Chapter Three
In the courtyard, on a stone bench, another patient sat calmly, looking around blankly at other people and humming softly to himself. He was squat but slim with a hollow quality to most of his features. His hair was brown so light it was almost blonde, his eyes green, and a small, neatly trimmed beard circled his mouth. He had enough control over himself that he could maintain his facial hair with an electric trimmer-- under supervision, of course. He never complained about being watched like a child.
Now, sitting on his bench, he continued his humming, the one thing he did constantly. His professional background in music still showed through in his mannerisms: constant noisemaking, either hums or whistling. Sometimes it was Mozart or Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky or Bach or Wagner, or even Webern or Berg although no one wanted to be around him when he whistled the noise they called music. But sometimes, when he whistled something and was asked what it was-- a question he always answered in detail-- he would simply respond, “Mine,” and go on with it. He had once been a composer and music teacher for a college two towns over from Ighosia Falls.
***
Draegon had come into Necras two days before the official onset of the Search, planning to perform at the ceremonies, or at least on the street corners if he couldn’t get onto the official center-of-attention platform in the center of town. There were prizes for the best musicians and storytellers, especially for the best telling of the legends involving the renowned sword. On the day of the official onset, the contests began at noon. He had already added his name to the lists of storytellers, but he had yet to get up and tell his chosen tale; the tellings would go on late into the night. In the meantime, he had already made a decent handful of coins just from playing his hand dulcimer on a street corner.
People tended to walk wide of him in the crowds, at least once they registered what he was. He knew it was because of his hair. Only the Keidenelle had hair any shade lighter than golden-brown-- excepting the white and grey that came with age, of course-- and his was whitish yellow, marking him as one of the uncivilized nomads that wandered the land, brutalizing and robbing whatever people they came across. Even with him alone, and dressed as well as any successful bard, and acting and speaking just like any civilized person, the people avoided him. If no one else noticed, at least he knew he was not a savage, although he didn’t like to think about what he had to go through to become civilized.
A man on one street corner stood on a small wooden box, shouting advertisements for the menagerie, Jonal Keffinen’s Traveling Sights of Wonder. Had he not been standing on the box, he still would have been tall. He had a semi-tamed mop of black hair, a slightly crooked nose, and blue eyes that missed nothing. He looked like a man used to spotting trouble in a crowd. He spoke easily and cheerfully and with many grand gestures of the arms, and frequently stopped his advertising to banter amiably with a passerby. Draegon knew this man; he was Jonal Keffinen himself, the owner of the menagerie. He tried to step wide around him, but his own height and the fact that his pale hair marked him out in a crowd worked against him. He almost felt the moment Jonal’s eyes fell on him, and the shout came aimed right at his shoulder. “That’s my property! Stop him! Guards! Stop him!”
Just as suddenly as with the man on the balcony and the woman in the common room, the musician’s behavior changed. He jumped up and shouted at the tp of his lungs and darted away from the bench, running at top speed across the courtyard, through the flowerbeds, and even plowing through people milling about.
“I’m no man’s property!” Draegon dared to shout back before breaking into a run, careful to keep hold of his instrument cases so they didn’t wind up lost or damaged. He pushed his way through the crowd; suddenly they no longer wanted to part for him. He cursed the days he had worked for Keffinen in the Traveling Sights. Those days were years gone, but they still haunted him. He cursed under his breath. He was no savage to be displayed anymore, no attraction to be viewed by gawking patrons for a few measly coins he would not see so much as a penny of. Not anymore. He was going to preserve his freedom even if it meant running.
One of those he ran into was another patient, a mild-mannered and constantly sad woman with dark hair and almost purple eyes.
Before he could slow down or turn, he barreled headlong into a merchant’s wagon, throwing what looked like some rather expensive-looking porcelains and mechanical toys into the road, breaking them into pieces on the stone road upon impact. His momentum halted, he couldn’t help but make eye contact with the dark-skinned and dark-haired woman sitting atop the wagon. Rich azure eyes stared into his, seeming to delve into his core.
“Someone caught you and tamed you young, didn’t they?” she said, sounding more amused than he was comfortable with. Too out of breath to reply, he gave her an apologetic look before beginning his run again.
The salt-and-pepper policeman took it on himself to stop the ruckus, running through the halls and plowing over people himself to get at the running musician.
More and more he ran through the crowd, plowing past people and mumbling out-of-breath apologies whenever he could. The crowd seemed to be thickening around him. Jonal Keffinen’s condemning shouts still followed him, ringing in his ears and threatening a cage again. He refused to let his screaming legs rule him and make him slow; the crowd was making him go slowly enough.
He ran headlong into a solid wall, and arms wrapped around him immediately, keeping him from continuing his sprint. A guard looked down at him, stern face glaring and accusing. “You’ve been called before Lady Ara of Melistrat.”
The crowd around him was silent. All eyes were on him and the guards; a wide empty ring had opened up around them. Three guards-- that was what they had sent to capture him.
“Mother punish that damned Jonal Keffinen,” he muttered under his breath. Whatever punishment the Mother sent to him would be too good, he decided as the guard holding him released him from the tight bear’s hug he’d had him in and marched him towards the largest building edging the plaza. Behind him, another guard called, “Anyone else who is involved with this man, come before Lady Ara.”
Draegon could hear both the sound of wagon wheels-- the merchant woman’s cart-- and Jonal Keffinen’s slimy voice trailing after him.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Mere Acquaintances- Chapter Two
Chapter Two
There was a certain window that looked out over the walled-in garden-slash-courtyard at Ighosia Falls, and it was there that one particular patient liked to spend most of his time. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and stony blue eyes. Once a formidable member of the police force, he now held no gun, had no uniform. He spent his time staring out into the courtyard, babbling softly to himself, occasionally shouting “Don’t!” or “Please, stop!” The doctors knew the shouts were linked to the incident that broke him.
One intern just happened to be looking in his direction when something came over his eyes. So she was the only one to see his mouth clamp shut mid-babble, to see the sudden change in the look behind his eyes. He’d gone quiet, the abrupt change in behavior happening without warning, just as with the woman in the wheelchair. His change was certainly less violent and even less noticeable. But the intern was convinced there had been a change. Silence surrounded the big man; the cold look in his eyes became the only indication of life.
***
Ara Fusica leaned over the rail of the balcony overlooking the main plaza of Necras, her feet a few inches above the ground as she hoisted herself up to look at the rabble-rousing below. All she could see were heads covered with many different colors of hair and the colorful splashes of their clothes.
“My Lady, you shouldn’t hang over the edge like that. You’ll fall, and then where will we be?”
Ara let her feet come back down to the marble floor of the balcony and looked up to her sworn guard. Roark Dow was a broad-shouldered man in the prime of his life. He didn’t wear all his steel battle armor here in the city; rather a set of thick hardened leather protected him. His coal-black hair, usually disheveled and spiky with sweat from being kept under his helmet at all hours, was now dry and sitting neatly on his head. His chin was smooth as a boy’s despite his thirty-five years. His eyes looked down on the milling crowd, appraising everyone and generally disapproving of the carousing in the streets below.
This was the first time Ara could really see the onset of the Search; it only happened every fifteen years, and at age fifteen, had only experienced the last one as an infant. She was amazed now at the sight of all the men wearing the silver braid of Seekers. So many-- it looked like nearly every man in the city wore one.
“Every fifteen years, the Seekers of Sonsedhor set out from the four capital cities of the world to search for the sword that was lost,” she said, her words almost a recitation. “I never imagined there would be so many.”
“And there may not even be one among them all who will find it. There have been nearly sixty Searches set out since Cheyne Firdin vanished, and they began long after his mysterious disappearance.” Roark spoke matter-of-factly, his lips barely moving but his voice firm and commanding. Should the need ever arise, he would lead soldiers into battle to defend her.
“Have you ever thought of joining the Search?” Ara asked, looking up at her guardian. “Did you go on the last one? You would have been old enough.”
“At the time of the last one, you were a babe in swaddling clothes in your mother’s arms, my Lady,” he replied, his voice remaining level, as if he were lecturing. “From the moment of your birth, I was bound to you, sworn to protect you, to give up my life to defend your own. I was not free to join the Search then, nor am I now.”
“I could free you from that bond if you wished,” she said, still looking up at him. She was not short-- not for her age, anyway-- but he still stood head and shoulders taller than her. “At one word form me, your oath could be undone. Do you wish it? To search the world for Sonsedhor?”
He turned his eyes back down to the rabble in the plaza. “I am not looking for glory,” he said simply and firmly, ending the conversation.
She refused to let it end. “Then what are you looking for?”
He let out a loud sigh, but she thought he was about to answer, when below them, a hubbub began. A man shouted, his voice carrying over the raucous volume of the crowd. “That’s my property! Stop him! Guards! Stop him!”
She jumped up to lean her chest against the rail again so she could really see what was below her. Roark mumbled something, but she couldn’t make it out. Probably something about not leaning over the rail again. She ignored him and looked for where the trouble was.
Among the multi-colored heads, a pale-haired man seemed to be the center of attention. “Now what is happening down there?” she asked. “Go find out, Roark. Take some guards and sort this out. I won’t have thieves in my city.”
There was a certain window that looked out over the walled-in garden-slash-courtyard at Ighosia Falls, and it was there that one particular patient liked to spend most of his time. He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and stony blue eyes. Once a formidable member of the police force, he now held no gun, had no uniform. He spent his time staring out into the courtyard, babbling softly to himself, occasionally shouting “Don’t!” or “Please, stop!” The doctors knew the shouts were linked to the incident that broke him.
One intern just happened to be looking in his direction when something came over his eyes. So she was the only one to see his mouth clamp shut mid-babble, to see the sudden change in the look behind his eyes. He’d gone quiet, the abrupt change in behavior happening without warning, just as with the woman in the wheelchair. His change was certainly less violent and even less noticeable. But the intern was convinced there had been a change. Silence surrounded the big man; the cold look in his eyes became the only indication of life.
***
Ara Fusica leaned over the rail of the balcony overlooking the main plaza of Necras, her feet a few inches above the ground as she hoisted herself up to look at the rabble-rousing below. All she could see were heads covered with many different colors of hair and the colorful splashes of their clothes.
“My Lady, you shouldn’t hang over the edge like that. You’ll fall, and then where will we be?”
Ara let her feet come back down to the marble floor of the balcony and looked up to her sworn guard. Roark Dow was a broad-shouldered man in the prime of his life. He didn’t wear all his steel battle armor here in the city; rather a set of thick hardened leather protected him. His coal-black hair, usually disheveled and spiky with sweat from being kept under his helmet at all hours, was now dry and sitting neatly on his head. His chin was smooth as a boy’s despite his thirty-five years. His eyes looked down on the milling crowd, appraising everyone and generally disapproving of the carousing in the streets below.
This was the first time Ara could really see the onset of the Search; it only happened every fifteen years, and at age fifteen, had only experienced the last one as an infant. She was amazed now at the sight of all the men wearing the silver braid of Seekers. So many-- it looked like nearly every man in the city wore one.
“Every fifteen years, the Seekers of Sonsedhor set out from the four capital cities of the world to search for the sword that was lost,” she said, her words almost a recitation. “I never imagined there would be so many.”
“And there may not even be one among them all who will find it. There have been nearly sixty Searches set out since Cheyne Firdin vanished, and they began long after his mysterious disappearance.” Roark spoke matter-of-factly, his lips barely moving but his voice firm and commanding. Should the need ever arise, he would lead soldiers into battle to defend her.
“Have you ever thought of joining the Search?” Ara asked, looking up at her guardian. “Did you go on the last one? You would have been old enough.”
“At the time of the last one, you were a babe in swaddling clothes in your mother’s arms, my Lady,” he replied, his voice remaining level, as if he were lecturing. “From the moment of your birth, I was bound to you, sworn to protect you, to give up my life to defend your own. I was not free to join the Search then, nor am I now.”
“I could free you from that bond if you wished,” she said, still looking up at him. She was not short-- not for her age, anyway-- but he still stood head and shoulders taller than her. “At one word form me, your oath could be undone. Do you wish it? To search the world for Sonsedhor?”
He turned his eyes back down to the rabble in the plaza. “I am not looking for glory,” he said simply and firmly, ending the conversation.
She refused to let it end. “Then what are you looking for?”
He let out a loud sigh, but she thought he was about to answer, when below them, a hubbub began. A man shouted, his voice carrying over the raucous volume of the crowd. “That’s my property! Stop him! Guards! Stop him!”
She jumped up to lean her chest against the rail again so she could really see what was below her. Roark mumbled something, but she couldn’t make it out. Probably something about not leaning over the rail again. She ignored him and looked for where the trouble was.
Among the multi-colored heads, a pale-haired man seemed to be the center of attention. “Now what is happening down there?” she asked. “Go find out, Roark. Take some guards and sort this out. I won’t have thieves in my city.”
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Mere Acquaintances- Chapter One
Chapter One
Ighosia Falls Insane Asylum-- the board of directors had yet to change the name to Ighosia Falls Mental Institution even though there was a bill on the board-- housed numerous patients who milled about aimlessly. Their behavior was placid enough that they could be allowed to roam the buildings and grounds without endangering themselves or others. The big common room that also served as game room and sometime cafeteria had enrobed patients scattered around tables, sofas, and the obligatory ping pong table. Most of them chattered with themselves or visitors or staff-- those that were coherent or thought they were coherent. Some still had enough of their minds to be able to interact, but those that spoke in gibberish still wanted to be heard. Volunteers had grown used to the ones who just wanted to be listened to while they babbled on about God-knows-what. Some of the patients who had no desire to listen or speak simply sat, staring at a wall, a TV screen, their hands or laps, or nothing in particular.
One patient sat in a wheelchair, her back to the wall, watching with uninterested eyes the color of chocolate. Auburn hair tumbled to her shoulders. She was always quiet, often unresponsive when addressed, but the doctors, staff, and volunteers had grown used to her and no one tried to interact with her anymore. She was content to sit in her chair, sometimes with a book or a magazine in her lap that she did not read, and while away the hours simply being, in a silent and lonely world.
Without warning or any sort of catalyst, she suddenly tried to stand in her wheelchair, struggling against legs that didn’t want to work. Her voice burst from her, hoarse from disuse. “I’ve lost it! I’ve lost it!”
Heads whipped around to look at her questioningly, a pair of nurses rushed to her to calm her down. A psychiatric doctor watched everything, immediately postulating what this sudden change in behavior meant. Was it, perhaps, the first sign of regained sanity, of awareness of surroundings? Or was it a delirium, with the lost “it” being something conjured in a fractured mind?
***
Necras was teeming with people, and they pressed in on Senne from all sides. Rumor that Cheyne Firdin had been reborn had reached her ears, leading her first to one city, then to another as the rumors developed. He was in Morena! No in Abem, or in Estria! No, he was in Necras! Wherever he was, the rebirth of the hero meant one thing: that the cursed sword Sonsedhor might again be within her grasp, or come within her grasp.
The crowds in Necras weren’t encouraging. The rumors had only pointed to one thing: the Search. The celebration of the great hero’s rebirth was nothing more than the setting forth of Seekers: men who believed they might be a rebirth of the hero, each one of them planning to go reclaim the famous blade and make a name for himself as a hero.
She pushed through the crowd; everywhere she looked were men wearing the silver braided cord of a Seeker. The cord came along with the oaths they made: to be honest, to do no harm to the innocent, and to seek it for righteousness rather than for glory. Those oaths freed men from all debts and obligations until one of three things happened: either they died, the sword was found, or the Seeker gave up and returned to paying taxes. Senne thought it all silly. Why should any man need to make oaths, or search for the sword? Whoever had once walked the world as Cheyne Firdin should know what had happened to Sonsedhor, hidden or not.
“He’s here.” The voice burst into her head like the boom from a firework. “The one who will find the sword. The one is here!”
In the middle of a crowd as she was, she fell to her knees from shock and elation. It had been so long. After her failure to bring him Sonsedhor back when Cheyne held it, she had been cut off from him completely and without mercy. Now, to hear his silken gravelly voice again was ecstasy.
As if he could read her thoughts-- which he probably could, actually-- his voice echoed in the back of her head again. “You are not in my favor yet, child. Do not believe you are. But perhaps you might redeem yourself. The one who will find that cursed blade is here. Bring him to me. Find the blade, and you may prove what little worth you actually have.”
As suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone, the itching buzz in the back
of her head abruptly disappearing. Shaking, she got to her feet, her eyes doing more than just passing over the individuals that made up the mass. Now, she actually saw them.
The plaza was filled to bursting with men and women, but her master had given her no way to tell which one of the men around her was the one. She picked out a chestnut-haired man not ten paces from her, but there was no guarantee Cheyne’s rebirth would look like Cheyne himself had. The man around her were all as different as people could be. Dark-skinned and fair, blue-eyed Gaernin and brown-eyed Melistrati, black hair and red hair and brown and all shades in between… she even thought she spied a pale-haired Keidenelle savage among the rabble. She gave a start at seeing the man she thought was a Keidenelle. Either they were attacking and no one cared because there was only the one, or he was an attraction escaped from some menagerie or showman who had set up outside the city. She had seen menageries boast of captured savages before, but most often they turned out to be fakes, men or women who had drained all the color from their hair by a means Senne didn’t know. This man’s hair wasn’t drained of color; it was more of a whitish-blonde, like fresh buttermilk or a none-too-clean linen shirt. He wasn’t dressed like a savage either; his clothes fit in perfectly with the crowd. Perhaps he had drained the color from more normal brown hair himself, to instill fear in competition for the sword. No silver braid of a Seeker adorned his sleeve; the man wasn’t out for the glory that would come with Sonsedhor. Senne dismissed him from her thoughts.
She worked her way through the crowd, her eyes darting around at man after man, wondering if perhaps her lover’s relationship with Cheyne before would help her recognize his rebirth. A thought struck; would he recognize her? Would that be one of the memories that came to his rebirth? Had she been recognized already, and he was simply avoiding her? There were too many questions. He was here, but where?
Musicians were playing on every corner, and jugglers and acrobats performed wherever they could find space. Half the people in these crowds were drinking, the other half mostly drunk already, even though it was not yet noon.
She found herself among a cluster of braid-wearing Seekers close to one of the gates to the city. Outside the walls, the colorful sides of a tent stretched towards the sky. The menagerie. She sneered; she hated menageries. A painted wooden sign named this Jonal Keffinen’s Traveling Sights of Wonder. A long line of Seekers were strolling among the large tent and the few smaller tents surrounding it that housed smaller attractions. She sauntered through the crowds herself, dropping a coin in the box near the entrance arch to pay her way in. Money was easily come by; she could waste it on this, even though she hated them. Cheyne might be among the crowd.
The smells of horses and mules reached her, and she wrinkled her nose. She let it stay wrinkled as she looked around and saw the people who wore vests made of the same colorful material as the tents; the vests marked them as workers of the Traveling Sights of Wonder. She glared at every one of them she saw. Menageries were peopled by nothing but con artists and freaks. Within one small open tent, a woman was contorting herself into all kinds of different positions that should have been impossible. Freak. In another, a man was “eating” fire and blowing it back out of his mouth. A small boy not wearing a vest darted among the crowd surrounding the fire eater. Senne saw the quick movements that showed he was picking pockets. No doubt he was employed by the performer. Con artist. A woman standing on a makeshift platform open to the air was swallowing daggers and knives and swords-- nothing any honest person would do to make a living. Strange animals were in cages, strange items in large glass bottles and jars were lined up on a table, being watched over by a man with eyes far too large for him. He looked like an owl. A man with no arms wrote on a giant slate with his feet, his handwriting neat and perfect. Freaks and more freaks.
And the other people were eating it all up. Any man who was truly Cheyne wouldn’t be taken in by all this. He was not one to be entertained by the unnatural. She walked purposefully out of the menagerie’s roped-off grounds.
Back within the walls of the city, she got lost in the crowd and stood in one spot, looking around. Cheyne Firdin’s new life was in here somewhere, but where?!
Ighosia Falls Insane Asylum-- the board of directors had yet to change the name to Ighosia Falls Mental Institution even though there was a bill on the board-- housed numerous patients who milled about aimlessly. Their behavior was placid enough that they could be allowed to roam the buildings and grounds without endangering themselves or others. The big common room that also served as game room and sometime cafeteria had enrobed patients scattered around tables, sofas, and the obligatory ping pong table. Most of them chattered with themselves or visitors or staff-- those that were coherent or thought they were coherent. Some still had enough of their minds to be able to interact, but those that spoke in gibberish still wanted to be heard. Volunteers had grown used to the ones who just wanted to be listened to while they babbled on about God-knows-what. Some of the patients who had no desire to listen or speak simply sat, staring at a wall, a TV screen, their hands or laps, or nothing in particular.
One patient sat in a wheelchair, her back to the wall, watching with uninterested eyes the color of chocolate. Auburn hair tumbled to her shoulders. She was always quiet, often unresponsive when addressed, but the doctors, staff, and volunteers had grown used to her and no one tried to interact with her anymore. She was content to sit in her chair, sometimes with a book or a magazine in her lap that she did not read, and while away the hours simply being, in a silent and lonely world.
Without warning or any sort of catalyst, she suddenly tried to stand in her wheelchair, struggling against legs that didn’t want to work. Her voice burst from her, hoarse from disuse. “I’ve lost it! I’ve lost it!”
Heads whipped around to look at her questioningly, a pair of nurses rushed to her to calm her down. A psychiatric doctor watched everything, immediately postulating what this sudden change in behavior meant. Was it, perhaps, the first sign of regained sanity, of awareness of surroundings? Or was it a delirium, with the lost “it” being something conjured in a fractured mind?
***
Necras was teeming with people, and they pressed in on Senne from all sides. Rumor that Cheyne Firdin had been reborn had reached her ears, leading her first to one city, then to another as the rumors developed. He was in Morena! No in Abem, or in Estria! No, he was in Necras! Wherever he was, the rebirth of the hero meant one thing: that the cursed sword Sonsedhor might again be within her grasp, or come within her grasp.
The crowds in Necras weren’t encouraging. The rumors had only pointed to one thing: the Search. The celebration of the great hero’s rebirth was nothing more than the setting forth of Seekers: men who believed they might be a rebirth of the hero, each one of them planning to go reclaim the famous blade and make a name for himself as a hero.
She pushed through the crowd; everywhere she looked were men wearing the silver braided cord of a Seeker. The cord came along with the oaths they made: to be honest, to do no harm to the innocent, and to seek it for righteousness rather than for glory. Those oaths freed men from all debts and obligations until one of three things happened: either they died, the sword was found, or the Seeker gave up and returned to paying taxes. Senne thought it all silly. Why should any man need to make oaths, or search for the sword? Whoever had once walked the world as Cheyne Firdin should know what had happened to Sonsedhor, hidden or not.
“He’s here.” The voice burst into her head like the boom from a firework. “The one who will find the sword. The one is here!”
In the middle of a crowd as she was, she fell to her knees from shock and elation. It had been so long. After her failure to bring him Sonsedhor back when Cheyne held it, she had been cut off from him completely and without mercy. Now, to hear his silken gravelly voice again was ecstasy.
As if he could read her thoughts-- which he probably could, actually-- his voice echoed in the back of her head again. “You are not in my favor yet, child. Do not believe you are. But perhaps you might redeem yourself. The one who will find that cursed blade is here. Bring him to me. Find the blade, and you may prove what little worth you actually have.”
As suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone, the itching buzz in the back
of her head abruptly disappearing. Shaking, she got to her feet, her eyes doing more than just passing over the individuals that made up the mass. Now, she actually saw them.
The plaza was filled to bursting with men and women, but her master had given her no way to tell which one of the men around her was the one. She picked out a chestnut-haired man not ten paces from her, but there was no guarantee Cheyne’s rebirth would look like Cheyne himself had. The man around her were all as different as people could be. Dark-skinned and fair, blue-eyed Gaernin and brown-eyed Melistrati, black hair and red hair and brown and all shades in between… she even thought she spied a pale-haired Keidenelle savage among the rabble. She gave a start at seeing the man she thought was a Keidenelle. Either they were attacking and no one cared because there was only the one, or he was an attraction escaped from some menagerie or showman who had set up outside the city. She had seen menageries boast of captured savages before, but most often they turned out to be fakes, men or women who had drained all the color from their hair by a means Senne didn’t know. This man’s hair wasn’t drained of color; it was more of a whitish-blonde, like fresh buttermilk or a none-too-clean linen shirt. He wasn’t dressed like a savage either; his clothes fit in perfectly with the crowd. Perhaps he had drained the color from more normal brown hair himself, to instill fear in competition for the sword. No silver braid of a Seeker adorned his sleeve; the man wasn’t out for the glory that would come with Sonsedhor. Senne dismissed him from her thoughts.
She worked her way through the crowd, her eyes darting around at man after man, wondering if perhaps her lover’s relationship with Cheyne before would help her recognize his rebirth. A thought struck; would he recognize her? Would that be one of the memories that came to his rebirth? Had she been recognized already, and he was simply avoiding her? There were too many questions. He was here, but where?
Musicians were playing on every corner, and jugglers and acrobats performed wherever they could find space. Half the people in these crowds were drinking, the other half mostly drunk already, even though it was not yet noon.
She found herself among a cluster of braid-wearing Seekers close to one of the gates to the city. Outside the walls, the colorful sides of a tent stretched towards the sky. The menagerie. She sneered; she hated menageries. A painted wooden sign named this Jonal Keffinen’s Traveling Sights of Wonder. A long line of Seekers were strolling among the large tent and the few smaller tents surrounding it that housed smaller attractions. She sauntered through the crowds herself, dropping a coin in the box near the entrance arch to pay her way in. Money was easily come by; she could waste it on this, even though she hated them. Cheyne might be among the crowd.
The smells of horses and mules reached her, and she wrinkled her nose. She let it stay wrinkled as she looked around and saw the people who wore vests made of the same colorful material as the tents; the vests marked them as workers of the Traveling Sights of Wonder. She glared at every one of them she saw. Menageries were peopled by nothing but con artists and freaks. Within one small open tent, a woman was contorting herself into all kinds of different positions that should have been impossible. Freak. In another, a man was “eating” fire and blowing it back out of his mouth. A small boy not wearing a vest darted among the crowd surrounding the fire eater. Senne saw the quick movements that showed he was picking pockets. No doubt he was employed by the performer. Con artist. A woman standing on a makeshift platform open to the air was swallowing daggers and knives and swords-- nothing any honest person would do to make a living. Strange animals were in cages, strange items in large glass bottles and jars were lined up on a table, being watched over by a man with eyes far too large for him. He looked like an owl. A man with no arms wrote on a giant slate with his feet, his handwriting neat and perfect. Freaks and more freaks.
And the other people were eating it all up. Any man who was truly Cheyne wouldn’t be taken in by all this. He was not one to be entertained by the unnatural. She walked purposefully out of the menagerie’s roped-off grounds.
Back within the walls of the city, she got lost in the crowd and stood in one spot, looking around. Cheyne Firdin’s new life was in here somewhere, but where?!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Mere Acquaintances- Prologue
Prologue
The river Swen was banked on one side by high, grassy ground peppered with brush and stunted trees, and on the other by black nothingness. For about two paces, the far bank looked just like the one Cheyne was standing on; rich dirt sloped up to contain the lazily flowing water and finally leveled to the same high grass and various foliage that could have banked any river anywhere. But after those two paces on the far side, it all just stopped, like a long sharp blade had simply cut through the earth and trees and peeled them away, leaving nothing but a black as dark as a murderer’s heart. Even from this distance, Cheyne thought it looked thick, like molasses, like he could put out his hand and be enveloped in it. Staring at it made him feel more like a child than the hero others thought him to be. He wiggled his fingers, just to make sure they were still attached to his hand. Even knowing that it was on the other side of the river, for a moment, he had almost felt as though he had put his fingers into the black, and they had gone numb.
He lifted the heavy steel helmet from his head and ran a hand through his chestnut hair. His hand came back covered with sweat. His eyes never left the darkness on the other side of the river. It was broad daylight-- just an hour or so after noon-- but the darkness was complete. He squinted, trying to penetrate it with his gaze, but at the same time not quite seeing it. He could remember remembering a time when that blackness wasn’t there, when plains-- he had the vague idea it had been plains-- extended far on the other side of the river, but the memories were not even half-remembered. A grimace tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was frustrating that his memory didn’t extend as far back as it used to. The memories from some of his past lives, the ones he had lived longest ago, were fading. Decades were missing, decades of experiences he could remember remembering and thinking on, but that was all there was anymore. Still staring at the nothingness without seeing it, he began to wonder how much his next rebirth would remember. Who would that man be? What would he be like?
How much of the land will blackness like that cover then?
The grimace that had been tugging at him made its appearance, and he put a hand on the sword at his hip, gripping the hilt tightly as if afraid the blackness would attack and he had to be ready for it. It didn’t waver. The one thing he was certain of, the one thing that was always a part of his lives, of all his memories, was the sword. Sonsedhor. Fine brown leather cord wrapped the hilt from pommel to the plain steel cross guard that separated hilt from blade. The blade itself was a bit wide, straight and double-edged, but tempered in a style that made it look like waves radiated from the center to the edge when the light hit it right. For all the old stories told about his former lives that involved Sonsedhor, all the legends that turned his lives and himself into a hero of legend, all the tales that made the famous sword into a brilliant weapon worthy of heroes, it wasn’t really much to look at. It was a tool, made for a purpose, and no more. But it was a constant; it made Cheyne certain of who he was. Sonsedhor had always been connected to him, and him to it, for hundreds of lives-- maybe thousands-- even though there were only a dozen or so he could actually remember in detail.
The sword was centuries old, and had never been wielded by anyone but himself. His predecessors took pains to hide it before death took him, so only the next incarnation of himself would be able to find it. Whenever he felt death at his back, he would do the same, and wait until the Mother gave him birth again to find it.
The sound of footsteps-- both human and horse-- approached. His grimace turned into a smile without his thinking about it, and he finally tore his eyes away from the blackness across the river. The horse was the color of dust, a well-tempered mare with calm eyes that matched her owner’s in color. But the similarities ended there. Above her own calm brown eyes, Senne’s hair was deep brown, pulled back into an intricate pattern of twists and curls that would normally be seen on a lady in a city, not out here at the edge of the world, days from any settlement. Even her gown was more suited for city business than traveling, except that the fine silk of her skirts was in fact divided for riding. It was deep sapphire blue and covered with hundreds of tiny glass beads. Pure snowy white slashed her sleeves and the middle of her bodice, all of that too encrusted with beadwork. It was a gown made for court, but Senne would have nothing less than the finest, even on the road.
“So it’s true, isn’t it, love?” she asked, her voice as soft and sleek as the silk of her gown. She left her mare to graze and strode next him, her hard-soled leather riding shoes making almost no noise in the grass that led up to the bank. Her arm went through his; he loosened his grip on Sonsedhor’s hilt.
“So it seems,” he replied. “There’s nothing on the other side of the Swen. It just… stops.”
“I was afraid to believe it when I heard the rumor. Thank you for bringing me out here.” For a long time he watched her as she stared at the blackness, almost without blinking, until he found his own eyes locked on it again, trying to see through it.
The sound of rustling fabric broke him from his staring, and he turned to see Senne had stepped out of her shoes and taken off her stockings. Her hands were reaching behind her back, undoing the row of buttons that ran up the back of her bodice.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see it up close. The river isn’t flowing too heavily, now that the spring thaws are long past and it hasn’t rained in nearly a fortnight. In fact, it’s been so dry for the last month the Swen can’t be very deep. So I’m going to swim across and see it up close. Are you going to come with me?” She shrugged her shoulders out of the bodice and slid her arms out of the sleeves. The fine gown cascaded to the ground, piling around her ankles. Even clad only in her shift, she was able to somehow look more commanding than any monarch he had ever met. Without waiting for his response, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and continued, “You’ll want to remove all your armor before you go in. It would weigh you down and drown you.”
Ignoring the tone in her voice that made him feel like she saw him as a child, he methodically worked his way out of his armor and set it on the bank next to his own mare. She ignored him. Once he was stripped down to his simple cloth breeches, with a sheathed dagger at his belt, he and Senne plunged into the river together.
The water was cold but not icy, deep enough that he couldn’t touch the bottom, but slow enough that it wasn’t an issue. A few minutes of swimming saw him and Senne clambering up the far bank not too far downriver from the horses. He helped Senne to her feet on the grass, ignoring the fact that the water had set her white shift clinging to her every curve, that it being wet had made it almost completely transparent. Even with trying not to look, he could see every bit of her. She smiled slyly at him and brushed past him half a step.
Clinging to each other, they inched closer to the edge of the void. Cheyne found himself leaning forward, his nose reaching to the wall of blackness while the rest of him stayed further back. He straightened and pulled Senne back just a bit with him. He saw her reach out a hand toward the nothingness and somehow could not make himself reach out to pull her hand back. He held his breath as Senne’s fingers came up to the blank wall of blank. For a long minute, her hand and the blackness sat there, suspended, frozen, and then one finger extended and breached the boundary of the void.
The black didn’t swallow her hand like Cheyne thought it would. Instead, her hand stayed perfectly visible, the edges sharp and vivid as if he were looking at it in broad daylight. It seemed, for a moment, that her hand gave off its own light to break the blackness.
“It feels… thick, but empty at the same time,” Senne said, moving her hand slowly around and wiggling her fingers. “I wonder…” Again, before he could move to stop her, she was leaning forward, her head broke into the darkness, and she was looking down. “Oh, my…” Her hand moved from his arm to his back, settling against his skin between his shoulder blades.
Cheyne had never been an easily frightened man , but he hesitated before carefully leaning forward himself and peering over the edge of the black. Beyond the edge, the world just ended. The ground beneath him didn’t even have any thickness to it. It was more like a sheet of parchment, stretched and scraped thin. He was suddenly overcome by vertigo and the feeling that the earth would break under his weight. Other than that thin crust that was the land he stood on, there was nothing in the black. Pure nothing, in every direction. He felt sweat breaking out on his still-clammy skin and realized he was trembling. As slowly as he had extended his head, he drew it back until green grass was beneath his eyes. Only then did he straighten up again.
On the return swim, the water felt warmer. When they emerged from the river, the sun was warmer, the breeze less bracing. The whole world seemed to be warm and more colorful, as if it were showing off how it was different from the abyss. He was grateful for the walk back upstream to where the horses were; the warm sun and wind dried him as he walked.
He helped Senne do up the buttons on the back of her gown before he started donning his armor. He straightened from fastening the last of his greaves and was reaching for Sonsedhor on its belt when a loud crack rang in his ears. A heavy weight slammed into him, pushing him bodily toward the river. His arms and legs became tangled in branches and leaves, and as he twisted to see, rough tree bark was all that was before his eyes. Completely winded, he tumbled down the bank and into the water, the tree dragging him with it. The weight of all the steel encasing his body dragged him down at the same time the tree tried to keep him on the surface. Water filled his lungs as he desperately tried to keep his head above water. He tried to free his arms from the tangled branches, but they were pinned too tightly. He whipped his head around as well as he could underwater, but the strap that fastened his helmet under his chin wouldn’t move. It dragged his head down, keeping it under the surface. His lungs screamed for air. He could feel the current pulling him downriver. The water was suddenly freezing.
***
Senne watched emotionlessly as the uprooted tree floated downriver with Cheyne tangled in it. “My master thanks you for the kingly gift,” she said sweetly to the drifting log. Before it was anywhere near out of sight, she turned away and reached for the sword belt with the scabbard and blade still in it, right where he had leaned it against one of the stunted trees. Without so much as a backward glance, she mounted on her mare and rode away.
She had not even gone a mile into the open plains when the late afternoon sun disappeared and she was swathed by darkness. Swirling black and gold and blue surrounded her, some of it moving so fast that it made her feel dizzy and sick. She reined her mare to a halt, practically throwing herself out of the saddle even before the horse came to a complete stop. Immediately she went to her knees, the sword in its scabbard on the ground below her chin.
Glancing up, she saw the swirling colors come together, solidifying into a man. His breeches and boots were black, his coat blue, all of it embroidered in sparkling thread-of-gold, even the boots. Black lace spilled from his cuffs and collar, bordering against the pale skin of his hands. The short hair atop his head was golden; his ears and the sides of his face pale. But where eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth, cheeks and chin should be, there was nothing. Like the abyss on the other side of the river, his face was blank. Flat and empty.
One of the pale hands reached out. Hastily, she grasped the sword and proffered it to him, resisting the urge to jerk back once it was out of her grasp. He took the sword and wrapped stick-like fingers around the hilt, drawing the blade from its scabbard. “You have done well.” A voice that was at the same time smooth and gravelly came from the blank face. The eyes that weren’t there looked at the blade as he turned it this way and that to set light glinting off the steel. “You will go far in my service.”
The air was pierced with a bone chilling scream before Senne could thank him. It came from behind her, where the river washed over a man doomed to die, his body tangled in a tree. His head could never have broken the surface, weighted down as it was by his heavy steel helmet, but the scream was as loud as if she were right next to him. The air shook with its force. At hearing that cry, Senne knew Cheyne was dead.
At the very moment the shriek ended, the bare blade wrenched itself from her master’s hand, the scabbard flew from where he had discarded it by his leg, and both flew through the air back toward the Swen, a trail of smoky blackness dotted with gold trailing after it.
Senne stared after it, completely stunned until an iron grip surrounded her throat, choking her. She managed to turn her eyes up; her master’s hands were motionless by his sides; his empty face turned down, looking at her.
“You will go back and get it, or so help me, you will die a thousand deaths before I’m through with you. Don’t call my name unless you have it in your grasp.” The grip tightened on her throat. She was lifted through the still air and felt herself be thrown, her rough landing ripping her gown at the same moment it knocked the breath from her. Looking back, there was nothing but uninterrupted plains. Her mare came trotting up to her, looking as if nothing had happened.
Tired and shaking, she got to her feet and then into the saddle, turning her horse’s head toward the river Swen. Something in the deepest part of her knew she wouldn’t find the sword there, or anywhere.
The river Swen was banked on one side by high, grassy ground peppered with brush and stunted trees, and on the other by black nothingness. For about two paces, the far bank looked just like the one Cheyne was standing on; rich dirt sloped up to contain the lazily flowing water and finally leveled to the same high grass and various foliage that could have banked any river anywhere. But after those two paces on the far side, it all just stopped, like a long sharp blade had simply cut through the earth and trees and peeled them away, leaving nothing but a black as dark as a murderer’s heart. Even from this distance, Cheyne thought it looked thick, like molasses, like he could put out his hand and be enveloped in it. Staring at it made him feel more like a child than the hero others thought him to be. He wiggled his fingers, just to make sure they were still attached to his hand. Even knowing that it was on the other side of the river, for a moment, he had almost felt as though he had put his fingers into the black, and they had gone numb.
He lifted the heavy steel helmet from his head and ran a hand through his chestnut hair. His hand came back covered with sweat. His eyes never left the darkness on the other side of the river. It was broad daylight-- just an hour or so after noon-- but the darkness was complete. He squinted, trying to penetrate it with his gaze, but at the same time not quite seeing it. He could remember remembering a time when that blackness wasn’t there, when plains-- he had the vague idea it had been plains-- extended far on the other side of the river, but the memories were not even half-remembered. A grimace tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was frustrating that his memory didn’t extend as far back as it used to. The memories from some of his past lives, the ones he had lived longest ago, were fading. Decades were missing, decades of experiences he could remember remembering and thinking on, but that was all there was anymore. Still staring at the nothingness without seeing it, he began to wonder how much his next rebirth would remember. Who would that man be? What would he be like?
How much of the land will blackness like that cover then?
The grimace that had been tugging at him made its appearance, and he put a hand on the sword at his hip, gripping the hilt tightly as if afraid the blackness would attack and he had to be ready for it. It didn’t waver. The one thing he was certain of, the one thing that was always a part of his lives, of all his memories, was the sword. Sonsedhor. Fine brown leather cord wrapped the hilt from pommel to the plain steel cross guard that separated hilt from blade. The blade itself was a bit wide, straight and double-edged, but tempered in a style that made it look like waves radiated from the center to the edge when the light hit it right. For all the old stories told about his former lives that involved Sonsedhor, all the legends that turned his lives and himself into a hero of legend, all the tales that made the famous sword into a brilliant weapon worthy of heroes, it wasn’t really much to look at. It was a tool, made for a purpose, and no more. But it was a constant; it made Cheyne certain of who he was. Sonsedhor had always been connected to him, and him to it, for hundreds of lives-- maybe thousands-- even though there were only a dozen or so he could actually remember in detail.
The sword was centuries old, and had never been wielded by anyone but himself. His predecessors took pains to hide it before death took him, so only the next incarnation of himself would be able to find it. Whenever he felt death at his back, he would do the same, and wait until the Mother gave him birth again to find it.
The sound of footsteps-- both human and horse-- approached. His grimace turned into a smile without his thinking about it, and he finally tore his eyes away from the blackness across the river. The horse was the color of dust, a well-tempered mare with calm eyes that matched her owner’s in color. But the similarities ended there. Above her own calm brown eyes, Senne’s hair was deep brown, pulled back into an intricate pattern of twists and curls that would normally be seen on a lady in a city, not out here at the edge of the world, days from any settlement. Even her gown was more suited for city business than traveling, except that the fine silk of her skirts was in fact divided for riding. It was deep sapphire blue and covered with hundreds of tiny glass beads. Pure snowy white slashed her sleeves and the middle of her bodice, all of that too encrusted with beadwork. It was a gown made for court, but Senne would have nothing less than the finest, even on the road.
“So it’s true, isn’t it, love?” she asked, her voice as soft and sleek as the silk of her gown. She left her mare to graze and strode next him, her hard-soled leather riding shoes making almost no noise in the grass that led up to the bank. Her arm went through his; he loosened his grip on Sonsedhor’s hilt.
“So it seems,” he replied. “There’s nothing on the other side of the Swen. It just… stops.”
“I was afraid to believe it when I heard the rumor. Thank you for bringing me out here.” For a long time he watched her as she stared at the blackness, almost without blinking, until he found his own eyes locked on it again, trying to see through it.
The sound of rustling fabric broke him from his staring, and he turned to see Senne had stepped out of her shoes and taken off her stockings. Her hands were reaching behind her back, undoing the row of buttons that ran up the back of her bodice.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see it up close. The river isn’t flowing too heavily, now that the spring thaws are long past and it hasn’t rained in nearly a fortnight. In fact, it’s been so dry for the last month the Swen can’t be very deep. So I’m going to swim across and see it up close. Are you going to come with me?” She shrugged her shoulders out of the bodice and slid her arms out of the sleeves. The fine gown cascaded to the ground, piling around her ankles. Even clad only in her shift, she was able to somehow look more commanding than any monarch he had ever met. Without waiting for his response, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and continued, “You’ll want to remove all your armor before you go in. It would weigh you down and drown you.”
Ignoring the tone in her voice that made him feel like she saw him as a child, he methodically worked his way out of his armor and set it on the bank next to his own mare. She ignored him. Once he was stripped down to his simple cloth breeches, with a sheathed dagger at his belt, he and Senne plunged into the river together.
The water was cold but not icy, deep enough that he couldn’t touch the bottom, but slow enough that it wasn’t an issue. A few minutes of swimming saw him and Senne clambering up the far bank not too far downriver from the horses. He helped Senne to her feet on the grass, ignoring the fact that the water had set her white shift clinging to her every curve, that it being wet had made it almost completely transparent. Even with trying not to look, he could see every bit of her. She smiled slyly at him and brushed past him half a step.
Clinging to each other, they inched closer to the edge of the void. Cheyne found himself leaning forward, his nose reaching to the wall of blackness while the rest of him stayed further back. He straightened and pulled Senne back just a bit with him. He saw her reach out a hand toward the nothingness and somehow could not make himself reach out to pull her hand back. He held his breath as Senne’s fingers came up to the blank wall of blank. For a long minute, her hand and the blackness sat there, suspended, frozen, and then one finger extended and breached the boundary of the void.
The black didn’t swallow her hand like Cheyne thought it would. Instead, her hand stayed perfectly visible, the edges sharp and vivid as if he were looking at it in broad daylight. It seemed, for a moment, that her hand gave off its own light to break the blackness.
“It feels… thick, but empty at the same time,” Senne said, moving her hand slowly around and wiggling her fingers. “I wonder…” Again, before he could move to stop her, she was leaning forward, her head broke into the darkness, and she was looking down. “Oh, my…” Her hand moved from his arm to his back, settling against his skin between his shoulder blades.
Cheyne had never been an easily frightened man , but he hesitated before carefully leaning forward himself and peering over the edge of the black. Beyond the edge, the world just ended. The ground beneath him didn’t even have any thickness to it. It was more like a sheet of parchment, stretched and scraped thin. He was suddenly overcome by vertigo and the feeling that the earth would break under his weight. Other than that thin crust that was the land he stood on, there was nothing in the black. Pure nothing, in every direction. He felt sweat breaking out on his still-clammy skin and realized he was trembling. As slowly as he had extended his head, he drew it back until green grass was beneath his eyes. Only then did he straighten up again.
On the return swim, the water felt warmer. When they emerged from the river, the sun was warmer, the breeze less bracing. The whole world seemed to be warm and more colorful, as if it were showing off how it was different from the abyss. He was grateful for the walk back upstream to where the horses were; the warm sun and wind dried him as he walked.
He helped Senne do up the buttons on the back of her gown before he started donning his armor. He straightened from fastening the last of his greaves and was reaching for Sonsedhor on its belt when a loud crack rang in his ears. A heavy weight slammed into him, pushing him bodily toward the river. His arms and legs became tangled in branches and leaves, and as he twisted to see, rough tree bark was all that was before his eyes. Completely winded, he tumbled down the bank and into the water, the tree dragging him with it. The weight of all the steel encasing his body dragged him down at the same time the tree tried to keep him on the surface. Water filled his lungs as he desperately tried to keep his head above water. He tried to free his arms from the tangled branches, but they were pinned too tightly. He whipped his head around as well as he could underwater, but the strap that fastened his helmet under his chin wouldn’t move. It dragged his head down, keeping it under the surface. His lungs screamed for air. He could feel the current pulling him downriver. The water was suddenly freezing.
***
Senne watched emotionlessly as the uprooted tree floated downriver with Cheyne tangled in it. “My master thanks you for the kingly gift,” she said sweetly to the drifting log. Before it was anywhere near out of sight, she turned away and reached for the sword belt with the scabbard and blade still in it, right where he had leaned it against one of the stunted trees. Without so much as a backward glance, she mounted on her mare and rode away.
She had not even gone a mile into the open plains when the late afternoon sun disappeared and she was swathed by darkness. Swirling black and gold and blue surrounded her, some of it moving so fast that it made her feel dizzy and sick. She reined her mare to a halt, practically throwing herself out of the saddle even before the horse came to a complete stop. Immediately she went to her knees, the sword in its scabbard on the ground below her chin.
Glancing up, she saw the swirling colors come together, solidifying into a man. His breeches and boots were black, his coat blue, all of it embroidered in sparkling thread-of-gold, even the boots. Black lace spilled from his cuffs and collar, bordering against the pale skin of his hands. The short hair atop his head was golden; his ears and the sides of his face pale. But where eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth, cheeks and chin should be, there was nothing. Like the abyss on the other side of the river, his face was blank. Flat and empty.
One of the pale hands reached out. Hastily, she grasped the sword and proffered it to him, resisting the urge to jerk back once it was out of her grasp. He took the sword and wrapped stick-like fingers around the hilt, drawing the blade from its scabbard. “You have done well.” A voice that was at the same time smooth and gravelly came from the blank face. The eyes that weren’t there looked at the blade as he turned it this way and that to set light glinting off the steel. “You will go far in my service.”
The air was pierced with a bone chilling scream before Senne could thank him. It came from behind her, where the river washed over a man doomed to die, his body tangled in a tree. His head could never have broken the surface, weighted down as it was by his heavy steel helmet, but the scream was as loud as if she were right next to him. The air shook with its force. At hearing that cry, Senne knew Cheyne was dead.
At the very moment the shriek ended, the bare blade wrenched itself from her master’s hand, the scabbard flew from where he had discarded it by his leg, and both flew through the air back toward the Swen, a trail of smoky blackness dotted with gold trailing after it.
Senne stared after it, completely stunned until an iron grip surrounded her throat, choking her. She managed to turn her eyes up; her master’s hands were motionless by his sides; his empty face turned down, looking at her.
“You will go back and get it, or so help me, you will die a thousand deaths before I’m through with you. Don’t call my name unless you have it in your grasp.” The grip tightened on her throat. She was lifted through the still air and felt herself be thrown, her rough landing ripping her gown at the same moment it knocked the breath from her. Looking back, there was nothing but uninterrupted plains. Her mare came trotting up to her, looking as if nothing had happened.
Tired and shaking, she got to her feet and then into the saddle, turning her horse’s head toward the river Swen. Something in the deepest part of her knew she wouldn’t find the sword there, or anywhere.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Welcome to the Blogject
I would like to take a minute (and a post) to welcome all my readers to 2010: The Year of the Blogject. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the project, here's a breakdown.
In Fall 2009, I had the idea: to find out what my friends and other readers want to read about, and to take their ideas and make a coherent whole, using as many of their ideas as possible, and to write a novel, posting it chapter-by-chapter here, free for anyone to read and comment on. The ideas I received were outstanding and of great variety, and I was actually able to use most of them. As thanks, each one of the contributors will have one character named (loosely) after them in the novel, as well as mention here. Here they are, and what they contributed:
Dawn H.- character background
Cheyenne F.- character and place names and descriptions
BJ D.- place names and descriptions
Erin K.- moral support and character backgrounds
Theo K.- item descriptions and character names
Alex L.- plot ideas
Clara A.- plot ideas
Clara R.- character ideas
Sami F.- plot ideas and character names
Misty B.- character names
Becky S.- character names
Andrew P.- character names
Kirsten S.- character names
Brian B.- character names
Jon K.- place names
Sarah K.- place names and descriptions
Jade A.- character names
Laura P.- title ideas
Travis C.- title ideas
Chuck N.- title ideas
Mary Lee F.- title ideas
Thanks to everyone who participated! You're the ones who made this possible, and this is your story! If this goes well, perhaps I will do another in the future.
Anyway, here's how this is going to go down. Wednesday, Jan. 6, the prologue for this novel (I'm not releasing the title yet) will be posted right here on the blog. Every week, a new chapter will be posted, most likely on a Wednesday. To keep this from taking the entire year (which by the length of my plot outline, it would) I will post two chapters a week now and then, so sometimes there may be a Saturday post.
So to my readers, contributors, and anyone else who happens in on this blog, welcome to the Blogject! Tune in Jan. 6 for the prologue!
In Fall 2009, I had the idea: to find out what my friends and other readers want to read about, and to take their ideas and make a coherent whole, using as many of their ideas as possible, and to write a novel, posting it chapter-by-chapter here, free for anyone to read and comment on. The ideas I received were outstanding and of great variety, and I was actually able to use most of them. As thanks, each one of the contributors will have one character named (loosely) after them in the novel, as well as mention here. Here they are, and what they contributed:
Dawn H.- character background
Cheyenne F.- character and place names and descriptions
BJ D.- place names and descriptions
Erin K.- moral support and character backgrounds
Theo K.- item descriptions and character names
Alex L.- plot ideas
Clara A.- plot ideas
Clara R.- character ideas
Sami F.- plot ideas and character names
Misty B.- character names
Becky S.- character names
Andrew P.- character names
Kirsten S.- character names
Brian B.- character names
Jon K.- place names
Sarah K.- place names and descriptions
Jade A.- character names
Laura P.- title ideas
Travis C.- title ideas
Chuck N.- title ideas
Mary Lee F.- title ideas
Thanks to everyone who participated! You're the ones who made this possible, and this is your story! If this goes well, perhaps I will do another in the future.
Anyway, here's how this is going to go down. Wednesday, Jan. 6, the prologue for this novel (I'm not releasing the title yet) will be posted right here on the blog. Every week, a new chapter will be posted, most likely on a Wednesday. To keep this from taking the entire year (which by the length of my plot outline, it would) I will post two chapters a week now and then, so sometimes there may be a Saturday post.
So to my readers, contributors, and anyone else who happens in on this blog, welcome to the Blogject! Tune in Jan. 6 for the prologue!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Alone in the Rayne
"Alone in the Rayne" was written at some point when I was in college, I think. I'm actually not completely sure when, but I think around 2004, maybe.
Also, for those of you who don't know, this will be my last short story post until the Blogject is finished. Next Wednesday's post-- Jan. 6, 2010-- will be the prologue for the novel I will be posting chapter-by-chapter. The plan is to post a chapter every week, and calculating the number of chapters I have planned, the project will take me all the way until mid-December 2010 to complete it. In order to make things go a bit faster, I'm hoping that when I have some shorter chapters, I'll post two in a week, probably on Monday and Thursday, but we'll see.
See you next week for the beginning of the Blogject!
--------------------------------------
Alone in the Rayne
The farm was a flurry of activity. Every member of the four living generations of the Herda family was busy gathering things and loading them onto the few wagons and carts they owned. Everyone from frighteningly bald Carl with his walking stick to little toddler Missy was carrying something or out gathering the flock. The wagons were almost completely loaded, and many of the men and strong young boys were loading themselves with all they could carry, and even some of the women and older girls were doing the same. They had been packing for only an hour, and though almost none of the family members had ever traveled beyond the nearest town (and certainly none had ever gone further than twenty miles from home!) they all seemed eager to be away.
Elana, middle-aged mother of nine and self-proclaimed coordinator of the loading and traveling, strode swiftly through the rooms of the big farmhouse, making certain that nothing of great value or need on the road was being left behind. Satisfied, she herded everyone out to the wagons to wait for the younger boys who were bringing the flock.
They did not have to wait long. Over the hill that led to the pasture soon came the heads of the sheep, along with the six sweaty boys who tended them together: Hadwin, Kaden, Miki, Lorenzo, Rayne, and Gray. Lorenzo and Hadwin led the flock, the other four followed, making sure none of the sheep strayed too far. Of the boys, two– Miki and Rayne– were Elana’s own. The rest were nephews or cousins, but all were between seven and ten years old.
The stubborn old wheels of the wagons and carts began to turn as the donkeys and the two horses owned by the Herda family began to pull, led by some of the loaded-down teenagers.
Few members of the family rode in the carts. The youngest children did, obviously, as well as the heavily-pregnant Devora and the invalid old Piers. A number of women had infants in their arms as they walked alongside the wagons, and a rather brave and stubborn boy, Nye, carried his younger sister on his back atop the bundle of blankets and cloaks that had been strapped to him.
Elana walked nearest the wagon that held Devora. She was due to have her baby any day now, and though it was not good for her to travel in her current condition, it was either travel and live or remain at the farm and perish.
“Where do we go, Elana?” Devora asked, her voice shaking from the jostling of the wagon on the uneven dirt road.
“Where can we go but to Little Hillridge? If we must go further, we can at least stop there.”
“But will we be safe in Little Hillridge?”
“Let us worry about getting there first.”
Thio, Elana’s husband, drifted backwards from his position at the front of the procession to Elana and Devora. “How long before they attack the farm, do you think?”
“An hour, perhaps more. Please, Thio. I don’t wish to think about it.”
As if to deny her that privilege, there were suddenly the raucous sounds of a mob not more than two miles down the road, where the farm they had so recently vacated lay. At first, only the sounds of yelling reached them, but soon, the smell of wood burning drifted to their noses. Looking back, a thick column of dark smoke rose from the farmhouse like a sickening balloon. The entire Herda family stared back as their home was destroyed. Somewhere along the line of travelers, an infant began to howl. The cry was taken up by many of the other infants and even some of the younger children.
“Hush now! Do you wish to call the Ripgloves down on our heads?” Almost immediately, mothers, sisters and aunts began attempting to soothe the criers.
Elana pushed roughly at Thio’s shoulder. “Get the front wagon moving again. We cannot dawdle here any longer.”
The little procession of carts, wagons, people, and sheep moved on along the dry, cracked road. There hadn’t been any rain for weeks. The crops were doing poorly, but that mattered no more. The fields were probably being burned along with the house. The Ripgloves were not known for their mercy.
Night fell, and the Herda family halted their traveling. They built a small fire and ate what fresh fruit they had managed to carry with them. Nervously, wondering if the Ripgloves would come upon them in the night and slaughter them all, much of the family fell into a disturbed slumber, leaving a few men and older boys to keep watch.
Everyone woke early the next morning, and they were on their way again even before everyone was completely alert. A few of the children stumbled wearily along the road, kept moving only by gentle prods (and some by more harsh shoves) from their mothers or older sisters.
It was still midmorning when Devora gave a cry that fell over the whole family.
“Mama! Aunt Devora is about to have her baby!”
Elana hurriedly put down the still-half-asleep Brylie and rushed to Devora’s wagon. It was no lie; Devora was going to have her baby today. Probably within the hour. She must have been hiding the pain for some time.
“Devora, I need you to push when I tell you! STOP THE WAGONS!”
The wagons slowed to a stop, and the family gathered around the outside of the wagon, waiting to hear the cries of Devora’s newborn.
“Push, Devora! PUSH!”
Elana’s coaching and Devora’s screams were suddenly covered by the thudding footfalls of hundreds of people... no...
“Ripgloves! Move! Move!”
The thuds of the feet of the Herda family soon joined the Ripgloves’ footsteps, and the wagons lurched forward. Devora’s screams pierced the air, shrill and pained.
She was still screaming when the Ripgloves reached the back of the flock. The hulking forms concealed completely in midnight blue cloaks seemed to appear in the midst of the four boys who ran behind the flock, unnoticed until that moment. The flock immediately scattered as the boys began to scream in terror and ran for the front of the flock. A huge, black, cruelly twisted hand emerged from one of the deep blue cloaks and swiped at a sheep, making deep gashes in the poor creature’s side and sending it flying across the flock. In a matter of seconds, the entire flock was under attack, with the sheep bleating uncontrollably in panic as thirty Ripgloves tore through them one by one.
The wagons raced forward, rocking and shaking dangerously on the uneven road as the donkeys and horses were whipped to go as fast as possible. It appeared that the Ripgloves were happy decimating the flock for the moment, so the Herda family tried to put as much space as possible between themselves and the monsters.
The grueling pace was kept up for the better part of two hours, until the Ripgloves were well out of sight and the entire family was nearly collapsing from overexertion. As they slowed to a stop, a new sound was suddenly noticed: the crying of a newborn.
“Karia!”
Elana emerged carefully from the wagon, a tiny babe wrapped in a soft blanket lay crying in her arms. She spent a moment showing her off to the family before taking her back to her exhausted mother.
The six shepherd boys suddenly became the center of attention as mothers and
sisters rushed to check and make sure none of them had been harmed by the Ripgloves.
Thio was one of the first to get to Miki and Rayne, and he quickly checked both boys for injuries. Satisfied that they only suffered fright and the effort of the running, he began to listen to what the boys were saying through their tears.
“Papa, we lost the flock...”
“They just appeared... I’m sorry...”
Thio hugged his youngest sons close, muttering words of encouragement and telling them that compared to their safety, the safety of the flock was practically worthless.
Night fell, and a tension settled over the Herda family’s wagons. Few managed to sleep, afraid that the Ripgloves would return to kill them all. But it did not happen, and a weary family continued down the road the next morning. Mile after mile passed down the dry, dusty road, and no sign of the Ripgloves was seen.
Night fell again, and the tension of the previous night lightened a bit. Hours passed with still no sign of the Ripgloves. Two, perhaps three more days would see the train at Little Hillridge. With a renewed outlook and energy, the family pushed forward again, ready to reach at least temporary safety at the little town.
The day passed again without incident, taking them a great deal closer to their destination. They made their little camp and slept again, knowing that even if they didn’t reach the town tomorrow, they would at least be able to see it by sundown.
But the Ripgloves came in the night. One wagon was suddenly overturned and almost immediately set on fire. Children were grabbed and carried away, screaming in the deformed, black, clawed hands of the monsters. Men and boys who took up small daggers or knives to fight back were slashed and pushed back.
Rayne took up a walking stick and beat at a Ripglove trying to make off with one of the two horses. A twisted hand swiped at him, making deep triplet gashes across his face. The nine-year-old’s blood began to stain the ground, but he still swung wildly at the beast in a vain attempt to save the horse.
He didn’t see the Slaughterwing until it was almost on top of him. The great dark bird the size of a pony swooped down and seized his shoulders in its razor-sharp talons, picking him up and flying over the rest of the wagon train. Rayne kicked his legs and beat at the Slaughterwing as well as he could with the stick, but it did him little good. He dropped the stick.
In a last desperate act, Rayne turned his head and bit the scaly foot of the Slaughterwing that carried him. An all-too-human scream came out of the great bird’s mouth, and it released its hold on the boy. Rayne plummeted to the ground, landing amidst the tall grasses of the plain perhaps a mile from where he had been picked up. Exhausted, bleeding, and dizzy from the battle, the flight, and the fall, Rayne passed out in the grass.
He woke with a headache and the taste of blood in his mouth. The sun had risen ans was almost halfway to its peak as Rayne picked himself up and began to trudge back towards the road. He was dizzy, and his throat was dry. Dried blood covered his cheek where the Ripglove had torn his face, and there were dark, stiff spots on his clothing where the Slaughterwing’s talons had dug into him. But he was alive, and that was saying something.
When Rayne reached the road and saw what was left after the battle, he fell to his knees and began to weep. The shredded corpses of the donkeys and horses littered the road by the charred remains of the carts and the family’s belongings. Thankfully, though, there were no remains of people. They might still be alive somewhere.
A shrill crying sound reached his ears, and he got shakily to his feet and stumbled towards the sound. One of the wagons hadn’t been completely destroyed– only about half of this one was burnt. Pulling back the rear flap that covered the wagon, Rayne saw the three-day-old baby, Karia, covered in blankets and screaming at the top of her lungs. He gently reached in and extracted the bundle of baby and blankets from the back of the wagon.
“Karia, I’m going to get us to Little Hillridge. I promise.”
Even though his legs felt made of rubber, and moments before, he had been ready to give up and lay in the street until the Ripgloves came back, Rayne began to walk towards Little Hillridge. The baby’s screaming continued, shrill and unpleasant, until Rayne began to sing to her... badly. Somehow, his out-of-tune voice put the little baby to sleep, and he walked on, talking softly to her.
“I know you’re hungry, Karia. I am, too. But I’m not stopping until we get to town, and then we can find someone who will feed us. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
He wearily forced his feet to keep moving along the road, dreaming of a tall glass of water, of goat’s milk, of a bowl of stew, of lambchops and corn. Dozens of meals played in his head, each one more tantalizing than the last. He didn’t notice the sun set, nor did he notice the dim silhouette of town on the horizon. He trudged down the road, half-asleep even as he pushed himself forward. It was Karia’s waking and crying that pulled him from his daze when he was no more than a hundred paces from the town.
“Karia! We made it!”
Rayne meant to scream and take off running for the town, but his voice barely managed a hoarse whisper, and his legs felt wobbly beneath him, so his run was more of a walk. It was well after sundown when he finally reached the first building in Little Hillridge. All the lights were out.
Exhausted, he walked on until he found the only inn in the town, the Hawk and Cat. There was light from only one lantern glowing inside, and the front door was closed. Groaning from exhaustion, Rayne managed to lift one hand and knocked as hard as he could on the door, which ended up being only a light tap.
There was no answer.
Rayne knocked again, forcing his hand to hit the door harder. He still didn’t manage much sound. But it must have been enough, because he heard footsteps. He heard the sound of a latch being lifted, and the door opened a crack, revealing the face of a man of middle years. Wavy dark brown hair dangled before brown eyes that scrutinized Rayne and the crying bundle he held.
“Please, sir, we need food and rest. We were attacked by Ripgloves, and... and...” The stress of the last few days all came bubbling to the surface, and tears began to fall down his face.
“We’re closed for the night,” the man said roughly. He was about to close the door when a woman’s voice broke in.
“Cainsley! You know we don’t turn anyone away at our door! And did I hear something about Ripgloves?”
The door opened wide, and a delicate-framed woman with thick, braided strawberry-blonde hair stood in the opening. Her small aquamarine eyes didn’t take but a moment to look over Rayne and his gurgling bundle before she ushered him inside and had him in a chair.
“Now you build a fire. Nice and warm, Cainsley. And see if you can find some of that chicken for him. And some milk, too.”
The man, Cainsley, limped to the fireplace and after a few moments, had a fire crackling happily. Then he limped off into the kitchens.
The woman pulled Rayne’s chair closer to the fireplace and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. Taking one look at his face, she fetched a bowl of warm water and a cloth and began to wash the blood from his face. The whole time, tears still fell from his eyes, and his body shook with sobs.
He was clean and the sobs had slowed by the time Cainsley returned with a plate of warm chicken and some milk. Rayne was hesitant to relinquish his hold on Karia to eat, but the woman, Madynn, reached out with gentle arms and carefully relieved him of the tiny burden. Satisfied that she wasn’t going to take the baby anywhere, he began to eat, and the chicken was hardly half gone when the warmth and his exhaustion took him, and he fell asleep in the chair.
***
Rayne woke in a soft feather bed and almost immediately panicked, looking around for his baby cousin. In a moment, he remembered where he was, and he got out of the bed, nearly falling over on his overworked legs. He left the room he was in and stumbled down the hall, supporting himself on th wall. He heard soft melodic singing coming from down the hall.. He found the sitting room, where Madynn was walking around, straightening chairs and the like with one hand while holding a cooing Karia in her other arm. Breathing a sigh of relief, Rayne entered the room and approached Madynn.
“Thank you, for giving us a place to sleep.” He reached for his cousin.
“You don’t need to thank me, son,” she said, setting Karia into his arms. “But why were you out there all by yourself? I heard you muttering something about Ripgloves?”
Rayne nodded and told her about leaving the farm, the attack on the flock, the attack on the wagons, and his journey alone with his cousin. By the end, he was almost in tears again, and Madynn was just as close to crying.
Without warning, a shadow fell across the doorway, and a figure cloaked all in dark midnight blue stood there.
“It’s a Ripglove!”
Rayne rushed to the back of the room, as far from the door as possible, holding Karia as close to him as he could. Madynn picked up a wooden chair and held it in front of her for defense. “Stay behind me, Rayne.”
The Ripglove entered the room, followed by three more, all cloaked in the deep blue that obscured everything.
“Rayne?”
A rather exhausted voice came from under one of the cloaks. One of the cloaked figured sank into a chair.
“I know that voice...” Rayne tentatively stepped towards the cloaked form that the voice had come from. “Papa?”
A hand appeared from under the cloak– not the black, beastly hand that belonged to the Ripgloves, but a hand, calloused and worn from years of farming. The cloak fell off the form, revealing a very bruised and filthy Thio.
“Papa!” Rayne ran to Thio and threw one arm around him.
The other three cloaks were removed, revealing two of Thio’s brothers and Hadwin, one of Rayne’s cousins and fellow shepherds. The tears that had almost escaped Rayne’s eyes when he told his story began to fall as he hugged his cousin and uncles so tightly he was almost afraid they would crush Karia. But the little baby wasn’t about to let that happen. She began to wail, as if to make her presence known.
“Rayne, you have Karia!”
Rayne nodded. Thio reached for her, but Rayne hesitated to give her to him.
“Papa, why were you dressed as in a Ripglove cloak?”
“Oh, Rayne, we tried to fight them off, but some of the beasts ran off, dragging your mother and a lot of the others with them. We went after them, of course, and attacked them with whatever we could find. Sticks, mostly, but we had one of our pitchforks, and Burlin had some shears on him. We took the cloaks of the ones we killed in hopes they wouldn’t attack us again.”
“What do they really look like, Papa?”
Thio shook his head. “That’s not something you want to know, Rayne.”
Rayne furrowed his eyebrows but dropped the subject.
***
The people of Little Hillridge helped Rayne and what was left of his family build a little house for them to live in while they stayed for the next few months. Thio and his brothers managed to find work with some of the nearby farms, and Rayne and Hadwin did errands for townspeople to keep food on the table.
The parched summer turned to a rather windy autumn. The memories of the attack began to slowly fade from Rayne’s memory, but the cuts and gashes from the Ripglove and Slaughterwing seemed relictant to heal. The triplet slashes that adorned his cheek appeared as fresh as the day he had received them, and though the pain had faded with his memories, he still had to be careful, lest the scabs broke open and began to spill his blood again.
Towards the beginning of winter, Thio and his brothers began talking of moving on from Little Hillridge to find new farmland near some other farmers and begin a new flock. They decided to set out in the spring to find a new home.
Spring came, and with it came time for the remains of the Herda family to leave Little Hillridge. They had managed to purchase one wagon and an ox to start their farm, and the townspeople were generous enough to give them a few sheep and goats and food for the journey. There had been no sign of Ripgloves and no sighting of Slaughterwings for their entire stay in Little Hillridge; they were believed to have moved on to another part of the country.
On their second day traveling, the sky opened and began to pour down rain, slowing their progress over the muddy road to all but a stop. In trying to protect the handful of sheep and goats they had gotten, Rayne came down with chills and a fever. The wagon was stopped to wait out the duration of the storm and Rayne’s illness.
The rain lasted two days before it finally began to lighten, though a halfhearted drizzle continued to fall, doing nothing for the mood of the six people in the wagon. Karia wailed almost incessantly, and Rayne’s condition didn’t appear to be improving. He was pale and tired, despite the hours he spent sleeping. His forehead burned, and his torso froze. The three slashes across his cheek remained ruby red, giving his face an almost scary appearance.
The drizzle showed no sign of stopping, so Thio and his brothers decided it was best to continue on and look for shelter. Progress was slow– the wagon wheels kept sinking into the mud, and the ox was having trouble making his way through, as well. On one occasion, the wagon lurched terribly and the two front wheels sank into the nearly knee-deep mud and refused to move any more. Karia wailed, and a pained groan came from Rayne, who lay covered in blankets and the five Ripglove cloaks they had saved.
Pulling back the flap on the wagon cover, Thio saw that the cuts on Rayne’s face had broken open, and they were oozing not blood, but a thick black liquid that might have been blood at some point. The boy’s face was spotted with dark red, and he shivered violently. Thio pulled back the cloaks and blankets. The boy’s hands were clenched tightly and held close, his legs were tucked under him, and he shook with cold. Thio touched the boy’s arm. It was cold as ice. Even his arms and neck were pale and spotted with the dark red. He covered him up again with the blankets and cloaks and called to one of his brothers.
“Morse! Rayne is getting worse! I’m going to carry him back to Little Hillridge and see if there’s anyone there who can help him. I’ll be back as soon as I can!” He gingerly lifted the boy’s body. It felt much lighter than it should have. It almost made Thio want to cry. “Do what you can with the wagon. Once I can, I’ll come back to help.”
“Take care of yourselves, Thio.”
Thio began to squelch through the muddy road, heading back towards Little Hillridge. The drizzle didn’t give, nor did it show any signs of getting worse. Rayne felt like a lump of ice in Thio’s arms, shaking and shivering with what strength his little body could muster. It was hours before Thio was far enough down the road that he couldn’t see the wagon anymore. By then, it was nearly dark. He pressed on through the mud as the sun completely disappeared and the moon climbed sleepily into the sky. The light fall of rain continued through the night.
When morning came, the rain began to strengthen again. Drops that fell onto Rayne’s face did nothing to clean the cuts that still oozed the thick black liquid. The dark red spots that covered the boy’s face skin were beginning to grow even darker. Patches of the boy’s face, particularly around the triple cuts, were beginning to turn a sickly black. The boy’s nearly constant coughing was raspy and hoarse, and even his coughs were growing weaker. The sickness was sapping all the strength from the boy.
Thio tried desperately to go faster, but the thick mud that caked his legs made it hard going. More than once, he nearly fell forward as the mud refused to release its hold on one of his legs. By noon, the rain was a downpour again, and a particularly deep patch of mud in the road did make Thio fall, and he dropped Rayne into the mud in front of him. The blankets and cloaks that covered him began to blow away in the wind, quickly becoming even more soaked with salty rainwater than they had been.
The sky was dark; layer upon layer of thick clouds obscured the sun. Tho almost couldn’t see Rayne, even though the boy was barely three feet in front of him. The mud pulled at Thio, and he began to sink– up to his thighs, then to his waist. He tried to get purchase with his hands to pull himself out of the mudhole, but there was nothing to grab onto, and the mud beneath his feet was no help to getting him out of the hole.
A flash of lightning danced across the sky, lighting up the area for a moment. Through the rain, Thio saw several large, shadowy shapes emerging from... nowhere. The rain didn’t seem to touch he figures as they approached the unmoving Rayne. Lightning flashed again. The figures were gathered around him. Deep, guttural growls emerged from blue-cloaked forms in a sort of language. A twisted black hand reached out towards the boy. There were four Ripgloves around Rayne.
“No! Leave him alone! Haven’t you done enough damage already?!”
For a moment, lightning lit up the sky again, and thunder rumbled overhead. The four Ripgloves seemed to be looking at him from under their hoods. They turned back to Rayne, and the cruelly malformed hands reached for the unconscious boy.
“Leave him be!” Thio was sinking deeper into the mud. It was nearly up to his chest now.
The four Ripgloves picked up Rayne together, and they collectively settled him in the grip of the largest one. Another flash of lightning lit their way as the monsters left with the boy in tow.
Thio began to weep bitterly as the mud crawled up to the middle of his chest. The rain began to let up, almost instantly, and it finally stopped, allowing the evening sun to make an appearance. Night came and passed, cold and lonely for Thio, and the sun crept into the sky again, bright and warm, almost mockingly so. The blankets and midnight blue cloaks that had fallen off of Rayne still lay discarded in the road, muddy and drying, but now a few Ripglove footprints violated the blankets and the ground around where the boy had been. The rain had somehow not washed them away. The warm spring sun began to dry the mud that encased most of Thio’s body, and towards the late afternoon, he managed to get enough grip to pull himself out of the hole. He left the fallen blankets where they were and began to trudge dispirited back towards where the wagon was. There was nothing he could do for Rayne now.
The wagon wasn’t too far from where Thio had left it, and with the drying road making his walking easier, he reached his brothers by the next afternoon. His brothers didn’t need to ask to know what had happened. They could see it in his face.
***
Thio and his brothers built a farm just outside the village of Thornfield. They tried to put the horrors that had befallen their family behind them, but even in five years, the pain had not eased, despite the absence of Ripgloves.
Five-year-old Karia Herda strolled along the edge of one of the wheatfields, picking the wildflowers her uncles allowed to grow, as long as they didn’t intrude on the planted ground. Her uncles and cousin Hadwin were working on bringing in the wheat harvest now. The sheep bleated in their nearby pasture pen. It was a beautiful day.
Looking up from the little bouquet of flowers she was gathering, Karia saw a dark blue-clad shape at the edge of the Herda property. It moved slowly towards the field where she and her uncles and cousin were.
“Uncle Morse! Uncle Thio! Someone’s coming!”
The sweaty men straightened from their work, groaning as their backs protested. They turned and looked where Karia was pointing, and almost immediately, they dropped their tools and began to rush towards the house.
“They’re Ripgloves! Karia! Come on!” Thio called to his little niece.
Karia stayed where she was as the blue-cloaked figure approached. There were half a dozen others approaching, all concealed in midnight blue cloaks, so she couldn’t see hands, faces, or any parts of them.
The first Ripglove, the one she had first seen, was barely two feet from her in moments, but the little girl stared up at it, unafrais. The Ripglove seemed to stare right back.
“Karia! Run! Those things are dangerous!”
Karia looked up at the Ripglove. A twisted, black hand emerged, reaching for the little girl.
She looked at the hand, then squatted down and inched forward to peer under the cloak’s hood.
“I know you! You carried me!”
The black hand paused in its reaching. A moment passed, and the hand reached for the girl again.
“Uncle Thio told me stories about you. You’re my cousin! Rayne, right?”
The hand stopped again. A guttural moan escaped from the hood. The hand disappeared. The Ripglove slowly turned and began to walk away. The other Ripgloves followed suit. In moments, the cloaked forms seemed to disappear into the nothingness from which they appeared.
Karia waved. “Bye, Rayne! Thank you!”
The Herda family never had problems from Ripgloves again.
Also, for those of you who don't know, this will be my last short story post until the Blogject is finished. Next Wednesday's post-- Jan. 6, 2010-- will be the prologue for the novel I will be posting chapter-by-chapter. The plan is to post a chapter every week, and calculating the number of chapters I have planned, the project will take me all the way until mid-December 2010 to complete it. In order to make things go a bit faster, I'm hoping that when I have some shorter chapters, I'll post two in a week, probably on Monday and Thursday, but we'll see.
See you next week for the beginning of the Blogject!
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Alone in the Rayne
The farm was a flurry of activity. Every member of the four living generations of the Herda family was busy gathering things and loading them onto the few wagons and carts they owned. Everyone from frighteningly bald Carl with his walking stick to little toddler Missy was carrying something or out gathering the flock. The wagons were almost completely loaded, and many of the men and strong young boys were loading themselves with all they could carry, and even some of the women and older girls were doing the same. They had been packing for only an hour, and though almost none of the family members had ever traveled beyond the nearest town (and certainly none had ever gone further than twenty miles from home!) they all seemed eager to be away.
Elana, middle-aged mother of nine and self-proclaimed coordinator of the loading and traveling, strode swiftly through the rooms of the big farmhouse, making certain that nothing of great value or need on the road was being left behind. Satisfied, she herded everyone out to the wagons to wait for the younger boys who were bringing the flock.
They did not have to wait long. Over the hill that led to the pasture soon came the heads of the sheep, along with the six sweaty boys who tended them together: Hadwin, Kaden, Miki, Lorenzo, Rayne, and Gray. Lorenzo and Hadwin led the flock, the other four followed, making sure none of the sheep strayed too far. Of the boys, two– Miki and Rayne– were Elana’s own. The rest were nephews or cousins, but all were between seven and ten years old.
The stubborn old wheels of the wagons and carts began to turn as the donkeys and the two horses owned by the Herda family began to pull, led by some of the loaded-down teenagers.
Few members of the family rode in the carts. The youngest children did, obviously, as well as the heavily-pregnant Devora and the invalid old Piers. A number of women had infants in their arms as they walked alongside the wagons, and a rather brave and stubborn boy, Nye, carried his younger sister on his back atop the bundle of blankets and cloaks that had been strapped to him.
Elana walked nearest the wagon that held Devora. She was due to have her baby any day now, and though it was not good for her to travel in her current condition, it was either travel and live or remain at the farm and perish.
“Where do we go, Elana?” Devora asked, her voice shaking from the jostling of the wagon on the uneven dirt road.
“Where can we go but to Little Hillridge? If we must go further, we can at least stop there.”
“But will we be safe in Little Hillridge?”
“Let us worry about getting there first.”
Thio, Elana’s husband, drifted backwards from his position at the front of the procession to Elana and Devora. “How long before they attack the farm, do you think?”
“An hour, perhaps more. Please, Thio. I don’t wish to think about it.”
As if to deny her that privilege, there were suddenly the raucous sounds of a mob not more than two miles down the road, where the farm they had so recently vacated lay. At first, only the sounds of yelling reached them, but soon, the smell of wood burning drifted to their noses. Looking back, a thick column of dark smoke rose from the farmhouse like a sickening balloon. The entire Herda family stared back as their home was destroyed. Somewhere along the line of travelers, an infant began to howl. The cry was taken up by many of the other infants and even some of the younger children.
“Hush now! Do you wish to call the Ripgloves down on our heads?” Almost immediately, mothers, sisters and aunts began attempting to soothe the criers.
Elana pushed roughly at Thio’s shoulder. “Get the front wagon moving again. We cannot dawdle here any longer.”
The little procession of carts, wagons, people, and sheep moved on along the dry, cracked road. There hadn’t been any rain for weeks. The crops were doing poorly, but that mattered no more. The fields were probably being burned along with the house. The Ripgloves were not known for their mercy.
Night fell, and the Herda family halted their traveling. They built a small fire and ate what fresh fruit they had managed to carry with them. Nervously, wondering if the Ripgloves would come upon them in the night and slaughter them all, much of the family fell into a disturbed slumber, leaving a few men and older boys to keep watch.
Everyone woke early the next morning, and they were on their way again even before everyone was completely alert. A few of the children stumbled wearily along the road, kept moving only by gentle prods (and some by more harsh shoves) from their mothers or older sisters.
It was still midmorning when Devora gave a cry that fell over the whole family.
“Mama! Aunt Devora is about to have her baby!”
Elana hurriedly put down the still-half-asleep Brylie and rushed to Devora’s wagon. It was no lie; Devora was going to have her baby today. Probably within the hour. She must have been hiding the pain for some time.
“Devora, I need you to push when I tell you! STOP THE WAGONS!”
The wagons slowed to a stop, and the family gathered around the outside of the wagon, waiting to hear the cries of Devora’s newborn.
“Push, Devora! PUSH!”
Elana’s coaching and Devora’s screams were suddenly covered by the thudding footfalls of hundreds of people... no...
“Ripgloves! Move! Move!”
The thuds of the feet of the Herda family soon joined the Ripgloves’ footsteps, and the wagons lurched forward. Devora’s screams pierced the air, shrill and pained.
She was still screaming when the Ripgloves reached the back of the flock. The hulking forms concealed completely in midnight blue cloaks seemed to appear in the midst of the four boys who ran behind the flock, unnoticed until that moment. The flock immediately scattered as the boys began to scream in terror and ran for the front of the flock. A huge, black, cruelly twisted hand emerged from one of the deep blue cloaks and swiped at a sheep, making deep gashes in the poor creature’s side and sending it flying across the flock. In a matter of seconds, the entire flock was under attack, with the sheep bleating uncontrollably in panic as thirty Ripgloves tore through them one by one.
The wagons raced forward, rocking and shaking dangerously on the uneven road as the donkeys and horses were whipped to go as fast as possible. It appeared that the Ripgloves were happy decimating the flock for the moment, so the Herda family tried to put as much space as possible between themselves and the monsters.
The grueling pace was kept up for the better part of two hours, until the Ripgloves were well out of sight and the entire family was nearly collapsing from overexertion. As they slowed to a stop, a new sound was suddenly noticed: the crying of a newborn.
“Karia!”
Elana emerged carefully from the wagon, a tiny babe wrapped in a soft blanket lay crying in her arms. She spent a moment showing her off to the family before taking her back to her exhausted mother.
The six shepherd boys suddenly became the center of attention as mothers and
sisters rushed to check and make sure none of them had been harmed by the Ripgloves.
Thio was one of the first to get to Miki and Rayne, and he quickly checked both boys for injuries. Satisfied that they only suffered fright and the effort of the running, he began to listen to what the boys were saying through their tears.
“Papa, we lost the flock...”
“They just appeared... I’m sorry...”
Thio hugged his youngest sons close, muttering words of encouragement and telling them that compared to their safety, the safety of the flock was practically worthless.
Night fell, and a tension settled over the Herda family’s wagons. Few managed to sleep, afraid that the Ripgloves would return to kill them all. But it did not happen, and a weary family continued down the road the next morning. Mile after mile passed down the dry, dusty road, and no sign of the Ripgloves was seen.
Night fell again, and the tension of the previous night lightened a bit. Hours passed with still no sign of the Ripgloves. Two, perhaps three more days would see the train at Little Hillridge. With a renewed outlook and energy, the family pushed forward again, ready to reach at least temporary safety at the little town.
The day passed again without incident, taking them a great deal closer to their destination. They made their little camp and slept again, knowing that even if they didn’t reach the town tomorrow, they would at least be able to see it by sundown.
But the Ripgloves came in the night. One wagon was suddenly overturned and almost immediately set on fire. Children were grabbed and carried away, screaming in the deformed, black, clawed hands of the monsters. Men and boys who took up small daggers or knives to fight back were slashed and pushed back.
Rayne took up a walking stick and beat at a Ripglove trying to make off with one of the two horses. A twisted hand swiped at him, making deep triplet gashes across his face. The nine-year-old’s blood began to stain the ground, but he still swung wildly at the beast in a vain attempt to save the horse.
He didn’t see the Slaughterwing until it was almost on top of him. The great dark bird the size of a pony swooped down and seized his shoulders in its razor-sharp talons, picking him up and flying over the rest of the wagon train. Rayne kicked his legs and beat at the Slaughterwing as well as he could with the stick, but it did him little good. He dropped the stick.
In a last desperate act, Rayne turned his head and bit the scaly foot of the Slaughterwing that carried him. An all-too-human scream came out of the great bird’s mouth, and it released its hold on the boy. Rayne plummeted to the ground, landing amidst the tall grasses of the plain perhaps a mile from where he had been picked up. Exhausted, bleeding, and dizzy from the battle, the flight, and the fall, Rayne passed out in the grass.
He woke with a headache and the taste of blood in his mouth. The sun had risen ans was almost halfway to its peak as Rayne picked himself up and began to trudge back towards the road. He was dizzy, and his throat was dry. Dried blood covered his cheek where the Ripglove had torn his face, and there were dark, stiff spots on his clothing where the Slaughterwing’s talons had dug into him. But he was alive, and that was saying something.
When Rayne reached the road and saw what was left after the battle, he fell to his knees and began to weep. The shredded corpses of the donkeys and horses littered the road by the charred remains of the carts and the family’s belongings. Thankfully, though, there were no remains of people. They might still be alive somewhere.
A shrill crying sound reached his ears, and he got shakily to his feet and stumbled towards the sound. One of the wagons hadn’t been completely destroyed– only about half of this one was burnt. Pulling back the rear flap that covered the wagon, Rayne saw the three-day-old baby, Karia, covered in blankets and screaming at the top of her lungs. He gently reached in and extracted the bundle of baby and blankets from the back of the wagon.
“Karia, I’m going to get us to Little Hillridge. I promise.”
Even though his legs felt made of rubber, and moments before, he had been ready to give up and lay in the street until the Ripgloves came back, Rayne began to walk towards Little Hillridge. The baby’s screaming continued, shrill and unpleasant, until Rayne began to sing to her... badly. Somehow, his out-of-tune voice put the little baby to sleep, and he walked on, talking softly to her.
“I know you’re hungry, Karia. I am, too. But I’m not stopping until we get to town, and then we can find someone who will feed us. I’ll take care of you, I promise.”
He wearily forced his feet to keep moving along the road, dreaming of a tall glass of water, of goat’s milk, of a bowl of stew, of lambchops and corn. Dozens of meals played in his head, each one more tantalizing than the last. He didn’t notice the sun set, nor did he notice the dim silhouette of town on the horizon. He trudged down the road, half-asleep even as he pushed himself forward. It was Karia’s waking and crying that pulled him from his daze when he was no more than a hundred paces from the town.
“Karia! We made it!”
Rayne meant to scream and take off running for the town, but his voice barely managed a hoarse whisper, and his legs felt wobbly beneath him, so his run was more of a walk. It was well after sundown when he finally reached the first building in Little Hillridge. All the lights were out.
Exhausted, he walked on until he found the only inn in the town, the Hawk and Cat. There was light from only one lantern glowing inside, and the front door was closed. Groaning from exhaustion, Rayne managed to lift one hand and knocked as hard as he could on the door, which ended up being only a light tap.
There was no answer.
Rayne knocked again, forcing his hand to hit the door harder. He still didn’t manage much sound. But it must have been enough, because he heard footsteps. He heard the sound of a latch being lifted, and the door opened a crack, revealing the face of a man of middle years. Wavy dark brown hair dangled before brown eyes that scrutinized Rayne and the crying bundle he held.
“Please, sir, we need food and rest. We were attacked by Ripgloves, and... and...” The stress of the last few days all came bubbling to the surface, and tears began to fall down his face.
“We’re closed for the night,” the man said roughly. He was about to close the door when a woman’s voice broke in.
“Cainsley! You know we don’t turn anyone away at our door! And did I hear something about Ripgloves?”
The door opened wide, and a delicate-framed woman with thick, braided strawberry-blonde hair stood in the opening. Her small aquamarine eyes didn’t take but a moment to look over Rayne and his gurgling bundle before she ushered him inside and had him in a chair.
“Now you build a fire. Nice and warm, Cainsley. And see if you can find some of that chicken for him. And some milk, too.”
The man, Cainsley, limped to the fireplace and after a few moments, had a fire crackling happily. Then he limped off into the kitchens.
The woman pulled Rayne’s chair closer to the fireplace and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. Taking one look at his face, she fetched a bowl of warm water and a cloth and began to wash the blood from his face. The whole time, tears still fell from his eyes, and his body shook with sobs.
He was clean and the sobs had slowed by the time Cainsley returned with a plate of warm chicken and some milk. Rayne was hesitant to relinquish his hold on Karia to eat, but the woman, Madynn, reached out with gentle arms and carefully relieved him of the tiny burden. Satisfied that she wasn’t going to take the baby anywhere, he began to eat, and the chicken was hardly half gone when the warmth and his exhaustion took him, and he fell asleep in the chair.
***
Rayne woke in a soft feather bed and almost immediately panicked, looking around for his baby cousin. In a moment, he remembered where he was, and he got out of the bed, nearly falling over on his overworked legs. He left the room he was in and stumbled down the hall, supporting himself on th wall. He heard soft melodic singing coming from down the hall.. He found the sitting room, where Madynn was walking around, straightening chairs and the like with one hand while holding a cooing Karia in her other arm. Breathing a sigh of relief, Rayne entered the room and approached Madynn.
“Thank you, for giving us a place to sleep.” He reached for his cousin.
“You don’t need to thank me, son,” she said, setting Karia into his arms. “But why were you out there all by yourself? I heard you muttering something about Ripgloves?”
Rayne nodded and told her about leaving the farm, the attack on the flock, the attack on the wagons, and his journey alone with his cousin. By the end, he was almost in tears again, and Madynn was just as close to crying.
Without warning, a shadow fell across the doorway, and a figure cloaked all in dark midnight blue stood there.
“It’s a Ripglove!”
Rayne rushed to the back of the room, as far from the door as possible, holding Karia as close to him as he could. Madynn picked up a wooden chair and held it in front of her for defense. “Stay behind me, Rayne.”
The Ripglove entered the room, followed by three more, all cloaked in the deep blue that obscured everything.
“Rayne?”
A rather exhausted voice came from under one of the cloaks. One of the cloaked figured sank into a chair.
“I know that voice...” Rayne tentatively stepped towards the cloaked form that the voice had come from. “Papa?”
A hand appeared from under the cloak– not the black, beastly hand that belonged to the Ripgloves, but a hand, calloused and worn from years of farming. The cloak fell off the form, revealing a very bruised and filthy Thio.
“Papa!” Rayne ran to Thio and threw one arm around him.
The other three cloaks were removed, revealing two of Thio’s brothers and Hadwin, one of Rayne’s cousins and fellow shepherds. The tears that had almost escaped Rayne’s eyes when he told his story began to fall as he hugged his cousin and uncles so tightly he was almost afraid they would crush Karia. But the little baby wasn’t about to let that happen. She began to wail, as if to make her presence known.
“Rayne, you have Karia!”
Rayne nodded. Thio reached for her, but Rayne hesitated to give her to him.
“Papa, why were you dressed as in a Ripglove cloak?”
“Oh, Rayne, we tried to fight them off, but some of the beasts ran off, dragging your mother and a lot of the others with them. We went after them, of course, and attacked them with whatever we could find. Sticks, mostly, but we had one of our pitchforks, and Burlin had some shears on him. We took the cloaks of the ones we killed in hopes they wouldn’t attack us again.”
“What do they really look like, Papa?”
Thio shook his head. “That’s not something you want to know, Rayne.”
Rayne furrowed his eyebrows but dropped the subject.
***
The people of Little Hillridge helped Rayne and what was left of his family build a little house for them to live in while they stayed for the next few months. Thio and his brothers managed to find work with some of the nearby farms, and Rayne and Hadwin did errands for townspeople to keep food on the table.
The parched summer turned to a rather windy autumn. The memories of the attack began to slowly fade from Rayne’s memory, but the cuts and gashes from the Ripglove and Slaughterwing seemed relictant to heal. The triplet slashes that adorned his cheek appeared as fresh as the day he had received them, and though the pain had faded with his memories, he still had to be careful, lest the scabs broke open and began to spill his blood again.
Towards the beginning of winter, Thio and his brothers began talking of moving on from Little Hillridge to find new farmland near some other farmers and begin a new flock. They decided to set out in the spring to find a new home.
Spring came, and with it came time for the remains of the Herda family to leave Little Hillridge. They had managed to purchase one wagon and an ox to start their farm, and the townspeople were generous enough to give them a few sheep and goats and food for the journey. There had been no sign of Ripgloves and no sighting of Slaughterwings for their entire stay in Little Hillridge; they were believed to have moved on to another part of the country.
On their second day traveling, the sky opened and began to pour down rain, slowing their progress over the muddy road to all but a stop. In trying to protect the handful of sheep and goats they had gotten, Rayne came down with chills and a fever. The wagon was stopped to wait out the duration of the storm and Rayne’s illness.
The rain lasted two days before it finally began to lighten, though a halfhearted drizzle continued to fall, doing nothing for the mood of the six people in the wagon. Karia wailed almost incessantly, and Rayne’s condition didn’t appear to be improving. He was pale and tired, despite the hours he spent sleeping. His forehead burned, and his torso froze. The three slashes across his cheek remained ruby red, giving his face an almost scary appearance.
The drizzle showed no sign of stopping, so Thio and his brothers decided it was best to continue on and look for shelter. Progress was slow– the wagon wheels kept sinking into the mud, and the ox was having trouble making his way through, as well. On one occasion, the wagon lurched terribly and the two front wheels sank into the nearly knee-deep mud and refused to move any more. Karia wailed, and a pained groan came from Rayne, who lay covered in blankets and the five Ripglove cloaks they had saved.
Pulling back the flap on the wagon cover, Thio saw that the cuts on Rayne’s face had broken open, and they were oozing not blood, but a thick black liquid that might have been blood at some point. The boy’s face was spotted with dark red, and he shivered violently. Thio pulled back the cloaks and blankets. The boy’s hands were clenched tightly and held close, his legs were tucked under him, and he shook with cold. Thio touched the boy’s arm. It was cold as ice. Even his arms and neck were pale and spotted with the dark red. He covered him up again with the blankets and cloaks and called to one of his brothers.
“Morse! Rayne is getting worse! I’m going to carry him back to Little Hillridge and see if there’s anyone there who can help him. I’ll be back as soon as I can!” He gingerly lifted the boy’s body. It felt much lighter than it should have. It almost made Thio want to cry. “Do what you can with the wagon. Once I can, I’ll come back to help.”
“Take care of yourselves, Thio.”
Thio began to squelch through the muddy road, heading back towards Little Hillridge. The drizzle didn’t give, nor did it show any signs of getting worse. Rayne felt like a lump of ice in Thio’s arms, shaking and shivering with what strength his little body could muster. It was hours before Thio was far enough down the road that he couldn’t see the wagon anymore. By then, it was nearly dark. He pressed on through the mud as the sun completely disappeared and the moon climbed sleepily into the sky. The light fall of rain continued through the night.
When morning came, the rain began to strengthen again. Drops that fell onto Rayne’s face did nothing to clean the cuts that still oozed the thick black liquid. The dark red spots that covered the boy’s face skin were beginning to grow even darker. Patches of the boy’s face, particularly around the triple cuts, were beginning to turn a sickly black. The boy’s nearly constant coughing was raspy and hoarse, and even his coughs were growing weaker. The sickness was sapping all the strength from the boy.
Thio tried desperately to go faster, but the thick mud that caked his legs made it hard going. More than once, he nearly fell forward as the mud refused to release its hold on one of his legs. By noon, the rain was a downpour again, and a particularly deep patch of mud in the road did make Thio fall, and he dropped Rayne into the mud in front of him. The blankets and cloaks that covered him began to blow away in the wind, quickly becoming even more soaked with salty rainwater than they had been.
The sky was dark; layer upon layer of thick clouds obscured the sun. Tho almost couldn’t see Rayne, even though the boy was barely three feet in front of him. The mud pulled at Thio, and he began to sink– up to his thighs, then to his waist. He tried to get purchase with his hands to pull himself out of the mudhole, but there was nothing to grab onto, and the mud beneath his feet was no help to getting him out of the hole.
A flash of lightning danced across the sky, lighting up the area for a moment. Through the rain, Thio saw several large, shadowy shapes emerging from... nowhere. The rain didn’t seem to touch he figures as they approached the unmoving Rayne. Lightning flashed again. The figures were gathered around him. Deep, guttural growls emerged from blue-cloaked forms in a sort of language. A twisted black hand reached out towards the boy. There were four Ripgloves around Rayne.
“No! Leave him alone! Haven’t you done enough damage already?!”
For a moment, lightning lit up the sky again, and thunder rumbled overhead. The four Ripgloves seemed to be looking at him from under their hoods. They turned back to Rayne, and the cruelly malformed hands reached for the unconscious boy.
“Leave him be!” Thio was sinking deeper into the mud. It was nearly up to his chest now.
The four Ripgloves picked up Rayne together, and they collectively settled him in the grip of the largest one. Another flash of lightning lit their way as the monsters left with the boy in tow.
Thio began to weep bitterly as the mud crawled up to the middle of his chest. The rain began to let up, almost instantly, and it finally stopped, allowing the evening sun to make an appearance. Night came and passed, cold and lonely for Thio, and the sun crept into the sky again, bright and warm, almost mockingly so. The blankets and midnight blue cloaks that had fallen off of Rayne still lay discarded in the road, muddy and drying, but now a few Ripglove footprints violated the blankets and the ground around where the boy had been. The rain had somehow not washed them away. The warm spring sun began to dry the mud that encased most of Thio’s body, and towards the late afternoon, he managed to get enough grip to pull himself out of the hole. He left the fallen blankets where they were and began to trudge dispirited back towards where the wagon was. There was nothing he could do for Rayne now.
The wagon wasn’t too far from where Thio had left it, and with the drying road making his walking easier, he reached his brothers by the next afternoon. His brothers didn’t need to ask to know what had happened. They could see it in his face.
***
Thio and his brothers built a farm just outside the village of Thornfield. They tried to put the horrors that had befallen their family behind them, but even in five years, the pain had not eased, despite the absence of Ripgloves.
Five-year-old Karia Herda strolled along the edge of one of the wheatfields, picking the wildflowers her uncles allowed to grow, as long as they didn’t intrude on the planted ground. Her uncles and cousin Hadwin were working on bringing in the wheat harvest now. The sheep bleated in their nearby pasture pen. It was a beautiful day.
Looking up from the little bouquet of flowers she was gathering, Karia saw a dark blue-clad shape at the edge of the Herda property. It moved slowly towards the field where she and her uncles and cousin were.
“Uncle Morse! Uncle Thio! Someone’s coming!”
The sweaty men straightened from their work, groaning as their backs protested. They turned and looked where Karia was pointing, and almost immediately, they dropped their tools and began to rush towards the house.
“They’re Ripgloves! Karia! Come on!” Thio called to his little niece.
Karia stayed where she was as the blue-cloaked figure approached. There were half a dozen others approaching, all concealed in midnight blue cloaks, so she couldn’t see hands, faces, or any parts of them.
The first Ripglove, the one she had first seen, was barely two feet from her in moments, but the little girl stared up at it, unafrais. The Ripglove seemed to stare right back.
“Karia! Run! Those things are dangerous!”
Karia looked up at the Ripglove. A twisted, black hand emerged, reaching for the little girl.
She looked at the hand, then squatted down and inched forward to peer under the cloak’s hood.
“I know you! You carried me!”
The black hand paused in its reaching. A moment passed, and the hand reached for the girl again.
“Uncle Thio told me stories about you. You’re my cousin! Rayne, right?”
The hand stopped again. A guttural moan escaped from the hood. The hand disappeared. The Ripglove slowly turned and began to walk away. The other Ripgloves followed suit. In moments, the cloaked forms seemed to disappear into the nothingness from which they appeared.
Karia waved. “Bye, Rayne! Thank you!”
The Herda family never had problems from Ripgloves again.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Phantom Legs
Like so many other stories I've been posting lately, "Phantom Legs" was written during that odd short story spurt in late 2005/early 2006. The only reason I've been putting up so much old work is because my focus has been on getting ready for the Blogject (starting right here Jan. 6, 2010) and I haven't been turning out much of anything new lately because of that.
Frankly, I'm not too fond of the very beginning of "Phantom Legs". It was a pathetic attempt at making it seem like the main character, Henry, was singing in the car.
This story was a sort of experiment in lots of dialogue, as well as in dream sequences. That part of it, I do like.
Anyway, enjoy!
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Phantom Legs
“I give you my love!
“I give you my life!
“I give you it all!
“You’re my love and my everything!”
He didn’t hear the honking of the car that was headed right for him over his singing, nor did he react quickly enough to avoid hitting it when he finally noticed it.
He woke up in the hospital three days later to see his parents, his twin brother, and his younger sister and brother by his bed.
“Carly! He’s awake! Mom! Dad! Gerald! He’s awake!”
The sound of twelve-year-old Russell’s voice seemed to give focus to his thoughts, and he was actually able to respond with s gesture when his mother asked him if he was in pain and where. He hated his family seeing him like this, especially Russell and ten-year-old Carly, since they were so young.
“Henry, there’s something else,” his father was saying.
“Huh?” He was surprised his mouth worked. It felt dry and kind of slow, like his jaw was stuck in jelly. It was hard to move it. His tongue felt heavy.
“Both your legs were hurt pretty badly in the accident. They... they had to amputate them. There was no chance of repairing them.”
If he had had the energy or the strength, he would have thrown the blanket from over his body, but his arm felt too weak to raise. He tried to wiggle his toes, but nothing happened. He looked down at where his feet should be, but the blanket rested flat on the bed. The bumps made by his body ended just a few inches past his hips. His father wasn’t lying; his legs were really gone.
He broke down and cried.
He was let out of the hospital and given little hope of ever walking again.
The countless weeks confined only to bed, the days and days of physical therapy, and the hundreds of shots and medications all finally turned into infinite hours spent in a wheelchair. He had a great difficulty in getting to the second-floor bedroom he shared with his twin brother Gerald, and taking a shower was now out of the question. Just sitting up was hard, with his torso ending just below his hips.
Returning to school was harder than returning home. The once-popular baseball player was no longer able to play, invitations to get-togethers and parties slowed to a stop, and the loss of driving ability killed his social life with surprising efficiency. Even navigating the halls to get to class was a trial.
He was fortunate that his brain was left undamaged. He possessed a great mind, and now it finally began to show in his schoolwork. The loss of his baseball-playing ability was both a blessing and a curse in that. But now, rather than spending all his time at the practice field, he started to spend his evenings with his younger brother and sister, tutoring Russell in math, playing Scrabble with Carly... and he was suddenly quite glad the dog actually knew how to play fetch, and enjoyed playing for hours at a time.
And for the first time in his life, he started to dream... and remember his dreams. Or dream, since there was only one, and he had it almost every night.
The field went on for miles uninterrupted, until the trees began, almost all at once, turning from flat, empty grassland to dense forest in the matter of a few yards. Wildflowers– shades of blue, purple, orange, white, pink, red, and even some colors he didn’t know– dotted the plain in small bunched and broad clumps all the way to the treeline. The air was perfumed naturally by the flowers, which despite the wide array of colors, shapes, and sizes, seemed to all have the same sickeningly sweet scent.
Something– not a voice... not an intuition... not something he could really identify– pulled him to the trees. He ran, his legs carrying him over the grasses faster than he had ever run on the baseball field. He reveled in the feeling of his legs moving under him, carrying him across the grass and flowers in great bounds, knowing he would not– could not– misstep. The wind blew on his face, ruffling his hair. He could feel the soft ground give way slightly under his weight. He always wore soft boots in this place, but his feet never hurt.
He reached the treeline and slowed to a halt, peering into the darkness of the leaf canopy. It was not pitch dark in the forest; patches of light streamed almost enchantingly through gaps in the leaves. He stepped into the trees, following the thin and almost invisible path that led into the depths.
He reached the clearing: a beautiful, almost perfectly circular open space in the middle of the trees that seemed a haven of sorts– the ideal retreat from civilization. A crystal-clear stream rippled across the clearing, ending in a deep pool that played home to fish and frogs, the splashing and croaking of which sent a delightful music through the air to his ears. A single tree dotted the clearing, not quite dead center– a majestic oak, big enough around that it would take at least five people to surround it, if not more. Or was it an oak? It resembled an oak, but a succulent-looking fruit with smooth purplish-blue skin hung off the branches, each one at least as big as his fist, the lowest ones just barely out of reach. Dew dripped from the tree’s leaves and from the fruits, despite the midday sun. A ring of unidentifiable crimson flowers surrounded the regal tree, and they sparkled in the sunlight as if covered with silver glitter.
He jumped across the stream, not wanting to mar its perfection by tramping through it while wearing his boots. The flawless deep green grass gave way under his footsteps, springing back into place, unbent, after he moved on. There was never any sign that anyone came here.
A stone, just big enough to sit on and flattened by age, lay just outside the ring of flowers by the tree. He sat. And waited.
“He has come back.”
“Yes, he has.”
“He comes back almost every night, now.”
“He used to never come here.”
“But he is here again. Now. On the stone.”
“Shall we speak to him?”
“Yes, we shall.”
“Let us speak to him.”
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“You have come back.”
“I have.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Yes, why?”
“You have not found the one yet.”
He closed his eyes and hung his head.
“The one who will give you what you most desperately want.”
“No... I haven’t found the one yet.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Where can I find the one?”
“The one to give you what you most desperately want...”
“The one to give you what you most desperately want...”
“What you most desperately want...”
He whispered, “My legs...”
“He wants his legs.”
“His legs.”
“He must find one willing to trade. Legs for legs.”
“And bring the one here.”
He woke, sweating, and reached down under the covers to where the remaining stumps of the legs that used to be were all he felt.
“So how were everyone’s days today?”
The family sat around the dinner table, going through their thrice-weekly dinner report. As dumb as he thought it was, it was something his parents insisted on, and he was not one to argue.
“We had a spelling bee today, and I got third place!” Carly proudly pulled a white ribbon from her pocket and showed it off.
“Gerald?”
“In gym, we played dodgeball against the JROTC kids. We creamed them!”
“Russell?”
“I had the weirdest dream last night. I was running through this forest on a path I could hardly see, and I was completely lost. I kept hearing Henry’s voice, calling me, but every time I would get close, his voice moved to another direction, and farther away.”
“Henry?”
He stared at his little brother, the rest of the family forgotten.
“Henry?”
His mind suddenly snapped back to where he was. “Oh, sorry. Uh... I’m almost finished with my still-life painting in art class.”
“Henry, can you help me with my math homework? We’ve started putting letters with it, and I’m completely lost.”
“Actually, Russ, I wanted to ask you something about your dream...”
The field went on for miles uninterrupted, until the trees began, almost all at once, turning from flat, empty grassland to dense forest in the matter of a few yards. Something– not a voice... not an intuition... not something he could really identify– pulled him to the trees. He reached the treeline and slowed to a halt, peering into the darkness of the leaf canopy. He reached the clearing: a beautiful, almost perfectly circular open space in the middle of the trees that seemed a haven of sorts– the ideal retreat from civilization. He jumped across the stream, not wanting to mar its perfection by tramping through it while wearing his boots.
A stone, just big enough to sit on and flattened by age, lay just outside the ring of flowers by the tree. He sat. And waited.
“He has come back.”
“Yes, he has.”
“He comes back almost every night, now.”
“He used to never come here.”
“But he is here again. Now. On the stone.”
“Shall we speak to him?”
“Yes, we shall.”
“Let us speak to him.”
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“You have come back.”
“I have.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Yes, why?”
“You have not found the one yet.”
He called. “Russell! I’m here! Follow my voice!”
“I can’t find you!”
“He is calling for someone.”
“Has he found the one?”
“The one to him what he most desperately wants?”
“Russell! Follow my voice!”
“I can’t! It’s dark, Henry! I can’t see!”
“Follow my voice, Russell! I’m here! I’m right here!”
“Henry, it’s too dark. I’m scared!”
“Just follow my voice! Follow it, Russell! You can find me! You can!”
“Henry!”
“Is he the one?”
Russell burst into the clearing and almost fell onto the ring of flowers.
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover
barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“Are you the one?”
“Are you the one?”
“The one to give him what he most desperately wants?”
“Yes. I am.”
“You will trade? Legs for legs?”
“Trade?”
“Legs for legs?”
“Yes.”
“The fruit!”
“The fruit! The fruit!”
A single piece of the fruit with smooth purplish-blue skin hung down just in front of his face. He plucked it, and the branch that had supported it disappeared upward again.
“Eat it!”
“One bite!”
“One bite!”
He took a bite. It was sweet and sour at the same time. The flesh was firm but soft enough to swallow whole. Dark ruby juice dripped down his chin and dotted the grass before sinking into the earth below. From each drop grew a deep purplish-blue flower.
“He had tasted the fruit!”
“No turning back!”
“The one must eat, too!”
“Eat it!”
“One bite!”
“One bite!”
Russell took the fruit and bit into it. It was bitter and salty at the same time. The flesh was soft but had to be chewed to soften it. Pale sapphire juice dripped down his chin and dotted the grass before sinking into the earth below. From each drop grew a bright reddish-orange flower.
“He has tasted the fruit!
“No turning back!”
“The one must speak!”
“Speak!”
“Speak what you will give!”
“I will give... my legs for his.”
“He must speak!”
“Speak!”
“Speak what you most desire!”
“I most desire...”
He woke, sweating, and reached down under the covers.
Frankly, I'm not too fond of the very beginning of "Phantom Legs". It was a pathetic attempt at making it seem like the main character, Henry, was singing in the car.
This story was a sort of experiment in lots of dialogue, as well as in dream sequences. That part of it, I do like.
Anyway, enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Phantom Legs
“I give you my love!
“I give you my life!
“I give you it all!
“You’re my love and my everything!”
He didn’t hear the honking of the car that was headed right for him over his singing, nor did he react quickly enough to avoid hitting it when he finally noticed it.
He woke up in the hospital three days later to see his parents, his twin brother, and his younger sister and brother by his bed.
“Carly! He’s awake! Mom! Dad! Gerald! He’s awake!”
The sound of twelve-year-old Russell’s voice seemed to give focus to his thoughts, and he was actually able to respond with s gesture when his mother asked him if he was in pain and where. He hated his family seeing him like this, especially Russell and ten-year-old Carly, since they were so young.
“Henry, there’s something else,” his father was saying.
“Huh?” He was surprised his mouth worked. It felt dry and kind of slow, like his jaw was stuck in jelly. It was hard to move it. His tongue felt heavy.
“Both your legs were hurt pretty badly in the accident. They... they had to amputate them. There was no chance of repairing them.”
If he had had the energy or the strength, he would have thrown the blanket from over his body, but his arm felt too weak to raise. He tried to wiggle his toes, but nothing happened. He looked down at where his feet should be, but the blanket rested flat on the bed. The bumps made by his body ended just a few inches past his hips. His father wasn’t lying; his legs were really gone.
He broke down and cried.
He was let out of the hospital and given little hope of ever walking again.
The countless weeks confined only to bed, the days and days of physical therapy, and the hundreds of shots and medications all finally turned into infinite hours spent in a wheelchair. He had a great difficulty in getting to the second-floor bedroom he shared with his twin brother Gerald, and taking a shower was now out of the question. Just sitting up was hard, with his torso ending just below his hips.
Returning to school was harder than returning home. The once-popular baseball player was no longer able to play, invitations to get-togethers and parties slowed to a stop, and the loss of driving ability killed his social life with surprising efficiency. Even navigating the halls to get to class was a trial.
He was fortunate that his brain was left undamaged. He possessed a great mind, and now it finally began to show in his schoolwork. The loss of his baseball-playing ability was both a blessing and a curse in that. But now, rather than spending all his time at the practice field, he started to spend his evenings with his younger brother and sister, tutoring Russell in math, playing Scrabble with Carly... and he was suddenly quite glad the dog actually knew how to play fetch, and enjoyed playing for hours at a time.
And for the first time in his life, he started to dream... and remember his dreams. Or dream, since there was only one, and he had it almost every night.
The field went on for miles uninterrupted, until the trees began, almost all at once, turning from flat, empty grassland to dense forest in the matter of a few yards. Wildflowers– shades of blue, purple, orange, white, pink, red, and even some colors he didn’t know– dotted the plain in small bunched and broad clumps all the way to the treeline. The air was perfumed naturally by the flowers, which despite the wide array of colors, shapes, and sizes, seemed to all have the same sickeningly sweet scent.
Something– not a voice... not an intuition... not something he could really identify– pulled him to the trees. He ran, his legs carrying him over the grasses faster than he had ever run on the baseball field. He reveled in the feeling of his legs moving under him, carrying him across the grass and flowers in great bounds, knowing he would not– could not– misstep. The wind blew on his face, ruffling his hair. He could feel the soft ground give way slightly under his weight. He always wore soft boots in this place, but his feet never hurt.
He reached the treeline and slowed to a halt, peering into the darkness of the leaf canopy. It was not pitch dark in the forest; patches of light streamed almost enchantingly through gaps in the leaves. He stepped into the trees, following the thin and almost invisible path that led into the depths.
He reached the clearing: a beautiful, almost perfectly circular open space in the middle of the trees that seemed a haven of sorts– the ideal retreat from civilization. A crystal-clear stream rippled across the clearing, ending in a deep pool that played home to fish and frogs, the splashing and croaking of which sent a delightful music through the air to his ears. A single tree dotted the clearing, not quite dead center– a majestic oak, big enough around that it would take at least five people to surround it, if not more. Or was it an oak? It resembled an oak, but a succulent-looking fruit with smooth purplish-blue skin hung off the branches, each one at least as big as his fist, the lowest ones just barely out of reach. Dew dripped from the tree’s leaves and from the fruits, despite the midday sun. A ring of unidentifiable crimson flowers surrounded the regal tree, and they sparkled in the sunlight as if covered with silver glitter.
He jumped across the stream, not wanting to mar its perfection by tramping through it while wearing his boots. The flawless deep green grass gave way under his footsteps, springing back into place, unbent, after he moved on. There was never any sign that anyone came here.
A stone, just big enough to sit on and flattened by age, lay just outside the ring of flowers by the tree. He sat. And waited.
“He has come back.”
“Yes, he has.”
“He comes back almost every night, now.”
“He used to never come here.”
“But he is here again. Now. On the stone.”
“Shall we speak to him?”
“Yes, we shall.”
“Let us speak to him.”
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“You have come back.”
“I have.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Yes, why?”
“You have not found the one yet.”
He closed his eyes and hung his head.
“The one who will give you what you most desperately want.”
“No... I haven’t found the one yet.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Where can I find the one?”
“The one to give you what you most desperately want...”
“The one to give you what you most desperately want...”
“What you most desperately want...”
He whispered, “My legs...”
“He wants his legs.”
“His legs.”
“He must find one willing to trade. Legs for legs.”
“And bring the one here.”
He woke, sweating, and reached down under the covers to where the remaining stumps of the legs that used to be were all he felt.
“So how were everyone’s days today?”
The family sat around the dinner table, going through their thrice-weekly dinner report. As dumb as he thought it was, it was something his parents insisted on, and he was not one to argue.
“We had a spelling bee today, and I got third place!” Carly proudly pulled a white ribbon from her pocket and showed it off.
“Gerald?”
“In gym, we played dodgeball against the JROTC kids. We creamed them!”
“Russell?”
“I had the weirdest dream last night. I was running through this forest on a path I could hardly see, and I was completely lost. I kept hearing Henry’s voice, calling me, but every time I would get close, his voice moved to another direction, and farther away.”
“Henry?”
He stared at his little brother, the rest of the family forgotten.
“Henry?”
His mind suddenly snapped back to where he was. “Oh, sorry. Uh... I’m almost finished with my still-life painting in art class.”
“Henry, can you help me with my math homework? We’ve started putting letters with it, and I’m completely lost.”
“Actually, Russ, I wanted to ask you something about your dream...”
The field went on for miles uninterrupted, until the trees began, almost all at once, turning from flat, empty grassland to dense forest in the matter of a few yards. Something– not a voice... not an intuition... not something he could really identify– pulled him to the trees. He reached the treeline and slowed to a halt, peering into the darkness of the leaf canopy. He reached the clearing: a beautiful, almost perfectly circular open space in the middle of the trees that seemed a haven of sorts– the ideal retreat from civilization. He jumped across the stream, not wanting to mar its perfection by tramping through it while wearing his boots.
A stone, just big enough to sit on and flattened by age, lay just outside the ring of flowers by the tree. He sat. And waited.
“He has come back.”
“Yes, he has.”
“He comes back almost every night, now.”
“He used to never come here.”
“But he is here again. Now. On the stone.”
“Shall we speak to him?”
“Yes, we shall.”
“Let us speak to him.”
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“You have come back.”
“I have.”
“Why have you come back?”
“Yes, why?”
“You have not found the one yet.”
He called. “Russell! I’m here! Follow my voice!”
“I can’t find you!”
“He is calling for someone.”
“Has he found the one?”
“The one to him what he most desperately wants?”
“Russell! Follow my voice!”
“I can’t! It’s dark, Henry! I can’t see!”
“Follow my voice, Russell! I’m here! I’m right here!”
“Henry, it’s too dark. I’m scared!”
“Just follow my voice! Follow it, Russell! You can find me! You can!”
“Henry!”
“Is he the one?”
Russell burst into the clearing and almost fell onto the ring of flowers.
Three people, each of them only as tall as his hand, floated down to hover
barely two feet in front of his face. Each had delicate wings: one of a dragonfly, one of a butterfly, and one of a bird.
“Are you the one?”
“Are you the one?”
“The one to give him what he most desperately wants?”
“Yes. I am.”
“You will trade? Legs for legs?”
“Trade?”
“Legs for legs?”
“Yes.”
“The fruit!”
“The fruit! The fruit!”
A single piece of the fruit with smooth purplish-blue skin hung down just in front of his face. He plucked it, and the branch that had supported it disappeared upward again.
“Eat it!”
“One bite!”
“One bite!”
He took a bite. It was sweet and sour at the same time. The flesh was firm but soft enough to swallow whole. Dark ruby juice dripped down his chin and dotted the grass before sinking into the earth below. From each drop grew a deep purplish-blue flower.
“He had tasted the fruit!”
“No turning back!”
“The one must eat, too!”
“Eat it!”
“One bite!”
“One bite!”
Russell took the fruit and bit into it. It was bitter and salty at the same time. The flesh was soft but had to be chewed to soften it. Pale sapphire juice dripped down his chin and dotted the grass before sinking into the earth below. From each drop grew a bright reddish-orange flower.
“He has tasted the fruit!
“No turning back!”
“The one must speak!”
“Speak!”
“Speak what you will give!”
“I will give... my legs for his.”
“He must speak!”
“Speak!”
“Speak what you most desire!”
“I most desire...”
He woke, sweating, and reached down under the covers.
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