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Shaddai: a novel for Advent
Jan. 9, 2009
Day 14
Stara Underwild smoothed her long shimmering dress, tucked a tendril of pale hair behind her delicately pointed ear and peered around at the other Fairies with sharp concerned eyes. She sat with the Fairy Council in a cool room where the pleasant breezes should have been blowing through the long crimson curtains. Instead the foul, cold stench of something Evil lurking in the shadows that had so recently fallen upon the Riverlands pervaded the Fairy’s nostrils and nearly choked the elderly ones who sat with their wrinkly hands folded in their robes.
The Fairies never wore fur, it was against their peaceful nature. Unfortunately, the Crescentfolk and Warwicks took no heed of the many gestures the Fairies dwelling in the outskirts on the known Lands and the Fairies had eventually been forced to live their lives alone with each other, trying to ease their own grudges against the foul, inconsiderate creatures who called themselves men. Men? It was laughable, that any living thing that crept upon the rich brown Riverland soil or the putrid hot heaths could take for themselves such a high haughty title and believe, truly, deep down in their hearts, that they were living up to it as they killed and persecuted each other and tormented the beasts who tolerated them, and scorned the friendly advances of the Fairies. “Baby-stealers”, the Fairies had been called. It was not fair. Indeed, in Stara’s experience, the odd thing called Life was not fair at all in respects to how one could live it and believe they were doing right. Perhaps even the Fairy folk had wrongdoings in their hearts; that was why they called Councils, to debate over the troubles pressing to their souls and to seek wise and sage council of conduct from each other and from the Elders, who had lived through the Great War. The Elders knew many things about how Life should be lived, according to their personal morals, which were well-developed. The Fairies had decided, not long after the carnage of the Great War had settled and the dust again nestled to the weaponries, that they must attempt to live in peace with each other, thus the Councils, and their fellow living things. And so the Fairies hired an Elder, a plump old Fairy woman who knew many tricks of how to gain much more out of Life that first meets the eye, and they hired her to create for them a special material for their clothing that would not require the stupid waste of Life, such as the clothing of Men so often did. Virthum was the result. No one knew how she came by it, the old Fairy granny who hid herself away in the mountains and only peddled her Virthum wares several times in the year, but her cloth was superbly fine, surprisingly sturdy and, she gave the Fairies her solemn promise upon the love of her own life, that it did not waste any creature anything that might be of use to them.
Thus Stara sat stroking her Virthum dress and waiting for the last members of the Council to arrive. She was not going to bring the little human girl-child until she was called upon to do so; let the tiny thing sleep until it was required of her to rise, for she had been badly wounded when the Fairy men found her lying on the broken sod. The dreaded Yule tree-beast had nearly killed the poor little thing, and while Stara was sure the girl could have fought against it, she could hardly be blamed for the sad fact that she could not see. Her eyes were dull and empty and it hurt Stara’s own soft blue ones, who could see the smearing brilliancy that adorned every aspect of Fairy Life, to look into them and realize they could not see a smile nor a flower when one of these were most needed. Simple things that so often made the weary or distraught soul glad inside was denied to her and it was not even her own doing that had brought the wicked malady down upon her. Yes indeed, Life was unfair…but it was also good. Stara hoped with all her heart that the goodness in the little girl-child’s life, at least some of it, would come from her time spent with the Fairies.
Thus Stara Underwild wished against hope that the Council would decide to keep the girl. Surely they could do no less when her eyes could not see a mere smile. Surely, the Fair folk did not wish themselves to be a source of Evil. For Evil was contained in the act of being unjust, and to turn the girl away from any kindness they could do to her would be unjust.
One of the Elders leaned to the right and whispered in Stara’s ear, “Where is the little human thing?”
Stara turned and whispered back, smelling the honeysuckle about the Fairy woman’s Virthum skirts, “I am letting her sleep until she is needed.” The old Fairy nodded knowingly and smiled to herself. Stara was a good woman, a motherly soul who never found true love in any of the tall, strong Fairy men. She bided her time, until the “right one” came along. Stara was a fervent believer not only in doing good and thus greatly enriching Life, but also a passionate opponent in the blatant, slovenly wastefulness of love. Love was a rare and precious thing, and to force it to work before it’s time was to enhance a kind of spiritually carnal beast that dwelled within every thing. There was a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and while it often took many years of experience, many trials and failings and many tears shed into creamy pillows while a mournful moon shone above glistening grief, to do something the right, full and harder way was to breach an go beyond the socialite, man-made and Fairy-made boundaries of Life-living. Indeed, many folk thought Stara Underwild foolish for passing up so many handsome Fairy men. They often discussed her lack of male interest within secret Councils withheld from the younger Fairies. Often they asked her why she would not settle from someone within their sect and she would always answer, “My Life is my own, and I must guide it according to what I believe.” She made it clear that council and guidance was a good thing, something to seek fervently after and never disregard as unimportant, but the final decision had to be hers and thus far she was not called to any of the Fairy men. The Councils and even the sage Elderly, whose thinking most believed right off as absolute Truth, had to be content with the workings of her strange mind. The Fairy folk never forgot the terrible things they heard over and over again from the wandering Fairies and occasional human minstrel who infrequently visited the sunny Riverlands.
There had been much debate about whether or not to have a king in their midst, like the humans did. Many long Councils were spent wondering over whether or not to make themselves vulnerable to his rulings. When hard times, during the Great War, forced the Fairies to choose alliances (several Fairies actually chose to live amongst the Men and forever lost respect in their fellow’s eyes) they decided a king would be the best way of solving disputes. Later the king became more like an equal fellow member of the Fairy Council, the only thing distinguishing him from the other being a throne in his own private chambers, a crown unlike any of the members’ and a sovereign hand in decision-making that was equal to, if not above that of the Elder’s. The current king, a fierce black-eyed man, was in the prime of Life and had thus far regarded his existence as nothing short of a glorious thing to respect and love for the blessings it rained down upon him. The little Fairy pages, curly-haired boys with fast-moving tongues, often praised their masters and the female Fairy girls who self-willingly made themselves personal attendants and musicians for the king spoke often of his kindness towards them. His ancestor had fought in the Great War and had died with honor, but the kingship over the Fairies did not consist of mere birthrights. Many heated debates had ensued in the cool marble room, adorned in the center with a quiet gray pool and tinkling fountain of rainbow water, about who should take up next kingship. For several years, which passed without real notation of time in the incandescent Riverlands, the Fairies had not king but began to venture further from the Council ruling. A king was needed to pay heed to the Council and make the Fairies heed it as well. He was also there as a safe fortress upon whom all Fairies could cast their burdens onto and run to in times of trouble. Such times were few and far between, but alas! Such a terrible time had once again fallen upon the Fairies as the Council gathered with a rustling of Virthum and as Stara Underwild, the strange unmarried Fairy woman, sat smoothing her dress and thinking deep thoughts of Life and love and the blind human girl-child, wounded by the Yule, who were in a nemesis position almost equal to that of mankind and their ilk.
There was a respectful hush as the Fairy king came striding into the large marble room. The entire Council, who had come with soft robes and skirts, shining wavy hair and elegantly pointed ears to decide amongst themselves the onslaught of Evil, rose to acknowledge his entrance. He waved a hand to them, beckoning them to sit into their elaborately-carven chairs of rich sharp-smelling cedar wood. The Riverland forests had freely given their growth for the Fairies to use and the Fairies had made well use of the offered sustentation.
The king sat with a sigh of Virthum cloth and a snapping of his black eyes.
“My friends, Elders and fellow Council members,” he said, with the usual opening, “we have gathered here today to talk of things we know little of. By the grace of Life we may have something we can perform or work towards to counter-act this sudden recent spurt of Evil from all sides of the Riverlands.”
The Council nodded at each other, pleased with his speech. “Does anyone know anything more than what you have heard amongst yourselves?” asked the king. “We must not let ourselves and our friends be taken in by lies and rumors, or even the excited words of a page.” The king smiled gently at the page who had told him first of the terrible girl-child’s scream and the creeping black smell of foul Evil abroad in the Lands.
“The human girl-child, who seems to have been blinded at a young age, has nothing whatsoever to do with the recent troubles that have taken it upon themselves to plague our peaceful lands.” Stara spoke with a soft tongue but the king recognized a simple motherish passion ignited within her pure breast.
“How can we be sure she is not the base cause of the whole affair?” asked a member across the room from Stara. His question was directed to her but another Fairy sitting beside her, the old woman with honeysuckle-smell about her Virthum skirts, spoke up in her crackly voice and replied, “What could something so small possible have to do with the huge impact the Evil is working upon the Lands?” The king leaned his elbow upon his chair and peered at the old woman, telling her to continue with raven black eyes.
“I know what you think, deep down in your hearts, fellow member of the Council and you, my fellow Elders,” said the woman. Her applish cheeks were flamed with excitement. Nothing this dramatic had happened since she was a little Fairy girl. “Perhaps Evil has found a way to ravage the little girl’s soul to work for it, things so wicked have been accomplished in the recent past. Yet we must remember that she might not have had strength enough to fight against the malicious workings of Evil. Or…” The old Fairy paused and smiled to herself. “Or perhaps the girl should be allowed at once to give an account of herself before us. Then we would better know how to conduct this Council.”
The king sat looking with admiration at the Elder. “That,” he said, “is a sage idea and one we will heed immediately.” Turning his black gaze upon Stara, he said, “Bring the human girl-child to the Council at once.” |
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