could not recall doing during his entire lifespan. By now, Meridian had vanished entirely, and there was nothing to see but the uncompromising Andes.

Silver pommels gleaming with the last light of the sun, he caught sight of guards as they finally began descending into the freezing Maranon river.

Chabuca recalled the sound the object had made.

A strange humming to accompany its celestial brightness.

Please God give us some strength. The Order of Sant’Antonia cannot go into the future knowing what we know. What if it comes back to the temple?

Suddenly, he perceived the sound again.

Did he hear the object this time?

Or was imagination at work?

A more pertinent question might be: what was he doing out here by himself? Cubits away from his blessed temple and flock?

That thing’s business is with Meridian, and he’s welcome to it. I never should have sent the guards for his capture …

Everywhere, the wind screamed.

Close to the temple, trees undulated like sinister sentinels keeping vigil for a threatening purpose.

By degrees, the humming resumed.

Turning his attention back toward the mountains, Chabuca once again observed the object his flock feared.

Still lucid above thrashing trees, the massive form of a white God arose on the very air itself.

When the thicket ended with the beginning of the river, Brother Meridian slowed to a crawl. Wisps of white secreting from his nostrils, his lungs burned with the fire of the cold. After surviving the flight down the mountain, he owned himself a short rest … even if it meant those damnable soldiers gained a foothold. Surveying the landscape in search of them (or any trace of life whatsoever), Meridian let his thoughts expand outward – yearning to receive guidance from whatever force had propelled him on this perilous journey.

Presently, there was nothing.

Perhaps there was never anything to begin with.

No; he would not let his monks’ training discourage him now.

Things had come too far for that.

Surely, the other Brothers had seen what he had?

If Meridian did not survive this cold night, at least he would not perish a lunatic.

Sighing, he clenched his teeth at the thought.

Because there existed a likelihood they would blame him for what the Order had collectively witnessed.

It was, after all, the Lord’s year 1835.

And superstition remained ripe.

If blame conceivably fell on his shoulders, there remained a possibility something sinister would be invented to protect the Order – something that would potentially involve the accidental death of Brother Meridian.

Maybe the Order’s guards are on a mission to destroy?

Impossible.

Chabuca and the Brothers had not degenerated into lunacy.

Meridian had.

He was the sole acolyte to have visions and portents of strange creatures. As far as he knew, he was the only witness to the white God moving through the skies.

Somewhere on the far side of the Maranon, a bird screamed.

And Meridian suddenly saw what the bird did: a party of men, horses, and steel.

Meridian clutched his heart, a blossoming ache having developed.

Persisting with a limp, he pressed on, covering more ground until a vantage point revealed the expanse of the surrounding territory. Confirming his suspicions, there were no readily available means of escape.

In the river's embrace, where the current might cloak his slender frame, salvation resided.

If it remained God’s will he should freeze, then so be it.

He had no strength to fight whatever guided him.

A brief time later, Brother Meridian stood upon the ashen-brown mire of the riverbank. On the opposite side, tree shadows danced, their elongated forms resembling fingers. Upon the water's surface, his silhouette mirrored a spectral figure, reminiscent of a character from a silent play.

An elegy of snorting horses approached.

Meridian placed one foot in the water, all the while bracing his body for an onslaught of glacial shivering.

But the water wasn’t cold.

Sliding both feet deeper still, his toes only perceived tepid warmth.

Along the shoreline, frozen water clung to vegetation like stalactites.

Hurry Meridian.

Enter the water.

Frightened, he whirled.

Where had the voice come from?

Enter the water.

It had returned!

The voice he’d thought deserted had returned.

Wading in deeper, Meridian was now soaked.

And the water remained warm.

Gaining pitch, the sounds of the approaching company filled the night. Like a messenger of approaching death, Meridian could even smell the coconut oil guards bathed in.

Seizing this as a cue, he forged ahead as if burdened by invisible weights. The sight of his reflection, crudely cleaved in half, evoked a sense of terror... as though this too served as an omen.

By now, the Order’s guards had arrived amidst the trees, granting them an unobstructed view of Meridian in the fading light. In their assumption, he had ventured forth along the eastern shoreline, hoping his presence would not be readily detected. With the sun nearly concealed, a glimmer of fortune remained.

Venturing further into the depths, the tumultuous rush of the current gradually abated, allowing him to navigate with ease.

Meridian’s newfound confidence was yet another astonishment, for he’d never been a competent swimmer.

It seemed this night had room for all manner of miracles.

Is it really a miracle?

At the thought, a sense of hope spread, encompassing all he’d endured in the past few months. The dreams of the black-eyed beings and the midnight hours in which he believed he consorted with them; the tightness in his chest that declared his soul to be more expansive and ancient than even his deity made room for.

All the present insanity meant something, surely?

His thoughts fractured as an immense light, akin to the sudden appearance of the sun, illuminated the brackish water.

‘Astor Aemeril,’ he whispered, having no idea what the words meant.

Silent, a disk-shaped immensity hung above the water’s surface like a dream. Streams of pulsing yellow formed the underbelly. Revolving, its outer dimensions blurred, creating an effect appearing to distort reality.

On the foreshore, horses shrieked and shields were abandoned as guards commenced their retreat. A deceptive impression of broad daylight infused the scene, visible trees bathed in a dense blanket of white. Lifting his arms, as if possessing the power to draw the object closer, Meridian closed his eyes.

Seeming to respond to the light, the river threw itself into a churning frenzy, the currents now a frothy spume.

Then Meridian was raised up.

Until his drenched body hung above the surface.

A stark shadow against a backdrop of blistering luminescence, he slowly levitated higher. Within minutes, he had vanished altogether, leaving a trail like a swarm of fireflies to those watching from a distance.

Soon after, Brother Chabuca returned to his temple, all the while ignoring questioning pleas from his terrified flock.