This novel is called "Shaddai", and was written in December for the nightly ritual called Advent. You can read it during the holidays, or anytime throughout the year. Please note that this novel is copyrighted, January 2, 2009, and cannot be used, copied or otherwise handled without the prior permission of the Authoress. Thank you, and God bless. Pippin Armour http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:37:01 -0600 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:37:01 -0600 The clouds were red. Red like blood. The mist arose from the river like some terrible apparition, seeking to strangle the spicy winter air. Ice-coated branches clacked together like morbid hands keeping time to a death-song. Far across the foggy heaths came the wailing, mournful cry of a wounded child. Then a horrible growl shook the snow lying on the forest floor, and all was silent. Silent save for the brush of the zephyrs in the frozen grass. “All is lost!” shouted the sterling-eyed king. His long rich purple robes dragged along the cherry wood floor of his private chambers. “How will we gain salvation from our foes now? The heir to the Warwick throne is dead. Dead, I tell you!” The king stopped pacing to slam his fist on the small dragon-leg table, upsetting a silver goblet of rich red drink. His advisor, the tall, thin gray man with brilliant blue eyes, tapped his foot nervously in the shadowed corner where he stood. Long had he aided his king to rule Crescent and the surrounding kingdoms…but lately turmoil had erupted in the adjacent heath-province of Warwick, the kingdom of fierce warriors and brave women. Rumors of the Yule, the dreaded tree-beasts of some far northern mountain range, had spread like wildfire throughout the lands. Crescent’s king, good Wenceslas, had spent many a fitful night mulling over the fate of his dear people. The villagers, living scattered instead of companionably together, were forced to tear down their wattle and daub houses and move closer to each other, creating friction over farmland and field possession. The daily strife caused much pain to Wenceslas and already his smooth pale forehead was becoming creased. How long would these frightening rumors bring the Crescentfolk to his drawbridge, demanding restitution? The Yule had long since died out…had they not? Wenceslas sighed and sat wearily down on his fur-covered bed. “Melchior…I am nearly spent of all my love for the Crescentfolk. How long will these tales persist to torment my once-peaceful mind?” Melchior, sitting down beside his king, rubbed his spindly hands together and enjoyed the rasping sound. “Good majesty.” His voice was smooth and deep. “Why is it that you are troubled so by your people? Why not merely bar them from your presence and leave them to sort their own truth from the Yule rumors, hmm?” Wenceslas started and stared at his advisor. “Melchior, are you suggesting that I abandon my people?” The king’s mighty voice shook with surprise. “I am pledged to love and serve the Crescentfolk like my father before me, and his father before him and all the way back to the Fairies who spawned us within their dew-laden cliff dwellings. To pay no heed to the cries of my suffering fellowmen would be an outrage not only to my ancestors…but also to the Fairies. We must not enrage them, must we?” Melchior sighed heavily; the gesture seemed almost forced. “I suppose not, great one. Yet remember, to live a life of dull care and constant worry is not to live.” Wenceslas gazed in confusion at the tall narrow shadow as his advisor walked from the chamber. “She must be part Fairy. No other girl her age would care so for the well-being of her friends.” The warm, smoky voice came from a gossipy old woman sitting amid a voluminous dress of fine silk and furs upon a long red bench next to her friend. Cheerful music drifted across the shiny marble hallways and tickled the ears of rosy-cheeked children playing rambunctiously near the hearth. Murmured conversation reverberated through the big bright room and twisted around the columns to meet the two old biddies snickering over the guests. “Yes indeed, she MUST be!” the other woman said. The two women watched the tall girl move gently through the crowd, her raven black hair catching the hearth firelight. “Can you see her ears? Maybe they are pointed!” The old lady gave a thrilled shiver and sipped her strong punch. “Oh dear, her hair’s covering them. Well, if she is a Fairy’s child, we will hear about it soon enough.” The girl did not hear their conversation. She was kneeling beside a little boy who had bruised his shin on a jagged corner. “There there,” she whispered as a tear rolled sparkling from the boy’s bright green eye. “It will not hurt for long.” The girl kissed his pink skin and took a damp cloth from her thick leather belt, and pressed it to the bruise. “Does that feel tingly?” The boy’s lips shaped an O and he laughed softly. “It feel like tasting peppermint!” “Ah yes, peppermint, the herb of the winter,” the girl said. “That is good. You know, to feel something that has peppermint-taste is a very rare thing indeed.” The boy grew sober. “Really?” “Oh yes! You must pay attention to that delicious cold feeling, for you never know when next you shall feel it.” The boy squinted up his eyes and held his breath. The girl laughed and stood up. “Thank you, Rhody,” the boy said in a pinched voice. Rhody ruffled his hair and moved silently around dancing couples. What a pleasant party! The duke had indeed outdone himself this Greenleaftime. Shrill bagpipes trilled and fiddles gave their high, swirling thrum. A young lad played with enthusiasm on a little drum and Rhody waved her hand to the beat. The boy nodded back and gave her a fond grin. Skerry was a nice brother, with his ruddy face and crooked smile. His thick thatch of hair was as black as hers and fell in his eyes as he bent once more over his drum. Rhody’s tan face darkened briefly as she recalled voices who said her and her brother were odd. Indeed, they were different, but not insane. Skerry had built their little home into the hollow trunk of a giant pine tree and kept the soup pot filled with good rabbit meat and pigeon. Rhody knew every plant and herb in the forest and on the heaths, and could sew masterfully. She ran a hand over her warm maroon cloak and smiled to herself as she sat down in a chilly window seat. Just because Skerry and she lived outside of the paranoid community of Crescentfolk, who had been pushed at each other by the Yule rumors, did not mean they were mentally ill or deliberately disobeyed the duke’s commands, which came directly from king Wenceslas. Crescentfolk, over the past several years, had learned to scorn those who did not conform to authoritative ruling. Rhody, in counter, scorned helpless fear that trained not the mind but the doubts. Skerry was a skilled swordsman, too young to be drafted in the duke’s regiment but a talented squire nonetheless. He taught Rhody the art of wielding the broadsword and Rhody in turn taught him to recognize vital herbs. Together they felt prepared to battle and aid as best they could should the Yule cross the eastern rapids. Rhody leaned her head against the frosty windowpane as the music changed tunes and a clear pipe came into hearing. Her eyes slowly closed as the lilting sound carried her to sunny fields and cold streams, plump berries bursting with goodness and joyous laughter that floated on a slight breeze. Yes, this was where she’d come from. Long garments of materials she had never been able to find, graceful peace that evaded the most troubled soul and made it sleep. Thick, sweet water and bright dappled leaves whispering to each other. This was her home. Her real home… You must pay the piper, two must dance along; three should glean the grass and one will sing this song. The merry tune was carried on the wind to the ears of several shepherds watching their sedate creatures. “Ho, minstrel!” shouted one of them. The slender man carrying a gaily-painted lute strode over on long legs and sat before the shepherd’s small fire. “What will you have this cold noon?” he asked. His voice was happy and lazy. The cold seemed not to bother him. “Something suited to the day,” one shepherd grumbled. He pulled his fleece jacket closer about his sinewy shoulders and tore into his bread and cheese. The minstrel scratched his chin as the others nodded their agreement. “A winter song, eh?” he said. “One would think you would wish a hot summer ditty to warm your stern bones!” One shepherd laughed mutedly but the leader turned austere blue eyes on him. “I did not call for a jester, I called for a song in keeping with my miserable life.” Why would you not want a song about joy? thought the minstrel. Surely it would do you some good! He did not say this aloud but stood up, his height towering and blocking out the sick gray sun. “I fear I do not know any songs of those sort. I can sing only cheery tunes this noon, for I am going to be minstrel to king Wenceslas himself!” The shepherds, though discontented, whistled and let him on his way. The minstrel walked on along the rude muddy road. He swung his arms in a wide arc and did not heed the sudden freezing blast of wind that danced inside his clumsily-sewn tunic. Slinging his lute over his shoulder, the minstrel hummed a washerwoman’s lay as the heaths came into view. The forests were behind him now; Wenceslas’s castle must not be far away now. With good blessing he could make it by supper time if he pushed his long legs to cover the distance. His gentle mother’s words rang through his head once more: “Now, my dear Conan, you must bring honor to your poor dead father and play well for the king. Wenceslas has been very kind to us here in Kentle, you must strive to play your very best for him.” Conan had given his word but with tears he had parted with his little mother. He’d protected her many a stormy night from drunken men and savage beasts, and his heart had grown tender towards her. His mother did promise to travel to a nearby village and seek shelter with another old widow, so Conan’s heart could be put at ease. Conan’s voice drove away the chilling fingers of heath-winter as he sang of brave warriors defeating dragons to save beautiful ladies locked in high towers overlooking magical ponds. For amusement he twisted one tale and made it the lay of a woman sword-wielder who saved a wounded knight during a bloody foxhunt. The new story pleased him and he wove it into a well-known song. Once he had the words right, Conan ran his fingers through his curly brown hair and felt content. The heaths were now upon him; his cloak was soon damp with the purple fog and his the laces on his leather boots dragged in the squelching mud. Conan sang his tale over and over, but eventually the sad cry of marsh birds and the wind whipping off the mountain peaks surrounding the heath muted his joy. He began to feel weary and his steps slowed. “This truly is a downtrodden land, with the very essence of melancholy,” Conan muttered as a briar bush wrapped stickled arms around him. He tore free and looked about him. The trees were strung with moss like grim decorations and the frogs croaked softly. As the sky darkened, the minstrel began to feel a creeping panic. What if he broke right at the height of his journey? Wenceslas’s castle was surely just over those few ridges! Yet on and on he traveled and there was no sight of the sprawling stone dwelling. The heaths grew silent and the wind bit at Conan’s buckling lute until he covered it hastily inside his dirty cloak. The screams of angry memories seemed to haunt the heaths and hidden marshes. Conan felt his happiness slowly ebb away and his fingers froze stiff, curled around his belt. He wished the king had provided him with an escort. The most there was had been a summons from a pimple-faced page, excited with his first duty, telling him the king’s decision to make him minstrel. Conan recalled the years spent studying at Kentle’s art school, the bleeding fingers and aching head, the hours away from his mother as he grew up mastering the lute. Thankfully, Conan was a quick learner and was soon able to spend more time with his mother, playing for her instead of steel-eyed instructors who cared nothing for depth or beauty, but only the true ring of the lute strings and wail of the pipe. And then the blessed day, the summons day. Conan tried to think on these things as a delicious warmth overcame his cold limbs. No, no, he mustn’t give up! Not so close, not so close… The black rider, his cape sweeping the dusty stars, galloped upon his frothing steed across the greenish gray heath hills. His eyes smoldered. How dare that king tell him what he must and mustn’t do! The rider shouted again in rage as his horse slipped slightly and he nearly fell off. “Stupid animal!” The man dug his sharp boots into the horse’s flank. “We must make it to the woods in whole pieces!” As the moon rose pale and thin over the heathlands, it saw a strange sight. The black rider and his horse has stopped before a lanky shadow stretched out in a marsh. The man tipped his head back and laughed. The moon leaned closer and heard his evil voice say, “What have we here!” http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644721/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:37:01 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644721/ “This way,” said the kind voice, low and gently. “You are nearly to my hands, little one.” A girl, about nine years of age, walked unsteadily along the muddy road towards her aunt’s voice. A small crowd stood behind her, murmuring their surprise with soft exclamations. How much the child had improved over the past few weeks! Fiddlis’s cheeks were already bright with the highland sunshine to kiss them, and her patchwork dress was dusty with good rich earth. Fiddlis had been born blind, poor child; her vacant blue-green eyes often spilled tears for the sights she could only touch and hear. Yet since she had come to live with her Auntie in her hillside cottage, the young girl had grown fond of exploring her surroundings with her fingers. Many times she had burned her little hands in the fire pit, and her feet had often trod right into trouble; but Auntie loved her, she would forgive her every error and so Fiddlis was rapidly maturing into a happy, healthy, sturdy girl. Fiddlis fell into Auntie’s arms as the crowd erupted with wild clapping. “You are so strong!” they said. Fiddlis blushed as they spoke excitedly about what her future would surely be. “You will run on the highland moors without fear of anything and you will brave the fierce winters like a hearty shepherdess!” Auntie scooped her niece up into her capable brown arms and carried her towards their squat cottage. As Fiddlis’s aunt poured some fresh goat’s milk out for her guests, a burly ironsmith roared, “You might even grow to fight the invading Yule!” Instantly there was a somber lull. The ironsmith realized he had spoken with little wisdom, and he hastily gulped the rest of his warm milk. “What are the Yule?” Fiddlis asked innocently. Auntie sighed and began to usher her guests from the kitchen. “Thank you all for coming to encourage her,” she muttered as she flapped her apron at the curious washerwomen and big-eyed children. “My faith, how will you explain the Yule to that child?” demanded a stringy-haired boy. “Hush!” snapped Auntie. “I shall find a way. Now be gone!” Soon she was alone in the cozy kitchen with her blind niece. “Auntie, what was the big ironsmith talking about?” Fiddlis said, setting down her brown earthenware cup. Her aunt bit her lips together and sat down in her carven chair before the fireplace. She drew Fiddlis to her ample bosom and hugged her close. “Pay no heed to his hasty words, my dear.” Fiddlis pushed away and ran her hand through her tangled sandy hair. “Auntie…what did he mean, that I might fight invaders? What invaders? Are we going to be fought with, Auntie?” Knowing she would have to tell her intelligent niece the truth about the Yule monsters, Auntie braced herself and spoke. “Fiddlis, first of all you must understand that you are in no danger.” Fiddlis interrupted. “Danger? Ha! I like danger; it likes me. Do not worry about that.” Her blank eyes seemed almost to sparkle as if Auntie had been teasing. “Assuredly, my dear, I do not jest!” Auntie was shocked. One did not make light of the Yule. “Even high in the hills where you and I, your friends and that ironsmith live, we are in danger of becoming prey to a heathen race of monsters.” Fiddlis’s hands punched the air. “Monsters? Goody!” Auntie wrung her hands in distress. “No no, dearie, these monsters are the twisted spirits of the trees! They care not for sanity, nor do they heed sharpened broadswords. Blades bounce off their scaly bark like so many rain drops.” Fiddlis slowly sank to a crouching position. “What about bows and arrows?” she whispered. “Nothing can stop the Yule from destroying their enemies. They are invincible.” Fiddlis felt a sudden cold creep over her flushed face. She brushed away a spider web that floated by her eyelash and felt frantically for the warm stones of Auntie’s floor to sit upon. “Then…if these tree monsters whom we highlanders call the Yule try to attack us here in the village…there is none whom can stop them?” Fiddlis’s merry tanned face grew a shade pale. Auntie sighed, tears pricking the inside of her eyelids. She had never lied to her niece. Fiddlis was too smart to be lied to, she took everything as it was said. “Yes.” The word hung in the middle of the small toasty kitchen, taking the warmth from the marrow and shoving it out through the open wooden door. An angry black cloud passed over the sun and Fiddlis gasped and jumped into her aunt’s lap. “There now, what have we on your face! That is not a look of fear, is it?” Auntie hugged the precious child close. Fiddlis trembled for one second and then jumped down to the ground, her bare feet making no noise. “Fear? Me? Never.” Auntie laughed after the child as she ran out the door and into the dimmed sunlight. Fiddlis ran wildly over the highland moors, loudly braying like a horse and barking like a dog. She scared a flock of sheep and fell into a fresh mountain stream, wetting her ragged dress. The black cloud was soon chased away by her throaty screaming and the sun once more shone down upon the little blind girl. Grinning widely, Fiddlis threw out her arms into the sunlight and twirled around and around until she was dizzy. Falling to the thick moor grass, Fiddlis wondered idly when their Greenleaftime would come. In the lowlands, in Crescent and Warwick, Greenleaftime was already upon the people. Snow had blanketed the heaths and marshes, driving the tender hens to her den and the rabbit to his burrow. Soon the winter would be upon the highlands, sweeping the warm afternoons from Auntie’s cottage and Kentle, the neighboring town. When that time came, Fiddlis would join the other village children in gathering and binding the golden wheat and luscious golden corn; the women would collect their spun wool to knit sweaters and socks for their families, and the men would travel down into the lowlands for hunting. The pine trees that decorated the distant hillsides would bear big prickly cones for homemade gifts, and the holly bushes would grow bright red berries. Fiddlis would chase the skunk into her comfortable hillock home and the bear would disappear from the highlands until the snowtime was over. And all the while, I will be growing big and strong and more able to protect my Auntie from the Yule, Fiddlis thought stubbornly. She believed that the tree beasts of whom Auntie had spoken could be defeated. It just took the right person. Fiddlis’s shaggy brown puppy ran up to her and pushed his wet nose into her palm. The young girl squealed with surprise and threw her arms around her puppy. Together the happy pair wrestled in the mud on the highlands as a great billowing wind blew another black cloud before the sun. Conan groaned and opened his eyes. He could see nothing. A frosty draft hit his skin and he realized his cloak had been taken. His mind was as foggy as the heath mists and the minstrel could recall nothing about what had happened to him. He only remembered that beautiful warm feeling that had pervaded his limbs, melting the stiffness and lowering him to the soft heath grounds. A booming voice bounced off the dark walls. “I see you have awakened.” Conan’s eyes flew open and he pulled against the chain shackle. He tried shouting around the gag but the voice only laughed. Conan slowly became quiet; the laugh was long and rippling. Evil. “I suppose you are wondering where you have been taken, young minstrel,” said the voice after the echoing laugh had died out. “I would also suppose you wish you could see me. I shall tell you…you do not need to see me. I am your master now. Remember that. You are in my dungeon, and I am your master. Nothing else matters in your little life anymore. You will play for me if I set you free, but you will do so in the darkness and you will obey my command. Do you understand, minstrel?” Conan closed his eyes and shrank against the dungeon wall.Conan’s breath was raspy in his own ears. He snarled and pulled again at the shackle and the dissonant jangle was the voice’s answer. There was a pause and the voice resumed. “This is not good, minstrel. You have no other choice now. I am your master; I saved you from freezing last night on the moor. Your life was in my hands, and yet I refused to kill you. In return you must pledge your lute to me. Or I will destroy it.” Conan heard a soft thrum of strings and knew the deep sneering voice had his lute. This time he shivered not from the cold. Rapidly he nodded his assent. “Yes, yes, yes!” he yelled through the gag. His voice was hoarse from the dry dank air. The lute strings softly sounded once more and the voice chuckled. Conan hated for even the rankest of air to be tainted by the cruel sound. “Ah, you are frightened?” said the voice. Conan winced as a wave of blistering breath was blown into his face and he twisted from it. “No,” he said through clenched teeth. The hot claws stopped, twisted in the bonds about his ankles. “You should be.” The breath was scorching and Conan felt a bare patch of skin through his thin trousers wither like a leaf within a camp fire. A sharp, burning claw curled itself around his gag and burnt it free. Conan felt the skin where the claw had touched upon. It was tight and raw, burned. “What do you plan to do with me?” Conan whispered. “I am awaited at the home of king Wenceslas and you hold me up.” The voice growled in laughter. “Wenceslas? Do not play with me, man; that fat old coward was only sending for you to recruit you in his army. Aye, that is the truth. Believe me. I was once a minstrel, just like yourself. I, too, thought that Wenceslas was a wise and brave ruler who loved the Crescentfolk like his own flesh. But it was not so. I sought to play for him and he scorned the gift of music I offered. For many years I tried to make companions of the Crescentfolk, to gain their approval and the king’s mercy, but to no avail. I was exiled for life from my land, from the lush land of Crescent, and exiled from any military protection. Since that day I have hated that pathetic man. He hates me, so we are even. Last night I was seeking to ask forgiveness for my hastened actions, yet still he turned me away! He warned that if I ever stepped foot into his lands again I would be slain. Slain! Minstrel, I was trying to make amends!” The hot breath blew fiercely into the darkness and Conan thought he smelt smoke curling up into the putrid dungeon air. The voice finally calmed down as Conan’s last bond was cut. “I have suffered injustice my whole life, minstrel. You will not be the source of more.” Conan was silent for a long while. He had but one choice. “Very well. I will stay and play my lute for you.” The scorching breath tickled his bare face as Conan’s precious lute was placed gently in his hands. “I am named Northumbrio. You are to call me master.” A rush of hot wind burned the dungeon…and the voice melted into the swirling darkness. Conan felt the sides of his lute. His fingers felt dusty ash where the blazing hands had burnt his instrument. The minstrel groaned and stretched his long legs. What was to become of him now? “So you recognize your betters, minstrel? This is good, very good. It will serve you well.” A chill shadow-feeling swept over Conan as he felt an astonishing searing heat touch his hand. He shuddered and drew back but the heat came closer again and there was a scraping sound as his shackle fell from his neck. Conan could not see the thing that was setting him free, but a painful sensation as if he was standing too close to a fire crawled along his arms as sharp nails cut the ropes. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644720/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:37:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644720/ “Tell us again about the exiled duke!” shouted the children with a rambunctious clamor, their faces flushed from dancing and the firelight. Skerry laughed and bounced a little girl on his knee. “Not that one AGAIN!” he moaned, trying to look fierce and failing. The children only laughed at his disgusted face and yelled louder for the popular tale. No matter how many times Skerry twisted the story around and retold it with grand flourishes, the Crescent children never tired of it. They all boasted to their parents that Skerry was a fine storyteller, although Rhody told the more graceful ones about fairies and golden moonbeams. “As long as that outcast boy does not stray into the realm of blatant monster stories, I am content,” one woman once said to her husband. The children quickly assured her that Skerry’s tales were full of magic and bravery, honest warriors and pure maidens. There was a certain goodness about them that made the children’s heart leapt. But on a night like this one, when the very heaths trembled against the snow-hooded winds, the Crescent youth were thankful for a scary yarn. “Very well, I shall tell you the story,” Skerry finally gave in, “but you must promise not to beg for more when it is over. No one knows what happened to Northumbrio in the end!” The children promised, giggling, and nestled up to each other as Skerry, his black hair like a curled shadow in the firelight behind him and his green eyes cat-like, began his story. “When your village of Crescent was but a young one, and Wenceslas had just been crowned king by his father, there came riding from the shadows of the northlands a tall dark stranger. He claimed to be a minstrel and piped haunting songs on a reed instrument. The Crescentfolk were enchanted by him, and allowed him to stay in their village amongst them. The man called himself Northumbrio and made free with the villagers, piping jigs and death marches on the same day.” “What does a death march sound like, Skerry?” asked a boy. Skerry paused and rubbed his chin. Taking out his drum, he beat several muted, sad beats and hummed in a low tone. “Oh, stop!” cried one little girl, hiding her face in her pink little hands. Skerry soberly put away his drum and resumed the tale. “Wenceslas did not trust the minstrel. He thought that Northumbrio would stir up strife in Crescent and cause a revolt.” “Why would he think that?” asked a thin pale girl. “Had the Crescentfolk been restless?” “That was quick of you, Berrie. Yes, the people had been worried over Wenceslas’s coronation simply because he was so young. They felt such an inexperienced lad could not govern them the way a good king should. Northumbrio, on another matter, was tall, broad and well mannered. He knew how to charm the ladies and impress the men, and the children loved his jests. He gave every sign of having the right kind of leadership the Crescentfolk were seeking. But, children, he was an evil man.” The children, even after hearing the tale over and over, gasped and their eyes grew round. “What did he do?” they yelped. Skerry sighed and leaned back against the warm hearth. “I really do not feel as if I can tell you any more, I am weary…” the children broke into protesting cries and pulled at Skerry’s hands, shaking his shoulders. “We must hear the rest, we simply must!” Skerry cracked one eye open and grinned. “Do you not have pity for a poor slip of a lad who has beat his drum all evening?” he implored with a shaking chin. One girl burst into laughter and shouted “No! Now on with it or you shall have no cake!” Skerry sat up straight. “Well, we mustn’t deprive ourselves, now must we?” he demanded and the children settled back down with big grins. “For several years, the turmoil increased until Wenceslas decided it was time to get rid of the minstrel. He had seen the hidden look in his darting eyes, the shifty plans forming in his mind. Yet Wenceslas, even being a king, could not merely banish one of his subjects without cause, for that would hardly be fair. Instead he waited, amid much pacing and wringing his hands, for Northumbrio to make a false move. But you see, the minstrel had traveled far and wide and had grown wise in the ways of the world and her kings. He abided just inside of the law and never committed anything that could be debated by a jury. He was even made duke of Crescent by her people!” “The rat,” muttered Berrie the girl. Skerry glanced sideways at her. “Yes, he was crafty as a rat. Northumbrio was scheming something and the poor gullible Crescentfolk could not see behind his painted smile.” “I would have,” declared one boy, puffing out his chest until a button popped. His older sister chuckled and began sewing it back it. “I have no doubt you would have been more than able to look right through his dark face and see the treachery he was stewing!” Skerry commended. H enjoyed dragging out this certain story far as it would go, to keep his young audience in suspense. His eyes began to droop and so he hastened to the thrilling part. “Finally one day, a horrible black cloud passed over the surface of the big white moon. It clouded out the silver moonfairies and drove the cats to their cottages. A hot steam arose from the heathlands, a terrible smell with it. Northumbrio blew war lays on his long reed pipe and the Crescentfolk began to mistrust the minstrel. For reasons only known to him and his black mind, Northumbrio needed to get inside the castle. So he strode up to the moat and introduced himself as a court musician. Wenceslas was at once suspicious, but he allowed Northumbrio to enter anyway.” “What?” cried a small boy with a bruise on his knee. “I would not have been so foolish!” Three friends of his quickly sat on his head for talking so about the king. Skerry was silent until they were done scuffling; he did not agree with the king either and secretly admired the child for having such courage. To speak against the king these days was a serious offense. He breathed deeply and looked over at his sister Rhody. She lay asleep in the window seat, the fire light flickering over her tanned face and playing in her rich thick hair. He softly smiled at her and turned a t last once more to the story. “Some time passed while Northumbrio tried to wriggle his way in to the castle. One morning the cook awoke to find a guard slaughtered, stabbed to the heart.” A young girl with dark brown hair groaned. “‘Finally’, thought Wenceslas. ‘I can exile that minstrel from my kingdom!’ Northumbrio was charged with the murder, found guilty during a fair trial by the Crescent jury and court, and was banished from the king’s lands forever. Once, years later, he tried to return. Think on it, children, Northumbrio came back for a short while! No one knew at first, but when their cows stopped giving milk and the heaths grew searing hot, they remembered the minstrel who had so enchanted them and they flushed him out from a nearby hillock and drove him from the town, promising his death if he ever returned.” Skerry snuggled up against the warm hearth stones once more and looked around at the Crescent children. They stared at him. “Some say the exiled duke built for himself a great manor on the snowy peak of a mountain surrounding our heaths. They say Northumbrio looks down on us this very moment, his eyes smoldering and his breath rasping, waiting for innocent travelers to come up his mountain seeking shelter from the Greenleaftime cold and then capturing them for his rebel army. One day, it is rumored, he might return and kill Wenceslas. Any Crescentfolk who might oppose him will be slain.” “I would be loyal to the king,” said one young woman. The other children nodded, all save the little boy with the bruised knee who had spoken against the king earlier. “What of you, Skerry?” asked a child. “Who would you pledge your loyalty to?” Skerry was saved an answer by Rhody, tall and dark and beautiful, suddenly appearing by his side. “It is you bedtime,” she said to the indignant children. “Skerry and I must travel home now.” One the misty road away from Crescent, Skerry draped an arm about his sister, who stopped every now and again to pluck a herb or a strand of marsh grass. The night was cold as they walked farther and father away from the lilting songs in the courtroom and the warm red light. “What will become of us when Northumbrio does return?” Skerry spoke softly but in the still night his voice sounded obscenely loud. “I cannot bring myself under Wenceslas’s ruling. I simply cannot. And I know you would be just as unable to. His motives are wrong, sister. They are very wrong. I cannot possibly tell the children this, but Wenceslas is-” “I know well what he is, brother,” Rhody hushed him. “Dwell not upon that tonight. It was a good night. My peppermint worked well.” Brother and sister walked on in silence for a short while. The Skerry spoke and said, “You heard that little boy, the one who defied the king.” I was not a question. “Yes. I heard him. He was the little boy I treated with my peppermint.” “I like him. Who is he?” “I know not who he may be, but I like him as well. Perhaps he is one of the orphans?” “Would that be grand!” Skerry enthused. “We could take him in and raise him as our own if we wished!” His eyes sparkled, mirroring the stars. “I have always wished for a little brother.” Rhody slipped an arm around Skerry’s waist. “You will have one someday, if it be the way of things.” Skerry was thoughtful as he said, “Sister? Do you suppose we will ever be ransomed from our life here?” “I can only hope so, brother. I can only hope and pray to whoever is listening.” The Fairy was tall and slender. Her long yellow hair sparkled like dewdrops and her eyes were deep brown, like the dark earth her bare feet trod upon. The dress she wore was spun of a special material called Virthum and shimmered about her graceful figure like rain on a rounded stone. The trees whispered over her shining yellow head and a few branches leaned down to stroke the Virthum dress. The Fairy laughed and held out her long brown finger to a small sparrow who was fluttering excitedly on a nearby branch. “Greetings, little sister,” the Fairy said. Her breath smelled like ice. “What a lovely sun shines in the blue heavens!” The bird chirped and alighted on her hand. The Fairy walked on through the sun-dappled woods. How pleasant it was in the Riverlands! Nothing but sun and shade, peace and mystery. No one had ever threatened the Fairies’ power after the Great Wars had been fought and won. The Fairies had indeed been bestowed with respect and honor. Far away, a waterfall gurgled in the twinkling light. At first the immigrant Fairies, driven roughly from their homelands in the Borders, had thought it odd that night never fell in the Riverlands but after a short while, they grew to cherish the omnipresent light. It somehow fed them, nourished them. The moss under the Fairy girl’s feet felt soft and bouncy, and the hidden marble pillars carved amongst the mighty oaks were fraught with twisting vines that sprouted delicate white buds. Here is was always springtime; here the Fairies were safe. The Fairy girl retreated into her home cut into the side of a gently-sloping cliff right before a roiling black cloud covered the Riverland sun. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644719/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:36:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644719/ That night, the wind that swept through Crescent and Warwick and wuthered about the highlands bore a stench that was overpowering. The sober gray trees and their ghostly thin branches shivered beside one another as they howled their lamentations to the silent mountain peaks. Packs of wolves and wild dogs tore at their meat, as if somehow they knew it would be a long while before they partook of fresh kill again. The birds did not sing towards evening but ruffled their feathers worriedly and hopped into their little houses soon after the last scarlet blaze had disappeared. The village cats and dogs paced with restless paws, yowling scathingly if someone happened to cross them wrong or step on their tails. They sensed the horrible black sensation that crept through the night air like so many insects on a spring tree limb. The children did not have to be told to slip into their beds and fall asleep. Their parents decided not to worry at the lack of complaining, however; it had been a long day at the party and their children had danced many steps in their little cloth shoes. Yet still, one good farm wife pricked her finger while she mended a fleecy jacket, and a farmer stalking about his fields shouted in rage at the withered leaves of his vegetables. What was going on? Conan hated the cold rattle of his chains as he was led down the hall by two silent guards. He hated the dull thud of his boots on the dirty flagstones, the tickle of his hair falling in his eyes, the guard’s heavy breathing that sounded too much like a dying thing. Late in the deep darkness, a loud palm had pounded at the dungeon door and a hoarse, shaky voice had shrilly asked whether the minstrel was still alive. Conan recalled the hot rush of indignation that had, for some reason, engulfed him. “Why should I not be alive?” he had yelled back. The door had opened and a stream of blessed light had fallen across the crawling floors. “You are to come with me,” a thin mouse of a man had informed him. So, Conan arose and followed the man out of the dungeon, only to be put in scratchy chains and pulled down the hallway. The minstrel felt broken over his failed mission. He wondered whether his tiny mother had ever traveled to her friend’s home. He remembered the shepherds he had refused to play for, and wondered if they had ever found joy. “Where are we going?” he asked the guard on his right. “What is to become of me?” The guard did not say anything for a long moment. Conan peered closer at the two and noticed a small patch of blackened skin in the shape of a flame burnt into their fingertip. Then the guard looked sideways at the tall minstrel and said, “You are to be musician for Northumbrio, eh?” Conan nodded but we wished he did not have to. “I am taking you to his throne room. He has instructed me to bring you to him. I am taking you to Northumbrio’s throne room.” Conan nearly laughed at the round-about way the guard had said it. “And where will I live?” he asked the other guard, tromping along the hallway with a tight mouth. “Oh, he does not speak,” said the first guard. “The master had his tongue cut out for talking treachery against him.” Conan’s eyes widened and he fell silent. What form of monster was that man? For surely, Northumbrio was not human. Never in his life had the minstrel heard such tales of Wenceslas. Conan cradled his lute in his shackled hands as the guards led him around a shadowed corner and halted before a big wooden door. The first guard turned, his burnished armor glinting in the light of several bracketed torches, and his yellow eyes seemed to pierce Conan’s stony expression. “Not a cross word,” the guard hissed, spit flying from his mouth and sparkling in the glimmering torches, “or you may find yourself not better off than him.” He jerked his scummy finger back at his mute fellow. Conan forced himself to nod and the guard opened the door. It swung on its hinges with a creak and slammed against the wall inside. Conan felt a harsh shove at his back and reluctantly walked into a dimly lit room. The room was sparsely adorned. A small table with lions paws for legs stood in the center, and something round covered with a milky white cloth had been placed upon it. The floor was a polished marble and several crumpled maps lay in a cobwebbed corner. Conan looked across the room and to his left, and there was a great window made of frosty glass leading out onto a balcony. The window was open and long dark red curtains rippled in a foul-smelling breeze. Conan hugged his lute closer to his chest and stood, chilly and feeling ridiculously tall and awkward, in the middle of the stark room. Suddenly he heard a long deep chuckle that vibrated off his lute strings and his eyes were drawn to the cold white balcony window as a massive black figure silhouetted itself against the stern gray sky. Conan refused to cower back as the looming figure stepped inside the room and the shadows sharpened his blurry features. It was a man, broad shouldered and sharp-chinned, wearing a heavy black cloak and twisting his huge sinewy hands together. His skin was dusky and leathery, his boots were stub nailed and his nose was big and straight. All this Conan took in a single glance before looking into the man’s eyes. The minstrel gave a small gasp and stepped back, holding his lute tight. The man’s eyes were orange and flickering, like fire. They burned into his until Conan felt a physical warm prickle and averted his gaze. The deep choking chuckle came again. “So. This is my new minstrel.” Conan did not move. His chains suddenly felt very tight and the blood pounded like a waterfall in his head. Those bright fiery eyes… “Well, man, what did you expect? I am Northumbrio. Are you shocked? I can see that you are.” “You know nothing of what I feel,” Conan snapped defensively. It tore at his soul that his jolly countenance had fled. Yet there was no inkling of hope in him. It was as if his very spirit had been burnt out in the dungeon. “Did my guards happen to mention that I read minds?” Northumbrio said. His voice was oddly muffled, as if he were chewing something. Conan started violently and held up his lute as if it could protect the prying magic from entering his head. Northumbrio grinned wildly. His teeth were large and white. “Yes,” he went on, “I can read them as you might read a book. Your joy was burnt out. You belong to me now, and soon you will feel nothing save what I wish you to feel.” The notion sickened Conan. “Your life here will be easy. Obey my command, play well, and you might live to be a well-tempered aid. Defy my ruling, try to run away or show any signs of rebelliousness and you will be tortured. Try to stir up my people against me and the punishment is slow death. Do you understand, minstrel?” Conan fought the urge to curse Northumbrio in his mind. “I understand, master.” His voice grated around his clenched teeth. Northumbrio turned his flaming eyes on him once more; Conan willed himself not to tremble. “Say that again.” Conan gulped. “Yes, master.” He forced his voice to be pleasant and obedient. The man nodded grimly and stepped to his little lion paw table. He withdrew the white cloth and there, sitting on the smooth table surface, was a clear sphere about the size of Conan’s fist. Northumbrio stroked the bluish purple ball with a thick finger. “Come closer and see,” he cooed. Conan moved forward, his chains sounding like thunder in his ears. “Look into it,” Northumbrio said. His voice was hypnotic. Conan looked sideways at the skin between his master’s eyes, avoiding the flickering orange pupils, and then looked down into the ball. It was as if mists had been caught and trapped inside the hard glass sphere and lighted with cold white fire. Conan felt suddenly hot and freezing. He lowered his lute and set it upon the ground. Slowly he put his hands on the table as the glittering swirls danced in his eyes. Northumbrio smiled and stepped aside for his minstrel to realize his master’s complete control over his life. It would not take long for those saucy thoughts to be purged from Conan’s mind, oh no. He would see to that. His little ball was the first step, a mighty step. It had worked innumerable times in the past with everyone he had taken to the dungeon and lured up to his room. This poor excuse for a wandering musician would be no different. Conan felt his body grow light as he swayed gently to music only he could hear. It thrummed inside of him and made his feet yearn to dance about the cold floor. His chains shook like thick marsh water and dissolved, melting into the air. Conan smiled happily. He was content to watch the dancing lights inside the sphere all day. They enchanted him, they made him mesmerized with their beauty, which was ten times fairer than the sprightliest village lass. Suddenly a burning desire to touch the sphere, to cup it in his palms, swept over Conan. Northumbrio laughed, low and throaty. Not long now… His hand shaking, the minstrel allowed his fingers to hover over the glinting glass sphere. How beautiful, how perfect it was. One inch and he would feel the crystalline side, half an inch, nearly there… The tip of Conan’s long finger alighted soft as heather upon the sphere. A shrill, jolting madness overcame him, a ripping burning sensation that knocked him to the ground with a heavy thud. His head swam and tears sprang into his eyes. The minstrel screamed aloud as a biting acid tore into the flesh that had touched upon the sphere. It grew more and more painful, digging into his nerves and searing his bone. “Make it stop, I beg of you, master!” Conan yelled. The pain was growing and spreading up into his hand. “Please, make it stop!” Northumbrio looked down with disgust as his new slave cringed upon the floor, curling his whole body around his hand. In his bliss he hardly heard Conan’s screams but finally he sighed and bent down. He spat something out of his mouth and pressed it to the fingertip like a mother healing a child’s burn with a piece of ice from her rain barrel. Instantly Conan grew silent and hissed his breath in through his teeth as a cold tingle pervaded through the pain, banishing it and leaving him weak and helpless upon the floor. He felt Northumbrio breathing on him, and his breath seemed to grow hotter and hotter. Conan realized vaguely that it had been Northumbrio in the dungeon with him, burning him. Burning out his old self. “You have seen what my power is capable of,” the huge man said, hefting himself to his feet and walking over to a corner in the room. He pulled from a leather pouch at his side a lump of something creamy. He held it up, breathing with a rasp. The room was growing warmer. “Do you know what this is, minstrel?” Conan was too weary to answer or care; he lay exhausted upon the floor, tenderly waiting for the burning frost to leave his finger. “This, man, is a special kind of ice. I chew it so I will not set my manor afire when I breathe.” Grinning morbidly Northumbrio popped the cream-colored lump into his mouth and sucked on it. “You felt that heat in the dungeon because I did not happen to carry these down with me. Good thing, too. You were a dangerous rebel when you arrived. Now you are my cowering slave. You will do my bidding and no one else’s. You will play your lute for me, and fight in my armies if I so wish it. You are mine, Conan. And merely to prove this to you, look at your finger where you touched my sphere.” Conan turned aching eyes to his throbbing finger. On it was the black brand of a flame, as he had seen upon the two guards. He groaned inwardly from sheer hatred and laid his head back upon the floor. The last thing Conan heard before slipping into a black oblivion was Northumbrio laughing to himself. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644718/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:35:01 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644718/ Fiddlis woke up early the next morning with a prickly feeling that something was very wrong. She reached out for her comb and tugged it through her sandy tangles. Then she slipped out of her warm bed, flung a blanket about herself and walked barefoot into the kitchen. Fiddlis peered around, wishing she could see. The fire had burnt itself out, for a cold wind curled around her bare knees, and when she groped her way through the blackness, wondering for the hundredth time what the sunrise looked like creeping over the highland hills, she felt for the door and it was hanging wide open. “Auntie?” she called out, her voice sounding small and insignificant in the eerie calm that had smothered her village. Fiddlis cocked her head but heard no children laughing, no tromping boots of farmers headed for their fields, no chattering women. A nasty smell hung in the air, making the little girl wrinkle her nose. She puckered her pink lips and whistled for her puppy. She let some time pass before whistling again; Puppy often wandered the moors, he was probably too far away for his silken ears to hear. Yet after five whole minutes, in which Fiddlis shifted her weight from one foot to another, chewed her nails and cursed her blindness, Puppy still had not come. “Auntie?” she called again. Her voice, even to herself, sounded like a mournful wail. Fiddlis waited but heard nothing. Hot tears sprang to her eyes and she savagely wiped them away. “I will not cry. Perhaps Auntie took Puppy out for a walk.” Fiddlis secretly doubted this, and wished that she had named her puppy before he disappeared like this. Feeling very alone and trying not to let the bubbling fear grow stronger within her, the young girl walked out into the dusty road, kicking up several smooth pebbles as she felt them touch her bare foot. Usually there was always a teasing boy running up to pull at her hair or a kindly girl who pressed a cookie into her hand, but today there was no one. There came to Fiddlis’s finely-tuned ears not a sound, not even a bird singing on the highlands. No goats cried out, no kittens rubbed around their doorposts with their loud purring noises. Fiddlis shivered and realized a darkness had covered the sun. What manner of evil was this? Fiddlis walked on through her silent village as the stinking wind played with her sandy hair and blew into her blank eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly from amongst the shadows of a furze bush, their arose a twisty grotesque figure. It looked like a tree, huge and hulking and knobbly, with a great lush tangle of leaves for hair and a face etched with rough bark. It carefully moved through the furze bushes, rustling them ever so slightly with his great spindly arms of bark-like flesh. Fiddlis froze in her tracks and wondered to herself what that crunching noise behind her was. “Auntie?” she inquired hopefully. The crunching, which now sounded like the footsteps of something heavy, halted for one moment and then resumed, coming nearer and nearer to the little trembling figure before him. Fiddlis’s breath came faster and she desperately wished for her little dirk. A hot stinking breath was blown into her face, making her wince. “Auntie?!” she yelled as there came a crash and a whoosh of wind right before her. She heard a low snarl and gasped. Fiddlis whirled around on her heel and began running through her blackness as heavy hulking footsteps crushed the earth behind her. “My king!” Wenceslas was jolted from a deep sleep as his advisor Melchior strode into his private chambers, silver cape billowing out behind him. His bright blue eyes pierced into Wenceslas’s sleep-blurred sterling ones. “What…what is it, Melchior?” He had apparently fallen asleep lying across his bed, and he hurriedly attempted to regain some of his dignity as he faced his tall thin advisor. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” Melchior snapped. His hawk nose was turned up disdainfully. Wenceslas cocked an eyebrow. His old advisor was the only one whom he would ever allow to speak thus about him. “Have you not seen the black sickness that is gripping Crescent and Warwick by her throat? Have you not heeded the angry bulbous clouds that poison the sky?” Melchior tramped to the window and pulled back the heavy blue curtains. Instead of being stricken by bright morning light, Wenceslas looked out into a darkness nearly black as night. The king stood up quickly, hissing through his teeth. “Northumbrio!” he rasped. “He must be working his evils again.” “No doubt he is,” Melchior quipped dryly. “Never has there been such a faminous plague to kill off all the vegetation. Stroll through your fields, oh king, there is nothing left alive in the way of food.” Wenceslas heard hinted bitterness in Melchior’s words. “And what of my people?” he demanded. “Are they safe?” Melchior turned slowly to look at his king. He rose to his full height and slowly walked around the bed, rubbing his wrinkled hands and looking beadily at the man sitting confused on his bed. “What do you care of your people?” he suddenly cried out. “I know who you really are, Wenceslas; you are merely playing the part until my plans are fulfilled, which will be sooner than you think.” There was a mutinous expression flaming in his eyes. “We have known each other for many a great long year, boy. I know who you are hiding behind that kingly exterior.” Wenceslas’s breath came fast and his face grew taut. “I will not be insulted like this, Melchior. You are to keep these things to yourself.” The two men stared defiantly at one another and finally Melchior sighed and looked away. “Your people are fine…as of yet. My men have dealt with them, they will not be a hindrance to the furthering of…of what we seek to gain.” “Good.” Wenceslas spit out the word and it fell to the floor like a piece of iron. He got up and paced restlessly, a wild glint suddenly appearing in his eye. “Alert our…your men that things are being put together like so many pieces to a puzzle. My people will soon know who I am.” This was said with a sneer. Melchior bowed. “Very good, your majesty.” He swept from the room, leaving a cold hard sensation behind him. A gray shadow moved like water through a fresh pine glen. The lithe figure stopped in front of an elaborately carven pine trunk and reached out a calloused hand to stroke the sacred symbols. When would their Redeemer come? Rhody laughed merrily and stroked the soft red fabric. “Will this make a fine cloak, brother?” Skerry looked up from his whittling and grinned. “Where did you get that beautiful stuff?” Skerry and his sister were sitting inside their cozy tree house, feeding the fire and mending cloth. The rotten stench outside, rising hot from the heaths, had no power against the smoky essence inside, and no cold winds blew around the deerskin doorway nailed to the opening Skerry had cut. It was a happy, peaceful feeling, the feeling that Rhody felt as she let Skerry feel the rich red cloth with strong fingers. “I was able to get it in the marketplace at Warwick.” Skerry suddenly looked up. “Warwick?” he said in a low voice. “Warwick is ruled by the king, Rhody.” Rhody hugged the unfinished cloak to her chest and stared right back at her brother. “Skerry, the king rules, yes, but his people are all individual. I know you have seen terrible things at the king’s hand; so have I. Yet we cannot let our hearts burn for a fire that will be stomped out one day.” Skerry leaned back, his whittling forgotten, and eyed Rhody’s strong brown face. “Explain further, I do not understand,” he said. Rhody stroked the cloak like she would a kitten as she spoke, her brow wrinkled as she tried to convince herself of the wild rumors. “One day, if it be so the will of fate, a Redeemer might come and banish all thoughts of fear and hatred from our hearts. We will not need to hate the king or scorn his people, as they have scorned us in the past. We must look ahead, brother, to what life could be instead of what it is now.” Skerry’s lips curled up in a slight smile. He loved his sister. “So you truly think this Redeemer will assuredly come to help the Crescentfolk?” Rhody straightened her jaw. “I think the Redeemer will come to help everyone, not just those who dwell in our old village. If he ever does come.” These last words were said with hesitation. Skerry opened his mouth to say something when they heard a horse’s hooves pounding the ground and stop with a whinny outside their tree. Skerry’s vibrant green eyes glittered when he heard an accented voice say, “Come out in the name of our good and loyal king Wenceslas the Second.” Rhody gracefully got up, looking more like an elf than ever, and pushed the deerskin flap aside. “How can we help you?” she said once Skerry had stepped out behind her and stood, tall and broad-shouldered, ready to fight if there was any trouble. The soldier on the frothing horse unrolled a scroll and said, “By proclamation of the King, whosoever once dwelled in the good town of Crescent must come at once to be counted there, and likewise in Warwick. The King further states that any and every able-bodied young man must be recruited in his army.” Skerry and Rhody turned to stare at each other, open-mouthed. “That means you, boy,” said the soldier sarcastically before spurring his horse and thundering down the dirty road. Rhody sighed and took her brother’s hand in hers. “What shall we do now?” she asked, resisting the urge to begin sobbing upon her brother’s shoulder. Skerry tightened his features and shook his head. “The very man I have sworn to hate until I die…we cannot do it, sister. I cannot. I could never in my lifetime, thought I might live to be a hundred, bring myself to forgive that hypocrite for what…for what he did you our parents, what he did to your life-” Rhody interrupted with a broken sob. “Skerry, please, do not bring up those memories for me again. I wish never, ever to relive those things. I want to forgive!” “That may be impossible, sister. You may not be able to forgive Wenceslas.” http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644717/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:35:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644717/ The tall Fairy man, the dewdrop crown encircling his forehead indicating his elected kingship, leaned back in his great oaken chair. He sat stroking his sharp bearded chin as the young page before him recounted his tale. “I was walking through the woods, admiring the snow shining on the distant mountains and the birds singing in and out through the sun dapples, when there came a terrible black cloud that blotted out our precious Riverland sun and gave me piercing chills. The creatures fled to their homes and the wind died in the grass…and then came the foul odor. Such a stench as I have never known to invade my senses overwhelmed me, rendering me stupid until I gathered my strength to command my legs to move away from the glen.” The Fairy children took great joy in spinning wild yarns…but somehow the Fairy king, sitting thoughtfully silent on his big oak throne, did not believe the young boy was leading him astray from the truth. Indeed he had smelled a deathly pallor to the winds that rustled their green leaves and no woodland creatures had visited their dwelling that morning. The Riverland woods had become silent and still. No such restless peace had permeated the rich black earth, the sparkling white streams, the creatures of the woods and forests since the Great War, when the Fairies fought against the men for the Riverlands and, after a long, bloody battle in which many men and Fairies alike were slain, eventually won. “What did you do then?” asked the king in his great rolling voice. He reached over and with long fingers poured the scattered page a bronze goblet full of a sweet thick liquid. “I forced my legs to walk on through the forest, in the direction of your Cliffside dwelling, oh my king,” said the page, taking a sip of the offered drink. The stuff burned down his throat like fire and his clear purple eyes watered. Coughing, he continued. “When I was but a good stone’s throw from your guard starting a shift at your door, I heard a high-pitched scream, as that of a human girl-child undergoing intense suffering.” The page’s smooth face grew pale as the king leaned forward, urging him to resume with his obsidian black eyes. “It…it was the most frightening thing I have ever heard.” The page took a gulp of his drink and grimaced at the scathing feeling. “I am sure that a small girl was in pain. I do not care for the human race any more than you do, my king, but a plague-curse strike me if ever I wish such agony upon any living thing.” The Fairy king shook his head thoughtfully and traced a circle on the cedar wood flooring at his sandaled feet. His features did not betray any emotion but in the depths of his soul, the Fairy was a peaceful creature. His page’s story troubled him deeply. The boy finished his drink and shuddered. He set the bronze goblet down upon the shining cedar floors and the clink sounded like a crash in the disturbing lull. The stench outside was stronger than it had been. The two Fairies regarded each other with bright solemn eyes. “What are your orders, oh king?” inquired the page softly. The king was aroused from his dark thoughts and he blinked his raven black eyes. “I will call a council,” he decided. “I can sense Evil in the tainted airs. We must be prepared to stand and fight and even die for a counter-cause against it.” Conan looked over at the plain leather jerkin, the creamy sleeves of his lace-up shirt and the heavy black boots stuck all over with glinting silver nails, each as sharp as a two-edged sword. A weighty black cloak, designed for the constant onslaughts of freezing rain and furious blizzards, had been flung over his straw mattress. It looked like a crumpled dead thing, lying there on his cot. A dead body, that was it. Twisted beyond recognition. The minstrel’s lute he cradled in his arms, gently stroking the burns Northumbrio had given to its worn wooden sides. His master seemed to have burning blood, breath of fire, eyes of coal…and yet he had come from a northern land. Conan did not wish to fear him but the exiled duke’s ominous presence was on every loose flagstone, ever jagged castle spire and each beady red eye that blinked up from the shadows. Joy and laughter had no place there. Northumbrio’s world was one of blistering cold and searing heat. It was one where unkindness was encouraged. The kind of environment where, a day ago, Conan would have taken no part in. Yet whenever the minstrel tried to think a single thought against his master or try to regain a little bit of his former passion, a terrific pain would bit into his mind, numbing him until his relented to what was assuredly his master’s mind-reading powers. Conan hated it. He hated it ardently but Northumbrio seemed not to care whether his new slave agreed with his barbarous terms and let Conan be when he cursed his master’s hold over his spirit. It was a very subtle form of torture, this degradation of his instilled morals and motives, and slowly the remnants of Conan’s old life that had survived the dungeon and the shock of the sphere as being broken down into shards of depression, misery and hatred. During this black time Conan could not help but dare and think about his little mother, the people he had plucked his battered lute for. When Conan was a little boy, he had dreamed of the grand adventures and multitude of brave deeds he would perform with a merry countenance and a strong sense of right and wrong. But now, in his austere cell room, the young minstrel finally noticed and heeded for the first time the slow stripping of any hope he might still have cherished within his ardent soul. There came a soft knock at Conan’s door and he was startled up from his gloomy thoughts. Walking warily he opened the door, shivering slightly at the echoing creak, to find a bedraggled young girl carrying a tray of food with bandaged hands. Her hair was gray and straggly, her mournful dark-ringed eyes dull and listless blue, her dress a mess of painstakingly-sewn patches. She said not a word, but held the tray out to Conan. Conan took the tray gingerly from her hands and looked down at his first meal in Northumbrio’s castle: a small dry piece of meat, some runny soup and a rusty cup of water, frozen in the middle. The little girl, certainly no older than six, looked up at Conan with a strange expression. She gave a little thrill and put a trembling hand out towards him. Conan, keeping his eyes upon the sickly child as if she might suddenly vanish, carefully set down his tray and reached his hand out to hers. The two touched ever so slightly and then with a shuddering, convulsive cough the girl jerked her hand away and sank to the cold stones, hacking. Conan should have knelt down beside the girl and wrapped his long arms about her, murmured soothing words into the pointy red ears and rocked her back and forth like his mother used to do with him when he had experienced a fright…yet he found himself staring down at the quaking figure as a strange, almost enjoyable sensation pulsing in his veins. What foul devilry was this, to relish a young girl’s sickness? Conan felt the familiar prickle of Northumbrio’s power invading his mind as he reached down a hand to help the little girl up. She stared at him and, perhaps for the first time in years, an emotion flickered in her lazy eyes. An emotion, something like surprise or fondness, perhaps a little fear. Yet mostly there was a hopeful kind of wistfulness about her. Conan ignored the growing ache in his head as the rough bandages on the girl’s thin hands scratched his palms. He helped the girl up and did something he would regret for a long while. He squeezed her shoulders as an encouragement and pushed her gently down the hall. As Conan turned to pick up his tray, a ferocious scream split apart in his head and shook his sense until they felt empty and diminished. It was through tear-filled eyes that he watched the girl walk rigidly down the hallway once more, her hands hanging lumped and useless at her side, until she turned a corner. Conan stumbled to his feet, barely able to bear the burning pain in his mind, and tripped into his room. Flinging himself on his cot the young minstrel clutched at his head and silently screamed out every word of praise and reverence he could possibly think of, directed towards Northumbrio in a wild rambling stream. “You are wise and powerful, just and good, you care for your people and I am but a slave in your hands,” he cried out, sweat making his contorted face slick. “I meant no offense, no harm was intended, the child just looked so helpless and pitiful, I somehow HAD to help it but now I see this was wrong of me…” Gradually the pain began to wear off and Conan found himself truly thanking the monster that had controlled his mind. “Master…you are good and fair and I thank you for what you did to me, do teach me a lesson.” Conan sat up, his eyes flashing. “I will never show love nor kindness to a living thing again if you do not so wish it.” From in his high cold tower, Northumbrio laughed to himself. His breath made thick steam in the air and he popped a bit of his special creamy ice into his mouth. Talking around it, the huge dusky man looked at his sphere and said “The last bit of rebellion has been burnt out. Now begins the training.” A tall man, about nineteen, walked through the rambling woods, his dark green cloak trailing along the withered pine needles. He did not stray from the path but measured his steps carefully with slate gray eyes that reflected the somber light touching off from the dense forest floor. Slowly the trees thinned out and gave way to a crude camp. Shelters had been erected out of leaf-laden branches cut from the trees, and strong strips of leather used to tie the branches into a kind of lean-to. Several campfires flickered on the breeze-turned leaves and a deer roasted slowly over the cheery red embers. Men all clad in green cloaks with glistening sword hilts at their belts rested against the shuddering pines or sharpened their intricately-carved swords with quiet, rhythmic scrapes. One of the men’s swords caught the light shimmering off several tiny white moon fairies who danced every night in the beams when the moon was visible to the bare eye. The light bounced from the sword onto the young man as he entered the camp. “Lorn, where have you been?” asked the man with the sword. Lorn shielded his eyes from the glint and worked his strong squarish jaw as he sat down next to his companion. “I walked the length of the woods and halfway up ever mountain; I saw nor heard anyone,” Lorn answered wearily. For one so young, his voice was husky and deep. His companion, a massive redhead called Gorn, chuckled. “Did you look inside the trees?” he teased. Lorn cocked an eyebrow. “Was I commanded to do so?” he answered. “You might have had better luck had you looked inside the tree trunks; I hear the outcast brother and sister live inside a big tree at the side of the highway by themselves.” Lorn said nothing but rested his chin on the leather lacing of his shirt. His sandy brown hair fell across his face. After a while he said, “What makes the brother and sister defy our king and become rebel outcasts, wanted by every lawman from Crescent to Warwick and beyond?” Gorn gave a loud guffaw and said “Who knows what makes these crazy nonconformists act as they do. Their intentions are purely selfish, I can tell you that much.” Lorn was confused. “Yet is King Wencelsas not right and just?” Gorn turned and stared at his young friend, not saying a word. “Is he not?” Lorn pressed. Gorn coughed and clambered to his feet. “I am not able to say a cross word of Wencelsas; thus, I will say nothing.” Gorn turned a walked to his lean-to. Lorn relaxed against a thick tree trunk and slowly stroked the king’s emblem embroidered upon his inner jerkin. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644716/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:34:01 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644716/ In the village of Crescent, the good townspeople were milling about, chattering excitedly. News traveled quickly in such small proximities and goings-on such as this was big news indeed. The foul smell that burned along the heaths and withered the grass in its growing seemed not to bother the Crescentfolk as they gathered in the town square. Their murmuring drove the guards mad as they shoved the persistent people back into their cottage doorways. Angry shouts could be heard rising above the crowd and the overpowering smell now and then, blotting out the whining children and swirling the dust. Someone had defied King Wenceslas. The rumors were to remain spineless until the rebel himself showed his face in amongst the Crescentfolk, but by word of mouth the folk found out that it might be the young outcast Skerry, who had revolted privately against the king years back and thus lived alone with his sister in a tree by the side of the highway. The young man, surely no older than eighteen, and his sister were allowed and sometimes even welcome within Crescent and the neighboring kingdom of Warwick, yet always there was a kind of tension between the two outcasts and the people, who could never fully understand nor accept why the king’s ways were wrong in Skerry’s eyes. Perhaps the boy knew something about Wenceslas that they did not. Either way, the Crescentfolk could care less. All they thought of early that eventful morning was how strange to hear of a rebel being brought to justice…of his own free will. “I hear the boy turned himself in,” said one grisly farmer. “Right stupid of him, I would say. Eh, woman?” he turned to his wife and said. “What think you of all these odd affairs?” His wife, a short portly lady with a thick yellow bun of hair, bit her lip in apathy. “I do hope they will not execute him,” she said with a worried wringing of her hands, “we have not had a hanging in a dozen years and I do not aim to encourage another.” Her tall burly husband grunted. “I suppose that is up to the jury and the King to decide, and then we will be given the outcast to flog him out of town or hang him, or whatever else the decision tells us to do to him.” His wife shuddered and leaned against his corded arm as the dust flew thick about the tromping feet of their fellow Crescentfolk. They, too, were anxious about what was to come. Always those who dared to defy King Wenceslas hid in the forest or made a living in the harsh highlands; some stories had been told of rebels finding refuge among the Fairies in the Riverlands. A few old biddies thought the girl Rhody might have had a Fairy mother, who wished her baby to grow up within a civil community. This tale, however, was discouraged because the Fairies had long since made it clear that they believed their life in the Riverland to be the more distinguished. Some tales held by the opinion that Rhody had been born to the Fairies and then spirited away by an enemy or a jealous lover along with her little brother, who at that time must have been only a toddling child. The Crescentfolk still remembered seeing a baby being laboriously carried into their small kingdom by a little boy, one who would grow up and defy Wenceslas. Such a sweet charming little thing he had been, too! He had lived with various townspeople and even taken to court to be christened Johnathon at the age of five, but he scorned the common name and stubbornly called himself Skerry. “My name be Skerry,” he would declare. “And this be my sister, my little sister Rhody.” H was so insistent that the given names were forgotten and the siblings became Rhody and Skerry, of no land. Being so young, neither could remember from whence they had come or if they were meant to be going somewhere. They lived their lives freely and happily, playing with the Crescentfolk’s children like any other happy kingdom child, and helping out in the fields to gather food for the winter. Rhody learned how to sew and bake, clean and sketch lovely pictures with charcoal on a smooth piece of wood and Skerry learned how to fell a tree, hunt in the thick forests and raise sheep. Yet the siblings maintained a vague kind of wistfulness, as if they had forgotten something vital to their full joyfulness. They could not altogether by happy with the kingdom dwellers, and the Crescentfolk could not deign somehow to learn the art of herbaltry Rhody offered to teach them, nor the art of beautiful storytelling Skerry was gladly willing to give to them. Then the fatal day came. No one really knew what happened in the rain and miserable winds that autumn morning, they only heard the Skerry had fallen from the King’s favor and Rhody had scorned a soldier who had been making wild advances towards her. The two siblings agreed that the only wise thing to do was to make themselves outcasts. They left Crescent in the driving rain, carrying with them only a few belongings, for the hollow tree on the main highway. Wenceslas had been furious; he hastily ordered that Skerry and Rhody had been turned out because of their unmoral defiance to him and thus, the King kept his role and title clear in the eyes of his people. They suspected nothing and assumed Skerry and Rhody had committed an offense against their king, and deserved to be thrown out. It was made official that, though the siblings were not banished from Crescent and Warwick, they were not to be fraternized with. This decree broke Rhody’s heart, and nearly severed it in two when a terrible plague struck Wenceslas’s people. She could do little but administer herbs to them, when deep down her healing powers stirred restlessly. She had been forbidden to totally cure any of the sick Crescentfolk, and even thought it was a stupid and unfair law, she had to abide by it. She would not cause her brother nor their reputation as vague helpers any more division. At least she was able to aid them, if only distantly. Yet if the Crescentfolk felt any qualms about condemning one of their most valuable resources, if die he must for whatever offense he committed, they did not show it. Instead there was a restless excitement. Something was about to happen! Finally, after months of snow and sleet and biting wind, after months of watching Skerry and his sister try to make peace with them, this must be some sort of climax. Their shadowy king would assuredly reveal something about his character. As the Crescentfolk began gathering in the town square for an explanation, they thought over the years in which Wenceslas had reigned. Thinking himself to be look upon as too young to rule, the King had become elusive, hardly showing anything about his morals, his character, his honest ranking. He issued out orders that were to be obeyed at all costs, the most forced being never, EVER to defy him or question his authority. Any cross word was punishable by means of slow death or permanent exile. Needless to say, the Crescentfolk did not need two warnings about this. They lapsed into a ignorant complacency and cared not whether the King was a truly good man. This was dangerous for them, but so far there had been nothing to give them much cause to worry. All this was about to change. Rhody ran her long brown hand along the blood-colored fabric. Late into the night, she had sat awake sewing a cloak. Why she was sewing so furiously, fast enough to prick her fingers, she had no idea. It was like a wild kind of energy she needed to release from her troubled spirit. She and Skerry had talked long and hard into the night and finally came to a decision. It was a painful one, perhaps the most painful thing they had ever decided to attempt. A rash act, it would be called later, done by rash people. Yet in Rhody’s thinking, rash was better than silent in a world of loud voices proclaiming falsities. Nothing was truth. Truth had seemingly vanished from the face of King Wenceslas’s lands, there was nothing that could be legally fought for or against. It was all smothered. The Crescentfolk, look through rosied eyes though they foolishly may be doing, were being drawn into a shadow of fear, of doubt, of Evil. Evil was lurking in the hot suffocating heathlands, in the wild western winds, in the snow brought by icy invaders of old who were threatening to come back and haunt the kingdom’s towns and villages once more. Wenceslas promised protection from any harm as long as his people remained true to him. It was wrong. It was wrong and it was maddening, but the foolish people were becoming slow to think about their well-being and lazy to make a difference in their slowly-disappearing morality. For indeed, their very cores, the depths of their souls, were being craftily taken out from under them. All this Rhody and Skerry knew to be true. Convincing their old people otherwise was a greater task. That was why, despite his sister’s tears and pleadings and threats, Skerry was admitting to his disobedience of Wenceslas’s new ruling and turning himself to the authorities. They could do with him as they wished, but at least the Crescentfolk might have an idea as to what other alternative morality was offered to them by the hidden goodness of mankind. Rhody was to remain in the tree on the highway, to guard it and keep soldiers away and also to heal any who might be in need of her unusual medicinal knowledge. Rhody shuddered as the firelight played over the soft cloak, taking the warm fabric and turning the rich blood red into an evil bloodthirsty pallor. The tall dark girl nearly threw the cloak into the fire for the memories it summoned up in her mind, but her brother needed that cloak to stay warm and it was her duty to allow him to take it and own it. “It is beautiful,” he had said. “If I go to my death in Crescent, I will die wearing this red cloak you have sewn for me.” A single glittering tear coursed down Rhody’s strong coffee-colored cheek; she realized it and wiped it vehemently away. Skerry himself came in, carrying a large pheasant. Rhody dropped the bloody red cloak to the earthen floor and threw herself into his warm strong embrace. The siblings held on to each other, rocking slowly back and forth, wondering whether this would be the last night they would have to look into each other’s eyes. “She may have been warned never to listen to strange men,” said the officer. He fondled King Wenceslas’s emblem on his chest and grinned cat-like to himself. “Well, that will soon change. Soon after that strange brother of hers leaves, you will advance to her home and keep working on her womanly soul until she relents to our power.” The officer heard a small gasp from the young soldier he was barking orders at and hastily corrected himself. “Uh, erm…W-w-Wenceslas’s powers, I meant. Yes, our good King Wenceslas the Second has powers that work through us and around us, dwell inside of us and shape the very way be think about ourselves and our fellow man.” Without knowing it, the commanding officer was quoting a book written by the King’s ageless advisor, Melchior. The book had been published and spread abroad, and virtually everyone had read it…or should have. The officer whirled around to face the soldier he was speaking to. He had to tilt his head back slightly in order to look directly into the expressionless gray eyes. Lorn was a tall young man, a newer soldier who still had much to learn. But surely this task was not beyond his reckoning. “Do you understand, soldier?” asked the officer sharply, emphasizing the word soldier. Lorn squared his jaw, determined to set a good example for the little drummer boys and younger soldiers. “I do, sir. I understand perfectly.” http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644715/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:34:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644715/ Fiddlis felt the rushing warmth in her body before her blind aching eyes even opened. She moaned and turned over in what she took to be a huge soft bed. The bed felt warm and delicious under her tired limbs and the pillows she was flattening with her weary head were deep and bouncy. It felt just like her own dear little bed, sitting in a messy corner in Auntie’s house, but ten times larger and warmer. Fiddlis let a hand drop down over the side of the bed and she felt cozy air embrace it. What lovely place was this? The faint smell of pine and strong sweet candy hung like a mist in the air. Fiddlis shook the sleep from her head and propped herself upon one elbow, cocking her head this way and that, trying to catch a sound that might tell her where she had been taken. The little girl heard a gentle swishing creak, like wind through ice-coated branches, but little else. Fiddlis tipped her head back until she was resting in her big pillow again, enjoying the warmth touching her face, making her pale cheeks rosy again. Surely this place was a heavenly one! Fiddlis was just beginning to drift off into a happy slumber once more when her sharp ears caught the sound of a gentle footfall. She blinked her unseeing eyes and turned her head towards the sound of a heavy door opening. “Who is there?” she muttered sleepily. The door closed and the footsteps, along with the comforting rustle of soft thin fabric on the floor, tickled Fiddlis’s ears. Fiddlis sensed a presence halting before her and she guessed it was a tall woman by the floating flowery scent and a soft slender hand that reached down to stroke her forehead. “I see you are awake,” said a kindly voice. It was warm and soft, like a mother, and Fiddlis was reminded of her dear old Auntie. “Where am I?” she asked shyly, hiding her nose under the velvety covers. Whoever had touched her was a great lady, not a common villager. She felt the bed dip slightly at her feet and sat up, reaching out to hands to touch the lady settling herself on the bed. “In good hands,” the lady answered. “My name is Stara Underwild and I will be caring for you over the next few days. You were badly hurt, my dear little girl-child.” Fiddlis rested her hand on Stara’s soft slippery dress and felt confused. “I can recall nothing,” she said, muddled. “How was I hurt? And where am I?” Stara gave a small sigh and gently rested her hand upon Fiddlis’s head. “You were attacked by a wretched Yule monster,” she said carefully. “Some of our men heard you crying out in pain, and ran with bows and arrows flying thick from their fingers to your aid. You had been hurt, tripped up by the Yule’s roots and then bashed over the head by one of their heavy wooden cudgels.” Fiddlis shivered and reached up to touch her head. It had been bandaged with a piece of the same fabric Stara wore as a dress. Fiddlis had not realized it was there, it had been wrapped so lightly around her head, which faintly ached now that she knew what had happened to her. Fiddlis sat in a stunned silence as Stara went on. “The men were able to drive away the lone Yule tree-beast, but not before you had fallen into a blackness that only our healers had hope of reviving you from. For several hours, you lied upon this bed as if you were dead, yet the healers and enchantresses still had hope for you. They implored their ancient arts, given to us by the One Who Is Not Spoken Of, and finally they sensed life still pulsing weakly within you. With fervent prayer and hard work, we were able to let you live again.” Fiddlis sat soberly stroking the soft dress and rubbing the side of her head, trying to remember something of what had happened. Yet it was all a thick stewy cloud made up of broken shards from sunrise light she had never seen and the grasping, curvy roots of the Yule that she could only feel as it came down upon her head with massive strength. “Where am I?” she whispered a third time. The woman sat in silence for a long while, as if hesitant to tell her anything. Finally, Stara said “Little human girl-child...you are in the realm of the Fairies. You lie in a Fairy bed in a Fairy room, in the Fairyland of our conquering. You were rescued by our Fairy men and healed by our Fairy physicians. You talk to a Fairy now.” Fiddlis gasped. All her young life, she had heard ferocious tales of how evil and cunning the Fairies were, stealing away human child from the Crescentfolk and highlanders, and exchanging them for wild Fairy babies. Everyone feared the Fairies and held a grudge against them because they had won the precious Riverlands instead of their own human strength. Perhaps the villagers of the twin kingdom Crescent and Warwick were wrong to scorn the powerful Fairies; they had won fairly. Fiddlis knew but little of the age-old dispute, living so far away from the boiling prejudices and hulking violence which threatened to tear the King’s lands apart. “What…what do you intend to do with me?” Fiddlis asked, suddenly fearful. She allowed her hand to slip from Stara’s knee and fall back into her lap. “Are all the stories I have heard about you true?” Stara caught up the child’s hand and presses it to her cheek. “No no, my dear! Hatred and darkness makes humans talk so about us dwelling here in the Riverland. We mean you humans no harm, and hope you will show us the same respect.” Fiddlis grinned and felt a slight ache in her head. “I cannot speak for the rest of the human race, but I will speak for myself. I respect you!” Stara gave her a soft hug and her honeysuckle smell enveloped Fiddlis. There came a sudden pounding at the door. Stara helped Fiddlis snuggle back into her blankets and then walked over to crack open the door. Fiddlis tried to fall into a peaceful slumber once more but her unseeing eyes kept popping open as Stara and a deep male voice murmured back and forth. Finally Stara turned and smoothed Fiddlis’s covers. “There is to be a Fairy council.” Her tan high-boned face was pale. “You are to come with me.” The fat little cook, his face red and shining with sweat, impatiently ladled out that evening’s dinner. The gruel muddled with the stale piece of bread on Conan’s plate as he sat down to pick at the food. Northumbrio might give his servants warm clothes and a room of their own to sleep in, but he did not seem to care about their health as far as food went. A big black fly alighted upon the sagging gruel and Conan waved it away disgustedly. He picked up the hard little loaf of bread and nibbled at it, listening to the buzz of the big marble room ring in his ears. Northumbrio’s men, slaves and soldiers alike, all gathered here for every meal to partake of their meager helpings and often talked loudly to be heard above the clang if dishes and the grumbling of the three cooks, who felt their work to be too laborious for happy spirits. The very atmosphere was tight and unhappy, but Conan felt the odd bored sensation that he had always eaten here, that he had always listened to the incessant thrumming of voices, that he always had this sloppy, slippery gruel and miserable stale bread for his dinner. It was normal, it was what he had always done. Conan was jostled as two loud vapid guards elbowed their way to sit beside him. One of them smelled strongly of garlic. “Ho, minstrel, move aside and let two starving king’s men sup!” Garlic said. Conan ignored him and chewed his bread furiously. How dare they order him about, as if they were Northumbrio himself! The other guard tapped him on the shoulder. “Move aside,” he snarled in a gravelly voice. “We are hungry and you keep us from our meal!” Conan looked around the room, chewing thoughtfully. He was enjoying the two guards’ distress. Suddenly he felt a rough jerk at his collar as Garlic picked him up and flung him across the table. “Can you not hear, minstrel?” he snapped. His eyes were small and piggish as they bored into Conan’s. “We said, MOVE ASIDE.” Conan struggled under the bigger man’s iron paw on his back, pinning him face first onto the table. The other servants and guards started laughing and moving away in anticipation of a brawl. There were often fights in the mess house, everyone was tired from the long day and wanted their bellies filled. Insolence was not to be tolerated. Conan twisted around and swung his fist at Garlic, catching him on the side of the head. “I will sit where I please!” he shouted hoarsely. Garlic staggered back against the wall, then wiped the spittle from his cheek and lunged at Conan, a wild look in his eye. Conan saw the meaty fist coming but was too slow to dodge it and felt an explosion of pain ripple through his jaw. Conan rammed his head into Garlic’s ample stomach and knocked him to the ground. Garlic rolled over on top of him, pressing the breath from his lungs, and began pummeling him over and over. The other guard egged them on and started the other men chanting. Conan felt his skin break and a trickle of blood start at the side of his face. He began to squirm and kick underneath Garlic’s heavy square body and managed to push him off balance. Conan leapt up and kneed Garlic in the shoulder, going down with him and digging his sharp knee into his mushy flesh. Garlic shouted in pain and rage and caught Conan’s throat in his hands. He squeezed harder and harder, as Conan drove his other knee into Garlic’s thigh and the crowd became rowdy. A few guards on mess shift came running in, their armor clanking. Conan ignored them as his slight became blurred. He jumped off of Garlic and punched him as the bigger man came up swinging. Garlic reeled back into the arms of the men, who pushed him back into Conan. He crashed against the minstrel and caught his wrists, slamming him against the wall and pinning him there. The other guard tossed Garlic a fire poker from the hearth and he brandished it wildly, waving it above the heads of the excited crowd. Conan shouted curses angrily at the unjust match and tried to shove his knee into Garlic once more. Garlic saw it coming and brought his fire poker down across Conan’s leg with a hard thwack. Conan cried out in surprised pain and gently lowered his foot to rest on the floor. Garlic shouted triumphantly and brought the fire poker close to Conan face; it was still smoldering from the hearth and Garlic waved the red hot weapon back and forth before Conan’s throat. “Shall we singe that pretty singing voice of yours?” Garlic laughed loudly, his foul breath blasting into Conan’s face. The minstrel struggled vainly as Garlic turned and lead the other men in a rude chant: “Burn his pretty throat, we will, burn his pretty throat!” Conan willed the armored guards to fight their way through the jostling men. Garlic chuckled as the men continued the chant and he let Conan feel the heat of the fire poker next to his face. Conan pressed his head up against the wall but Garlic brought the poker closer and closer. He felt a searing touch across his neck and clenched his teeth against an agonized cry. “Leave him be!” shouted one of the armored guards. Garlic dropped Conan and he gasped, sinking to the floor and gingerly feeling the burn across his neck. Garlic melted into the crowd before anyone could catch him. The other men began innocently milling about, embarrassed. One of the guards sighed, annoyed at being disturbed on duty. He held out his hand to Conan. “Come,” he said. “You are to come to Northumbrio’s chambers and play for him this night.” http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644714/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:33:01 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644714/ Skerry swung the long blood-red cloak around himself and shrugged to feel the perfect fit. He looked over at his dear sister Rhody, standing tall and dark and beautiful with tears streaming down her high cheekbones, and reached out to touch her shoulder gently. Rhody burst into louder sobs and fell into his arms, crying her broken heart out. She had been scorned and hated and chastised before, but nothing as dire as this had ever smitten her fiery soul. She was dangerously close to hating the Crescentfolk and their king, fat old Wenceslas, who claimed greatness of his own accord. He should never have been put into office. He should have remained a suckling prince! Yet nothing her spirited heart could ever hope for would turn back the strong ironed hands of Time. The only thing to do was to remain hopeful. And still, even this was immeasurably hard. Rhody shuddered and cherished the cozy feeling of her body enveloped in Skerry’s tight, firm embrace. How glorious is was to have someone to lean on, to hold her when she was sad and make her laugh once more if she grew weary of the continuous plodding of life. Indeed, it was a strange thing, life was. Some vital universe all by itself. One could not help but wonder whether there was something greater out there, perhaps hidden amongst the stars or within the thick purplish green furze bushes that grew in clusters on the heaths. Some greater good, maybe, that somehow lived inside of certain people, if only the people could accept the living faith to something…or someone…they could not even see. Perhaps the whole crazy idea was just too much to ask for, far too much to hope for. Rhody could not be sure of anything as she hugged her brother, silhouetted by the crackling firelight, softly rubbing his back and feeling his muscles ripple underneath her long brown fingers. She smiled into his corded shoulder as she felt the rough material of the vest she had made him several months ago, in anticipation for the cold heath-winters. It was sturdy and good, that vest. It would last him a long while. And more importantly, it would last him until he could come home. “If you ever come home,” she whispered shakily. “What’s that?” her brother asked, holding her out at arm’s length. “My dear, sweet sister; whatever happens, you must promise me that you will be strong. You have been faithful to your adventurous heart all these years and have never let me down. Now comes the hardest trial. You will--you must--brave this as well, headlong! as you have all the others. For indeed, I could not do what will surely be expected of me if I knew that you, my own little sister, were worrying and suffering here in our tree on the highway. It would kill me, Rhody. You must be true to that heart I have grown to love and protect.” “But…but what if being true to one’s heart is not the only thing we can or should be doing?” Rhody asked him. “Is there something greater, something bigger?” Skerry pauses and petted the blood red cloak. It swished along the ground and Rhody wondered randomly if she had made it too long. Perhaps he would wait until she could seam it. Yet no, for her fingers would be powerfully tempted to idle at her needle, delaying him until nightfall. She must be strong, even if it was only her shadowed heart she could prove her spirit unto. She would do that, in the very least. “There is only us, our hearts and souls and minds, our hard work and our bright spirits, sister; unless the rumored Redeemer of the mountainside outcasts be true and living. If that be so true, then he had better show himself. I feel a restless Evil in the air and I do not like it. Surely, Northumbrio’s boiling treachery felt much like this, if not exactly.” Rhody cried out softly. “You must not say things like that!” she implored him, sinking down to sit on her bed. He knelt and began packing his things into a roomy leather pouch, with straps to put over his shoulders. He had made it himself, during the long cold days of an ice-storm the highwaylands had endured, out of a deer he had killed and skinned himself. It was one of his most prized possessions, that and his drum. And now his long red cloak, the color of rich lifeblood. It hung over his back, shielding it from the cold that was trying to pry in through the stretched hide doorway, looking like a great wound that had opened. “Very well,” Skerry said, packing a little knife. “I will not speak of troubling things anymore.” He looked up, his green eyes brilliantly glittering in the dark reddish light. “Yet I must warn you of the danger you will be in while I am gone.” Rhody rolled her eyes up to the carven wood roof and sighed. She wished to make light of the whole morbid situation, but Skerry seemed to think otherwise. “It is not a thing to jest of,” he told her. “You might be alone for a great long while, my dear pure sister…and, though I hesitate to say it, perhaps forever. They may kill me for the defiance to the King, and we must accept that fact if it so be the will of things. We have no part in fate. It is something we could not possible hope ever to understand, our minds are merely not capable of it! I do not want you fighting against your fate and mine. If I am to die…” he stopped, choking, and bent over his pack once more to stuff some dried fish from the nearby stream. His dark black hair fell in curls over his distressed eyes. Skerry did not want to die. He wanted, with all of his power, to work against the bloody fate that assuredly awaited him in Crescent. He was not deaf to the sentences dolled out by the jury, nor was his sister. They knew he might never return if he turned himself in to their austere ‘justice’. All of his heart screamed out for fate not to be the supreme ruler of things, that he could live his life to the fullest without any boundaries or limitations. Suddenly his old teachings in the village kingdom of Crescent, his experiences with all the families he had lived with, came flooding back to him and he shook himself and raised his face. Rhody was no longer crying; she had clenched her jaw and looked like a fearsome warrior, mature and brave, in the dark afternoon. “If I am to die in Crescent, so be it. It will have been the will of my fate, my inescapable destiny. I am willing to embrace it with my whole heart.” Rhody shook her head, heartbroken. “You should not have to,” she whispered. “What if there really is another way to live life?” Skerry had no answer to her persistent question. The look in her eyes, wild and defiant, and the queenly stature of her slender figure would haunt him for eternity. Finally, after remaining silent for several moments, Skerry said in a hoarse voice, “I never thought I would utter these words, but what is it to lose life? It may not be the worst thing that could happen to a man. Yet to be a man losing his life, when it has not been lived to the fullest expectation of his fate, is surely to die in the midst of a terrible sin.” Rhody said nothing. She silently arose and began packing a small deerhide pouch of healing herbs and mosses. “These will help you, if you recall how to use them with wisdom,” she said. Skerry began reeling off the names and usages for each one, as Rhody nodded. Then her brother stood and took from behind his bed a long broadsword. It had been given to him long ago by a kindly old farmer, who had retired from his fighting days and had no need for it. “You may have a care to use it as a weapon or a tool of self-defense, young lad,” the man had said in a lilting highlander accent. At first, Skerry had scoffed at the idea of him needing a sword for defending his life. He was a pleasant boy, merry and merciful to everyone he met, but fiercely protective of his younger sister, who at the time was still learning how to mend broken bones herself. And then the terrible day came when he and his sister were brought gingerly before the local jury and court of Crescent and Warwick, in the very center square of Crescent herself. Rhody was recalled of that gloomy gray afternoon, when the soldiers came to take them away to the town. They had been playing together in the woods, jumping rocks across the gurgling stream with a few other village children. When the soldiers, in their shining armor that glinted even despite the sun, and their big sharp swords hanging heavy at their waists, she had been scared. Skerry had been indignant. The soldiers ordered the other children to go to their homes, even going so far as to push one of them aside. Rhody’s hot temper had flared at that. She had flown into the soldier, yelling for him to “leave her dear friend alone.” Then the soldier had cried out, in a big loud voice that still made her hands shake, “These two siblings have defied the King! They are to be tried at Crescent; now GO!” Rhody remembered feeling at a terrible loss when the children suddenly turned and looked at them. “We do not agree with King Wenceslas,” Skerry had said respectfully to the largest soldier in a deep voice unsuited to one so young. “We cannot live within the city limits because he does things Rhody and I do not want to do. He is a bad man.” The other children had all gasped and Rhody’s special little friend, a sweet-cheeked girl who always wore ribbons in her pigtails, had cried out and covered her eyes as if merely looking upon the rebellious girl before her would poison her sight. Then they had been hauled off before the jury, a bunch of old men with wild eyebrows and dull dead eyes who stared down at her and coughed into their musk-scented pomanders. It had given her nightmares for weeks after. To see lives looking so wasted and unhappy! She had longed to serve them grapefruit tea, a rare delicacy. One of the Crescentfolk had been a merchant to foreign lands, and while she and her brother had been living in his house with the pink-faced maid, he caught wind of her surprising medicinal abilities and had bought some dried grapefruit peeling for her tea, but would not give it to her until she promised to let him have the first cup. Laughing, Rhody had agreed, and when the lovely steam arose and tickled the merchant’s nose, he told her that it would be good for making spirits bright. Rhody sighed and wished for some of that beautiful grapefruit tea right now. Skerry was ready to journey for Crescent. Turning around, he gave her a last warning. “Forget not, my sister, that not all men seek to be good servants to a good fate, or to whatever they believe rules their lives. Some men may be wishing to do you harm. Never trust strange men, Rhody.” His green eyes glinted and Rhody, for the first time in a long while, felt the tiniest bit of fear towards her tall, daunting brother as the shadows settles underneath his tired cheekbones and played over the red cloak. She reached for his hand and was relieved to find it still strong and warm and calloused. “I know it sounds heartless and untrustworthy, but you must understand that one cannot trust their lives to something so uncertain as the wild minds of mortal men.” Rhody clasped her brother to her breast again. “I must trust only myself, then?” she asked. She did not like the idea. What a lonely stretch of life stretched out before her if nothing was to be trusted. “For now,” Skerry said. Reluctantly, he opened the hide doorway and walked out into the fading gray sunlight. Rhody crossed her arms against the blast of cold that slapped her and her eyes grew wide when she saw what black shadows her brother was going to travel through. Was there indeed more to life? http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644713/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:33:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644713/ Conan felt exceedingly nervous as he walked between the armored guards down the long dark hallway. The torches, blackened ash stems bracketed to the dirty stone walls with pieces of iron, glimmered eerily in the squirming shadows. They passed by a high window and Conan saw stern gray snowflakes drifting down the frosty panes. The young minstrel shivered as he remorsefully recalled the happy snowfalls that had blanketed Kentle when he was but a stripling of a lad. He remembered playing in the cold wet white, loving the bite of it in his fingers, liking the way his friends’ cheek grew ruddy when they went inside to their cottage and drank melted chocolate, a treat reserved only for the heath winters. The snow back then had been merry and white, something to look forward to, a cold sweet taste on his tongue. But this, this terrible gray stuff falling from a broken sky, was a depressing reminder of where Conan had been taken and who he should be. He wondered if Northumbrio himself had beckoned the glum weather down from the heavens with his strange powers. Who really knew what Conan’s new master was capable of, what his cold-fire heart was made of? No one in the mountain peak dwelling seemed eager or willing to speak of Northumbrio as if he were human. He was like an essence, always present, inescapable and looming black over the hearts of otherwise cheerful and innocent folk. For indeed, the people could be happy if only they would embrace the life they were forbidden to. The minstrel nearly stopped in his tracks at the rebellious thought, feeling a sudden pain split his head, but the guards shoved him on. They seemed vaguely frightened, as if they were unused to escorting servants to Northumbrio’s chambers. They had barely given Conan enough time to grab up his lute and long black cloak before they led him up a side flight of stairs, into a boiling blackness. It enveloped them, swirling around them in cold gusts from a draft in the cracks of the windows, chilling Conan until his nose was sore and his feet like hard blocks of unmovable ice. He grasped his lute tighter as the hallway gave way to yet another twisting, cobwebby flight of stairs. Dust arose from Conan’s stub-nailed boots as the guards pointed for him to continue alone. Conan wondered idly whether they were afraid to look upon Northumbrio’s face. Throwing his head back, the minstrel determined to look the huge man right in the eyes, forgetting all else, ignoring the horrible purplish blue sphere resting in the middle of that little lion-paw table. He did not see the big wooden door before him and very nearly smashed his face into the rotting wood. He felt around in the thick darkness for a knob. Finding none, he pushed gently on the wood and it gave way with a silence that unnerved him. Wooden doors were supposed to creak! Bats were supposed to fly out at him! Yet nothing happened, the door only opened into more darkness, blacker than the stuff that held Conan outside. He finally made his feet move forward into Northumbrio’s chambers. “Hello,” he said in a tight constricted voice, “my master?” Conan carefully shut the door behind him and felt his body grow warm with his master’s hot breath. The heat curled around him with a long, low moan and Conan knew Northumbrio was hiding amongst the shadows. He bowed his head and moved to the middle of the room, his foot feeling the lion paw leg of the sphere table. “You sent for me, master,” he said. Northumbrio’s voice rasped from the darkness. “I know what happened in the mess hall, slave. Yet I wish for you to tell your side of the story to me.” Conan dared not look up. All thoughts of staring down those smoldering eyes and standing tall had been swept away with the onslaught of Evil. For indeed it was Evil that dwelled in the chamber, the very essence of Evil itself. Conan was frightened and wondered suddenly whether it was right for him to give in to fear. The now-familiar pain cut right through the middle of his thoughts, like a knife through a loaf of bread. “You do right to fear me,” Northumbrio’s voice purred. “I want for it to remain that way.” There was an awkward pause. “Well?” “What do you wish me to tell you?” Conan sighed. “Why were you fighting in the mess hall? How did it start, why did it end with you being pinned to the wall, helpless?” The cruel words made Conan suddenly wish he had fought back vehemently, perhaps bashing Garlic over the head. Northumbrio heard this wish and smiled to himself. “That guard wanted me to move aside for him and his companion,” Conan answered. He realized how ridiculous it sounded and felt tempted to be ashamed. Northumbrio quickly said “Good, good! So you would not move aside for him.” “No, great master.” Conan’s doubt vanished. He had actually pleased his supreme master, the giver and caretaker of his needs and wants! This thrilled his very soul. “I would not.” “What ensued then, minstrel?” Northumbrio’s voice was as smug as a cat who had just partaken of a juicy morsel of prey. “He grabbed me and pinned me to the table. I leapt from my helpless position and struck him.” Northumbrio was loving this. Yes, this man would make a fine soldier. For indeed, the huge dusky man did not intend to use Conan as his minstrel. Not for long, anyway. “You struck him! Very good.” The voice suddenly grew cold and icy. “Then why, Conan-minstrel, did you have the need to be rescued from a burning across your throat?” “I was not rescued, master.” It felt odd, contradicting him. “The guard did indeed burn my throat, for the whole barrack was against me, save your two armored guards, and I was no match for the man’s brute strength.” Northumbrio growled; it sounded too much like a wild beast ready to spring and kill. “You should have fought until the death,” he snapped. “But master, it was such a small thing to die for-” “That is of no importance!” came the booming voice. “I wish all my servants to be willing to die for justice!” Conan cowered at the voice, yet something inside of him hated to do it. “Next time, I will,” he said. “I give you my word, as your slave, for slave I am and live only to cater to your wishes, oh great master.” Northumbrio’s hot presence biting into his head drifted away; he had pleased his master once more. “You are right, minstrel,” said the deep smoky voice. “You are only kept alive because I think you will be useful to me. Now play. Play a song on your lute and make me contented, for it has been a long, hard day.” This was the part Conan had been fearing. He had no notion of what to play for his master. He quickly licked his dry lips and fiddles with his lute strings. “Well?” came the impatient growl. “Are you going to play something for me on that little soup pot of yours?” Conan heard growing intensity in his master’s voice. He crossed and uncrossed his legs, dragging his boots along the floor, biting his tongue. “I…I…” he stuttered. Northumbrio’s purring snarl, rasping and hoarse, sounded in his ears again. “What is the matter, my foolish young minstrel?” Northumbrio’s voice seemed somehow to be closer than the last time he had spoken. The hot breath began to hurt like so much fire upon Conan’s bare neck; the burn across his throat throbbed painfully and he felt a slight waver in his master’s rising anger as he cursed Garlic for it. He swallowed with an effort and stood a little straighter. “I know not what to play for you, master,” he said in a loud but respectful voice. He felt a sliver of relief leap into his heart as the hot breath turned away. “Something agonizing,” Northumbrio’s voice said. Conan gave a violent jolt, nearly dropping his lute. Never had he been asked to play something as his master wanted; indeed, he could not even play a sad lay to suit the shepherd who had asked for one! Yet the desperate yearning to please his ominous master trampled his doubt and he began to play a song built from pain, sweat, tears and death. At first Conan’s fingers fumbled over the unfamiliar combination of strings, tripping up several times and feeling the heated breath for his mistakes; but as he played, the lute’s voice grew louder and fuller and Conan began to enjoy bringing forth the song for Northumbrio’s approval. It twanged and shuddered in the dark, yet is was as if some unseen agony, long hidden, was guiding Conan’s fingers to play something he had never dreamed of being capable of. The song spilled forth onto the wet slimy flagstones like so many tears from a tortured soul, nearly frightening Conan. It was so fierce, so ferociously passionate as his fingers bled upon the sharp strings that Conan’s breath came faster and faster, his heart beat quicker and quicker, the horrible song came to him in jumbled tatters that rearranged themselves into a bloodthirsty pattern. Northumbrio loved it. Conan could tell by the sudden dropping away of heat, the darkness as it became thinner and the snow outside grew white instead of brackish gray. Conan finally felt the inspiration fall from him and he sank to the ground, exhausted. Northumbrio’s huge dark body leered down at him but Conan could not muster enough energy to raise his head. After several moments, his master departed, leaving Conan shivering in the dark. The gray snow began falling again. Finally the minstrel picked up his lute and, with shaky legs, walked slowly from his master’s chambers out into the hallway. As he was turning to descend the dusty stairway, Conan felt eyes upon him and turned. It was the little girl with bandaged hands. She stared at him with an intensity that frightened him. Then she turned and melted into the darkness. Conan never forgot the strange longing and disappointment in the little girl’s eyes. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644712/ Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:32:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/SaviouroftheLands/644712/