imp

Golden Door Chapter 14 James and the Ogre, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

James felt groggy, but he only had to sit down for a few minutes in the rain. The ogre, and that was what it was, apparently suffered the worst of it, being thrown back by the blue lightening to crash into the cave wall. Luckily, ogres are very hard to damage, and he rather damaged the stone wall of the cave.

“Are you all right?” Grubby asked James in most uncharacteristically impish fashion. Nature would have had an imp rolling on the floor with laughter over such an encounter, but James was the son of the Kairos.

James nodded, though one hand stayed on his head. The ogre shook his head and spoke. “That little guy is powerful. I never been beat up before.”

“First time for everything,” Grubby said, and puffed out his chest a little. “Storyteller’s son.”

“But my Ma and Da said to watch the cave and don’t let in strangers.

“His name’s James. Now he’s not a stranger.”

“At least not any stranger than you guys,” James mumbled while Grubby helped him to his feet and got him out of the rain. It looked ready to pour.

“James.” The ogre caught that much. “Good to meet you.” Warthead stuck out his tremendous hand and James’ hand got completely swallowed up in the big mitt. He would have been better to shake one of Warthead’s fingers. But then, James watched the handshake because he could hardly look at the ugly puss of the ogre, and besides, he did not feel altogether certain if there might be more blue lightening. It turned out to be safe enough, and James could not imagine anything more special than making friends with an ogre, so he looked up at last, but when the ogre smiled in delight, James had to quickly look away to avoid throwing up.

“Ma and Da aren’t here,” Warthead repeated himself in his gravel-deep voice. “They gone up to the castle for special visitor, I think. I don’t rightly remember.”

“Woah!” Grubby was by the entrance to the cave. “There must be a monster storm coming. Listen to that thunder.” They heard a dull roar in the distance, but it was growing. James paid close attention and after a moment he voiced his skepticism.

“I don’t think that is thunder,” he said.

Warthead, who was not particularly able to follow their thoughts, looked around instead and pointed at something else. “Spiders.” Grubby and James looked quickly. They were at the bottom of the mountain, quite a long way, but obviously excited as if sensing they were getting close to their prey. They began to climb the hill at a rapid pace.

“James!” The word came wafting down from above with the wind and the rain.

“James!” It was Mrs. Copperpot, Picker and Poker.

“Grubby! James!” Pug was with them, and the trio in the cave had to go outside to look up.

They were soon spotted, though the dwarfs and the gnome were quite high up the mountainside above them. “Up here, James. Quick! Tsunami!” Pug pointed in the direction of the roar which was becoming very pronounced. They began to hear trees crash in the wave.

James looked for a way, but there was no easy way. The cave was carved out of a small cliff. Meanwhile, Warthead scratched his head and Grubby had his eyes glued on the spiders. He saw when they abandoned the rush up the hill and began climbing trees in an attempt to get above the onrushing water.

“Hurry James!”

“There’s no way up!” James shouted.

Grubby picked up a stone and threw it at a spider which was ahead of its fellows. It cracked against the spider’s back but did no real damage. James spun around to see. The spider was almost as big as him, and he might have screamed at the sight if the water did not come first. With a great roar and something like the sound of freight trains, the wave crashed through the last trees like a flood breaking through a levy.

“Water!” James shouted, and Warthead moved. He grabbed Grubby in one big paw and James in the other and stretched his arms as high in the air as he could, which was almost high enough for James to reach the rock ledge above the cave mouth, but not quite.

“Spider!” Grubby shouted, as the water quickly rose above the ogre’s mouth. A spider had made the jump to Warthead’s arm and zeroed in on James. James panicked, but tried kicking first, and to his surprise, he caved in the beast’s head in a way that Grubby’s stone had not. A second kick sent the spider flying off into the drink, as the water was now up to Warthead’s elbows. It actually reached to his upraised wrists, and the water stayed up for a few minutes before it began to recede almost as fast as it came in. James understood that if the tidal water did not drown them or crash them and crush their bones against something hard while coming in, it could still do the same, or drag them for miles on the way out, and just as easily.

The time went by slowly, slow enough for Pug and Mrs. Copperpot to climb down almost within reach. Mrs. Copperpot looked full of fret and worry, but Pug seemed a rock of calm and kept assuring them that everything was going to be all right.

Warthead stood that whole time with his arms raised straight up to keep Grubby and James above the water. James felt a little surprised the ogre was not brushed aside in that torrent, but he was not. He stood like the stones themselves, unmoving, even long after James imagined the poor ogre drowned and had to be dead and gone. As the water went down somewhat slowly, it felt agonizing to watch the big creature, hoping against hope for signs of life. When the water was once again below the chin and it started to pick up the pace of retreat, Warthead looked like no more than a statue, and James imagined he might stand in that pose for a thousand years. He wanted to cry, and Mrs. Copperpot did not help with her words about the ogre’s bravery and heroic stand. Then Warthead shook his head and opened his eyes.

“Warthead!” James and Grubby shouted together.

“Are the spiders gone?” Warthead asked. “That one tickled and I almost laughed.”

“But how did you?” James could not decide what to ask. “The water was up for a half hour at least, or twenty minutes or more. How?”

“I held my breath,” Warthead said, in an intuitive moment—a very rare thing in an ogre.

“Good choice.” Grubby praised the ogre’s thinking. It was a fifty-fifty proposition of Warthead coming up with the notion of holding his breath underwater.

James twisted his face. “I thought after so many minutes without oxygen the brain cells started dying.”

“No fear of that,” Grubby said, and waved off the whole problem with his hand. “He hasn’t got any to lose.”

Warthead grinned and nodded and began to wonder why he kept holding his arms straight up in the air.

It was still an hour or more before Picker and Poker found a way down from above and the water went down enough to gather in the cave entrance. The others were a bit leery of the ogre, but he seemed such a good fellow, and Mrs. Copperpot recognized how young he was. Why, converted to human ages, she imagined that Warthead might be the youngest of the lot, despite his hulking size.

“You know,” she said, as she sighed and accepted that she now had five, a full handful of boys to watch. “Now that the spiders are washed away, the path to the gate should be open.”

“At least for a little while.” Pug agreed. “And we ought to go before it gets dark.”

Mrs. Copperpot looked up at the sky where there was a genuine stroke of lightning and boom of thunder, and the rain began to strengthen. “Yes.” She agreed, before she added, “And I don’t like the look of that sky.”

************************

MONDAY

Chris boards the ship to cross the underground sea but the cavern wall cracks and the volcano bring up a monster from the deep while Beth flies above it all and gets to taste sweet puffberries. Until Monday. Happy Reading

*

Golden Door Chapter 14 James and the Ogre, part 2 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Look.” Picker pointed to the sky. They saw shadows now and then since about mid-day, observable even in the darkening sky. Everyone looked. Something paced them, flying overhead, and likely several somethings, but it seemed impossible to tell what by looking up through the trees.

“I don’t like the looks of that sky.” Mrs. Copperpot repeated her comment from earlier, and while James agreed that the heavy, dark clouds closing in overhead did not look good, he now realized that even her earlier comment had been intended to disguise the fact that she saw something overhead, shadowing them. No doubt, she did not want to frighten James, as if anything could be more frightening than those snakes.

“Shh!” Pug stopped their progress. They heard a clicking sound ahead. “That’s new here,” he said. “But I am not sure what it is.”

“Not animal?” Mrs. Copperpot asked with some surprise. She felt that surely the gnome would have been aware of any animal that might make that sound.

“Not machine.” James breathed in his quietest voice. At least not any machine sound he ever heard. This click-clicksounded like someone tapping sticks together, and he said not machine because he kept trying to think of what, other than an animal, might make such a sound.

Click-click. It became pronounced, and they began to hear a kind of chittering with it. It sounded like a hundred squirrels tapping their teeth all at the same time.

“Better wait here while I check see.” Pug said, and not even Mrs. Copperpot would argue with that good advice.

They waited for what seemed like a long time, but what was probably a rather short time. The clicking never went away, though it did not sound like it got any closer. The chittering sound came and went, but it also seemed to keep its distance. Then there came a terrible crashing though the bushes, and James and the boys backed up and prepared to climb or run behind trees, while Mrs. Copperpot pulled out her magical spoon, apparently, her only weapon. What came from the woods was a great bear, and it reared up momentarily as it reached the path. Mrs. Copperpot almost did something to the beast but held back just long enough to see the beast return to all fours and Pug seated firmly on the beast’s neck. Even as Pug shouted, Mrs. Copperpot already scooped up Picker and Poker, one for each arm, who protested being treated like sacks of flower.

“Hurry! Get up! Spiders coming!” Those were Pug’s words and all the explanation they needed. Mrs. Copperpot leapt on the bear’s back and James climbed most of the way up, holding on to Mrs. Copperpot’s dress as the bear passed by, but barely paused. Only Grubby looked close to missing the ride.

“Wait up!” Grubby yelled, but Pug would not stop, and neither would the bear as the clicking and chittering sound came suddenly much nearer.

“Grubby!” James yelled back and grabbing tight with one hand to a great tuft of bear hair, which the bear hardly felt, he reached his other hand out and back as far as he could. Grubby ran, and in one great effort of speed, he managed to grab hold of James’ hand. They rode that way for a little bit as the sound of clicking and chittering receded into the distance. Grubby bounced on his feet like a frog while James held on as well as he could, but for all their effort, the imp seemed unable to get up on the bear’s rump. Finally, James thought to slide back a little to better help the imp, only his grip on the bear’s back slipped altogether and both he and Grubby went teetering off into the bushes. The bear did not stop. The twins kept yelling and so they likely did not hear the boys fall, and neither did they see them, looking only ahead toward safety.

“Ugh!” Grubby rubbed his head. “I think I smashed into the tree, but lucky it was only my head.”

James also moaned, but he had crashed into a bush, which frankly, broke his fall. Otherwise, he certainly would have broken something else. “Where are we?” James looked back to be sure they were out of range of the spiders, even as he got slowly to his feet. Grubby took a good look around.

“I think I know,” he said. “This is the ogre way. Come on. I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine.” Grubby also looked back in the spider direction. “We better hurry,” he added as he started off at a good pace. James had to hustle, but he felt well worn by then and could not really keep up with the imp who might not have had elf speed, but certainly moved faster at a jog than James could run.

“Wait up.” James had to call after a little way, but Grubby did not hear or did not listen. James stopped anyway, put his hands on his knees, and took a number of deep breaths. It did not take long for the young man to recover, but he thought he better walk after that, at least for a little while.

James did not feel happy about being left alone in the woods again, especially on the edge of the Craggy Mountains and ogre land. Then again, he had never seen an ogre. He had seen spiders and imagined they were giant spiders, so he really had no choice in the direction he went. He came to the first stone filled rise almost immediately, and he thought he saw where the path wound its way up between the stones; but it appeared hard to tell. He decided to sniff. He looked for Grubby and figured that Mrs. Copperpot and the others were likely out of range by then. This time he decided to trust his sixth sense.

“A little to the left,” he said out loud to himself.  It appeared as if Grubby had deviated off the main path about halfway up the rise. James began to climb, sometimes needing his hands to help pull himself up, and in this way he eventually came to where a smaller path separated from the main ogre way. “Grubby,” he said out loud, pointed down the smaller path and started out that way without hesitation.

The way remained rough, mostly up hill, and James began to wonder if maybe he was in the mountains already. He finally had to stop and sit on a rock for a fifteen-minute break. Of course, he saw the shadows pass overhead the minute he stopped, but he ignored them with the hope that they would go away. When they did not, he moved on, thinking that his break seemed like a very short fifteen minutes.

James paused. He raised his head and sniffed, almost without thinking about it. His mind kept thinking of Grubby and he felt a strong sense that Grubby was close, up off the left-hand side of the trail. Not far from there, he came to a place on the side of the mountain covered with stone and the occasional hardy bush. He found a cave a little bit further up the side, and it looked dark. James looked overhead. The sky also seriously started darkening now, like it might start raining at any moment. James tried to convince himself that the cave looked dark because of the sky. Then a few drops of water fell on his head, and he decided he had no choice. He did not realize that Grubby was still pulling him forward.

James got to the cave entrance before the downpour started, and then he heard a voice.

“Who is the stranger in my door.” The voice sounded terribly deep and frightening to hear. James dutifully screamed.

The deep voice screamed in echo of James’ sentiment, and James caught a glimpse of a giant who put his hands to his ears while James started to scramble away. Unfortunately, the rocky side of the hill had not been designed for a rapid escape. A giant fist shot out of the cave, right over James’ head, and would have smashed James flatter than a cracker if it hadn’t bounced off. There were great blue sparks, like lightening, that passed between the giant’s fist and the boy’s head. At the same time, Grubby hollered as loud as he could.

“No, Warthead! No!” He yelled too late.

Golden Door Chapter 14 James and the Ogre, part 1 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

 “Step up. Keep close.” Mrs. Copperpot said over her shoulder. The twins hustled up. James and Grubby brought up the rear. “I don’t like the look of that darkening sky.” Mrs. Copperpot said, a bit more softly.

“Me neither.” Picker and Poker spoke in unison.

James looked, but he had no way of judging the sky except to say it looked like it might rain. He looked at Grubby, but Grubby ignored everyone.

“The twins are dwarfs?” James tried to make conversation.

“Yep,” Grubby responded to James’ question. “But I don’t hold that against them.”

“And you’re an imp.” James tried again.

”Yep,” Grubby said, and he puffed out his chest a little, but said no more.

James fell silent. He was naturally quiet and somewhat shy, so it felt easy to concentrate on walking and ignore the others. Besides, he had walked all morning and started to get tired and ready for a bite to eat, if anything should be available. He decided to save his breath and keep watch on the woods. Fortunately, Mrs. Copperpot picked up the string of the idea.

“But all young boys have a little imp in them, I think. Isn’t that right, James?” James nodded, but when he said nothing out loud, Mrs. Copperpot changed the subject. “We will come to a cross path in a minute if I’ve judged correctly. To our right, and not very far at all, we would find the Craggy Mountains where the ogres make their homes, but straight on, we should come to a little used back door to the castle, like a postern gate. If I remember, it leads to the third court by the bailiff’s tower, and I imagine it might be a door that the goddess has ignored if she even knows about it. I could not have chosen a better gate for our chances if I had thought all day.” Mrs. Copperpot sounded happy, but the boys had no way of judging. They would have to wait and see. “And here we are.” Mrs. Copperpot finished and stopped which brought them all to a halt. She pointed down a very wide, but leafy and overgrown path which James imagined led to the ogres. He did not want to go that way.

“I’m hungry,” Picker said, as soon as they stopped, and Poker agreed.

“I could go for a bite,” Grubby admitted.

“James?” Mrs. Copperpot asked, but again James merely nodded and verbalized nothing. “Then I think we might do lunch. Once we get into the thick there is no telling when we will have time for another meal. She sent the boys to collect firewood and somehow found a copper pot almost big enough for James to sit in. James wondered how she could have carried that without his noticing, or if perhaps she produced it by some magic. Mrs. Copperpot filled it with water from a nearby stream. By the time the fire got started, she started stirring something in the pot with her cooking spoon. James decided that had to be magical. In only a few quick minutes, they all got bowls of a rich, brown soup full of mushrooms and lentils, and they had a whole loaf of warm bread to go with it. James got more than enough, and it tasted wonderful; but for whatever reason, the others called it merely a snack. James got stuffed, but the others were not satisfied until they sopped up the final juice from the bottom of that big cauldron.

“Now, there’s some eating.” Mrs. Copperpot said, and a moment later, the fire went out and the pot vanished somewhere along with all of their bowls and utensils. Unfortunately, James missed seeing how it all went away because his eyes were trained on the forest which seemed to be moving on both sides of the path.

“Did I eat something I shouldn’t?” he wondered and whispered the words to himself. Mrs. Copperpot heard.

“No, James. I know what human people like.” She smiled for him before she got caught up with the concern that looked written on his face. “Why?” she asked and dropped her eyebrows to show concern on her own features.

“Because the forest looks like it is moving, all swirling around.” He waved his arms, and Poker saw what it was.

“Snakes!” Poker shouted. As if in answer, a rattlesnake came up across the path behind them to effectively cut off their retreat. Two great black snakes with red marks on their backs slithered up on the path in front and that left only the ogre way to the Craggy Mountains open. James did not want to go that way, but they had no choice. They all began to back down that path and kept as much to the center as they could with one eye on the leaves that covered the way in case those leaves should move on their own.

“Yikes!” Grubby jumped away and spoiled the strike of a python which reached out from behind a tree.

“There must be thousands of them!” Picker shouted, and with that word still fresh in their ears, they heard the “Toot! Toot!” of a little horn in the distance. Only a moment later, a little man rode up on the back of a fox, and a whole troop of weasels and mongooses and other such creatures came with him. The swirling in the woods stopped, though slowly, and many of the snakes started to crawl off, but many did not. They heard the sound of battle, such crashing and squealing in the woods as James had never imagined.

“Many thanks,” Mrs. Copperpot breathed.

“Glad I arrived in time,” the little man said, got down to bow to the dwarf lady, and then bowed also to James. “Name’s Pug, a common gnome. The Lord of the woods said you were headed this way, but I’ve had my eye on the postern gate for some time, and I knew the snakes were lying in wait. That demon what’s got the castle under her thumb is a sly one, she is.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Grubby said, but the words sounded hollow.

“Yes, well.” Pug did not contradict the imp, but he had more to report. “My friends will keep them back for a time, but the path you were on is not safe to travel, and the snakes will come back soon enough. Come. There’s another way around to the gate, and so far, it has been clear of guardians.”

“Double thanks.” Mrs. Copperpot returned a little bow to the gnome.

“Yes, well. I’m just a common gnome.” Pug spoke while he took the lead to get them out of that area. “But even I can see that you’ll never set Lord Noen free, nor the ladies going by that path.”

Pug proved surprisingly quick and nimble for someone who stood only two feet tall. James had a hard time keeping up; but it was not long before they found a side path which appeared very overgrown and looked like it hardly ever got used.

“I hope you’re right about this way being safe.” James still shivered from seeing that python make a grab for Grubby.

“Yes, well. I didn’t say safe, young master,” he said. “But safer, I think. I haven’t found anything too bad this way yet.” And, of course, James wondered what might be bad, even if it was not too bad.

Golden Door Chapter 10 James and the Tree part 2 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

The imp became the first to recover. “Aw. I’m not scared of her,” he said. He looked back at the twins for support, which they gave by nodding their heads, though they looked plenty scared.

Tekos turned serious. “She should scare you.” He whispered in a James sort of soft voice. Then he spoke up. “Back in the day, we were considered lesser gods, ourselves, though not immortal like the Gods, and yet this one even scares me.” It felt like a big admission.

“Well, we’re not afraid.” Grubby the imp tried again.

“I am,” James said. He remembered the witch and the arm half-way into the room, reaching for his neck. He shuddered.

“Me, too,” one of the dwarf twins admitted.

“And me, too,” the other echoed.

“We all are.” Mrs. Copperpot nodded and looked ever so stern. “But we still have to do what we can while we are able. The Lord Kairos is depending on us. There is no one else.” She paused to explain their mission to Tekos; that they were headed to the castle on the hill to try and set Lord Noen free and release the prisoners from the dungeon if they could.

With that said, Tekos leaned down to James and smiled, his wooden face crackling with the movement. He laid a gentle, though bark-rough hand against James’ cheek. “But I would not see you go defenseless into the lion’s den,” he said. He lifted his hand to James’ head, and his eyes went wide. “Son, I see that you have already been given every talent and connection to the dwarfs and those that walk the earth in between the light and the dark. There is much that you will have to discover and learn, but there is one thing I can activate in you.” He paused and appeared determined. “I have no authority to change you into a lion, you understand. I may not be able to affect the son of the Kairos at all, lesser god though I be. But I think it would be good to keep up with these other misbehavers, and glamour your way to the castle. Yes, I think you ought to be able to put on a good glamour when you have a mind.” He took his hand away as if already finished with his work, and the twins pushed forward.

“Try it out,” they echoed each other again.

James did not understand. “What’s a glamour?” he asked.

“An illusion,” Tekos responded.

“It’s how we move about sometimes when we are in substance form like now,” Mrs. Copperpot began to explain, but stopped when she saw it did not help.

Grubby pushed the twins back behind him and spoke. “Like when some human person comes tromping through the woods, and there isn’t time to go invisible-like, we make an illusion.” Grubby stepped back, and James suddenly saw a bush of thorns where the imp had been. “What dumb mortal is going to guess I’m not a real bush?” The bush finished the comment.

“Try it out,” the twins said again, though they kept back as if even they seemed reluctant to get too close to the thorns.

“It’s easy,” Grubby said, and he reappeared as the bush disappeared.

“But.”

“Just think about what you want to be,” Tekos said, gently. He laid a very long fingered hand on James’ shoulder.

“Just think,” Mrs. Copperpot urged. “But think with your belly, not with your head.” She stopped. She imagined she would confuse the boy again; but in this case, James understood what she said, or he thought he did. He did not think of it exactly. He more felt it. Then he was not there, but aware of the illusion which was a lion, and he roared loud enough to echo through the forest. The twins jumped behind a tree, and Grubby swallowed hard. Even Mrs. Copperpot looked startled, but Tekos merely smiled.

“And now the glamour will remain as long as you want,” Tekos explained while James licked his hand like Seabass his cat so often did; and the illusion lion licked its paw and looked every bit like a real lion. “You must think yourself James again to come back.”

The inevitable thought came. What If I can’t do that? But James tried, and it turned out to be very easy.

“That was great. I’m Picker.” The head stuck out from behind the tree.

“That was really great. I’m Poker.” The other called down from the third branch above. The young one quickly climbed down, while James studied them. He decided that apart from their short stature, not unusual for boys, the only way he could distinguish them from the purely human boys in his school was the fact that they both sported the beginnings of serious beards. Otherwise, they looked like perfectly normal, dark-haired, bright-eyed boys.

“’sall right,” Grubby admitted, but he looked impressed. Grubby, on the other hand, had a bulbous nose that seemed a bit too big for a human nose, and bulgy eyes which looked more nearly like little saucers. He did not exactly look non-human, but then he did not exactly look human, either.

James had a thought. “Will you come with us to the castle and help rescue everyone?” he asked before anyone could stop him.

“Oh, no, dear,” Mrs. Copperpot spoke quickly. “It’ll be dangerous enough just for the two of us.”

“Oh, please.” Tekos spoke almost as quickly. “My dear Mrs. Copperpot, you are a far better choice to watch these young ruffians than I. I understand the danger,” he assured her. “But if they do not go somewhere, I fear you may return to find no forest at all. You may find nothing but cinders.” He looked cross as he pulled a small broken branch from Poker’s shirt, and then snatched several light-anywhere matches from Grubby’s pocket with such speed and dexterity, the young imp could not do anything but shout.

“Hey!”

“Please, my dear Lady Copperpot. I must insist.” Tekos looked stubborn. One might say he looked rooted in that position.

“Yes, my Lord.” Mrs. Copperpot would not argue, but she had something more to say. “You three had better mind,” she insisted, shook her finger at them and lingered on the imp.

“We will.” Picker and Poker readily agreed, and even the imp nodded.

“Will you come with us?” James asked the dryad.

“Alas,” Tekos said in his most tender voice. “Apart from an invitation and under the protection of Lady Alice, the Kairos, your father, I cannot. Like the Naiads and their springs and grottos, and the Oreads and their stones and mountains, I am bound to the trees. I cannot go far from my roots, you see?”

“I see,” James said, but he felt disappointed to hear it. He imagined this great, tall tree-man might come in very handy against whatever they faced.

“Well, then,” Mrs. Copperpot said, as she came to grips with her extended responsibilities. “Let’s be off. Time is short, and there is a ways to go yet to reach the castle.” She reached out one hand, and the dwarf twins came forward. Grubby held back a bit, until James took the imp’s arm in encouragement. Grubby smiled.

“Son of the Kairos, indeed,” Tekos said, with his own creaking smile. He no sooner finished speaking, however, when the ground began to tremble. It felt like an aftershock from the previous night’s earthquake, perhaps, but this one felt stronger than the other, and it went on longer as well. Everyone fell to the ground. The twins crawled up beside the bigger dwarf, and the imp all but buried his head in the dirt. James tried not to scream, even as he tried not to get sick. The crashing of trees started in the forest, and the voice of Tekos rose-up.

“Hold to your roots! Keep a deep grip!” It felt hard to tell what or whom he spoke to as a nearby tree began to topple toward them. James got a good look, but afterwards, he could not say if the two big branches happened to be in the right place to catch the tree before it crushed them, or if the branches sort of grew and reached out to grab their fallen comrade. Then the earthquake subsided, and the earth stilled.

As soon as she caught her breath, Mrs. Copperpot stood. “Come,” she said. She looked up briefly as a shadow crossed the clearing. “Time is short.” The young ones followed, and only after reaching the path did James think to look back and say, “Thank you.”

“Don’t be a stranger.” James heard Tekos, either on the air or in his mind, but he could see nothing but trees.

************************

MONDAY

Chris discovers there are dangers in the dark, and Beth could tell him there are dangers in the bright sunshine as well. Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

Golden Door Chapter 10 James and the Tree part 1 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

James had to hustle to stay beside Mrs. Copperpot despite the dwarf’s short legs.  She did not ignore him, exactly, but she did not talk much, and she loved the brisk stroll through the old growth forest. James did not worry too much as long as he kept to the path, and as long as he could keep up, he would not complain. The trouble, of course, is dwarfs can walk at a spritely pace all day and all night without a stop, and James soon found his legs were not used to so much rapid walking.

He paused at one point to catch his breath and give his legs a breather as well. “Hey. Just a minute,” he said, but between his soft voice and Mrs. Copperpot’s elderly ears, they did not make contact. James bent down to tie his shoe and thought that the woman stopped, but when he looked up he did not see her.

He ran a little to catch her, but just around the corner, he came to a crossroads of a sort and felt stumped. He could neither see her nor hear her, and he felt afraid for a minute that he might be lost. Then he felt the urge and sniffed. Without hesitation, he knew exactly which way she went. James could never explain how that worked. He said, much later, that it seemed like a sixth sense, something Angel had given him, but in this case, since it was the first time he tried it, his mind filled with doubts. He started down that path, but then backed up to the crossroads, and thought that surely Mrs. Copperpot would notice his absence in a minute, and she would come back to that place to find him. He did not want to be wandering down the wrong path and miss her. His father always said if he got lost, he should stay where he was and wait for the others to find him.

James looked around and decided that apart from being a place where two paths through the forest crossed, nothing special stuck out about his location. There were trees, piles of old leaves, bushes, vines, and a few flowers all around him, but the paths seemed clear of debris and so he sat at the very cross of the crossroads and waited. He heard a rustling in the leaves and started; but it turned out to be a squirrel, as he guessed. The birds came out as well. He began to hum and then mouthed a few words. He moved his arms and elbows sharply back and forth as he sat.

“Now we’re not complaining, but there is still one thing remaining. For bread is quite boring if that’s all you eat.” He screamed. A vine came up from behind him and wrapped twice around his middle. James leaned forward to grab what he could, but the path was just dirt without even a protruding rock to hold on to, and the vine pulled him back among the trees.

“Help! Help!” James cried out, and he flipped around to see where he headed. He spied a fly trap type plant big enough to swallow him, but also a tree root that stuck up out of the ground. He grabbed the root and held on, and his motion toward that plant trap stopped while he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Help! Help!”

A man stepped out of the tree, or at least it looked like that to James. The man raised a staff of oak and spoke to the fly trap in some ancient language. The plant immediately burst into flames and withdrew the vine from James’ chest. The man spoke again, and the wind came and put the fire out lest the whole area of dead and dry leaves go up in flames. Then he grabbed James by the hand, without looking at the boy, and pulled him away.

“Come along you nuisance. Are you the imp or one of the twins?” James kept his mouth shut, but apparently, the man thought he was someone else. At last, they came to an area that could not be seen from the paths. Nothing grew in that spot other than sweet grass all the way around in a circle, and in the center of the circle of grass, a tremendous, thick, gnarled old oak grew in primeval splendor, taller than any of the other trees around. It looked like a hand reaching for the sun. “Now let’s see.” The man said, and he spun James around rather rudely; but paused when he got a good look. “Why, you’re neither imp nor dwarf,” he said. “If I did not know better, I would guess you were a mortal human, though I don’t suppose the creature in the castle would be daft enough to allow that to happen.”

“I’m James,” James said hopefully. He did not want to be cross with his savior despite the rough handling. The man turned James around for a thorough look, while James also examined the man close enough to realize that it was not a man. For one, the hair looked too thick, and the face and hands too scraggly, with warts that looked almost like tree knots, and skin that seemed a bit rough and brittle as well, like bark. Most of all, when the man finally stood upright, he apparently stood about ten feet tall, and that made James, who was short for his age, feel especially short.

“I am Tekos the Seventh, Lord of the Oak Wood,” the man said, and with hardly a breath, he added. “And you are mortal, human, aren’t you?”

James shrugged. He could not be sure what the Lord of the Oak was asking. “My father is the Kairos,” he said. He thought that meant something in this world, even if he did not exactly understand what it meant.

Tekos’ eyebrows lifted slowly, and James heard the sound of crackling wood. “I’ll bet the-should-be-gone goddess in the castle did not plan on this.” He smiled.

“No, sir,” James said, politely.

Suddenly, the man-creature softened and plopped down on the ground to speak to James more eye to eye. “You know my sire, the first Tekos by name, did your father a great favor in ancient times. He was rooted in Greece, not far from Athens, and he opened a way for some friends of your father so some of the little spirits could travel instantly from Greece back to their homes at the top of the Black Sea. Of course, your father was a god himself in those days, the Nameless god, but the story says he was very young and did not yet know how to do the work on his own.” James shook his head. He did not follow the story.

“James!” The call came from the path.

“Over here!” James shouted, in case this Tekos turned out to be not so nice as he seemed and tried to stop him from speaking. Then he explained. “Mrs. Copperpot. My, er, friend,” he concluded. He realized that he did not know what else to call her. She was not his babysitter or any such thing; certainly not his cook, though he would not have minded if she was. He supposed guide would have been a reasonable choice, but friend just seemed friendlier.

“I see,” Lord Tekos said, and crinkled those eyebrows up once again. He called out himself. “James is here, and safe!”

A moment of crunching through the bushes followed. James thought that surely Mrs. Copperpot would not make all that noise, when he saw her holding a youngster by the ear and followed by two other boys of some sort that had their heads down like they had just survived a good scolding. He heard the one in her grip.

“Ow! I tell you, ow!”

 “Quiet, Grubby,” Mrs. Copperpot said, in a voice not to be argued with. “You behave or I’ll twist the ear right off. And you two, Picker and Poker, I expect better from you than to hang around with wayward imps!”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The two boys in Mrs. Copperpot’s train spoke in unison, but neither raised his head.

“James!” Suddenly the imp got dropped and forgotten as Mrs. Copperpot raced forward to embrace the boy. James did not mind the hug, but he felt a bit uncomfortable as well. He decided it would be all right provided she did not start slobbering over him like a seldom seen grandmother. Besides, the hug felt brief as Mrs. Copperpot turned quickly to Tekos who had stood to his full height and towered over them all. “Lord Dryad.” The dwarf curtsied.

“Lady. Have I the honor of addressing the great Lady Copperpot of the golden cauldron?”

“I wouldn’t say great, your worship.” Mrs. Copperpot turned her head, shyly, and curtsied a little once more. Tekos merely smiled before he turned on the three youngsters.

“And you, you rascals.” Tekos eyes creaked down to slits as he peered at the three boys that James suddenly realized were not boys at all, though they appeared to be about his age. “Did you hear this fine lady? Your behavior is in need of repair, lest you call attention to yourselves and the creepy thing in the castle grab you.” The way Tekos said creepy thing sent chills down James’ spine, and he saw it affected the others in a similar way.

Medieval 6: K and Y 11 The Chase, part 2 of 2

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Kirstie

Kirstie took his hand and led him down to the beach where the last of the Viking ships, Kare’s ship was still visible in the distance. The men had come to the rocks with the horses, but only a few followed Wilam and Kirstie down to the beach. They heard the call, and it was strangely soft and loud and somehow echoed across the sea. “Vingevourt.”

It took a few seconds before a good hundred little blobs of sea took shape and invaded the shore, not like a wave breaking, but like an invasion of Jellyfish-like gingerbread men. The humans took many steps back, but Kirstie spoke to the king of the water sprites of the North Sea.

“We need to follow the three Viking ships that just left this shore. Can you track them and help our ships follow in their wake.”

“We can do that, easy,” Vingevourt answered, and he answered in such an excited, sweet baby-like voice some of the men who backed up moved forward again.

“We will be leaving from Bamburgh in two days. Can you meet us there to help guide us? That will give the Viking ships a two-day head start, but we don’t want to lose them.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We know every ship and shore in the sea, and we will be right on top of them all the way. Would you like us to slow them down until you get there?”

“Not at this time. Just lead the way and let us know when they stop in a port, and where they are.”

“Why sure. Not a problem. Meet you in two days.” The jelly babies turned back to the sea.

“Goodbye,” Wilam said, smiled, and waved.

“Goodbye. Bye. See ya later. Bye.” the sprites all answered.

Kirstie turned to Wilam and hugged him. “My water babies are so cute.” she breathed, and Wilam did not disagree with her.

“Beg pardon,” Brant interrupted them. “You don’t have a ship to follow them.”

“Well?” Wilam said. “We just have to wake Captain Olaf from his August sleep.”

Brant nodded and said, “I’m not waking him. But one ship on three is not very good odds.”

One of the elders spoke up. “Captain Otto will sail with you. He is coming with the men on foot. I’ll explain it to him, and I am sure there will be others.”

Kirstie just smiled up at Wilam. “We have time to get Soren settled before we sail, but you will have to lead my horse while I hang on. Talking in my head with my little ones always gives this mortal woman a headache.”

Wilam kissed her on the top of her head. “I’ll take it slow.”

Yasmina

Al-Rahim insisted. He took Ziri and Gwafa into town and secured rooms in a hostel. They would have a home cooked meal and warm beds and would not have to set tents in the wilderness for a change, but Al-Rahim would go first to make sure it was safe. They all knew it was risky, but the princess had been very good camping all those weeks without complaint. Now that they reached the no man’s land, where the Fatimid and Egypt both staked a claim but neither side actually controlled, al-Rahim thought they might get away with a visit to a village if it was small enough and out of the way enough.

Ziri and Gwafa stayed in the one road that ran through the center of the village, looking for enemy soldiers, possible hostiles, or any people that might be interested enough in the news and current events where they might contrive some way to betray them for a reward. Such things were not always easy to spot, but the village looked peaceful enough.

Al-Din and his three men stayed in the wilderness with Yasmina and Aisha. They hid behind a small rise in the landscape. Al-Din, Yasmina, and Aisha climbed up to the top of the rise but could not honestly see much, except Aisha who had elf eyes.

“There are men and camels in the distance coming to the village,” Aisha said.

“A caravan? Merchants or soldiers?” Yasmina asked.

“How can you see that? All I see is some distant dust,” al-Din said.

“Caravan,” Aisha concluded. “But Berbers of some sort.” That meant they might be friendly, and they might not. The Fatimids filled their army with Berber soldiers.

“A rider,” al-Din pointed and turned to his men. They were the last of the guard sent by the governor of Alexandria on the diplomatic mission to the Fatimids. They agreed to work for al-Din, at least until they got back to Alexandria and got paid. “A rider,” he shouted to the men. “I think it is Ziri. Omar, go check it out.”

Omar mounted his horse, sort of saluted, but he did not say anything. The others watched as the riders met and saw them wave to join them. Yasmina slid down the back of the rise. Aisha walked it with no problem. Al-Din tried to walk, but stumbled and in the end, rolled the last few feet.

When they mounted their horses, Yasmina spoke to everyone. “Remember, I am Jasmine, my maid is Yrsa…” She pointed at al-Din. “And you are Aladdin, my cousin. Now, like we planned.”

Omar waited to ride beside al-Din. Yasmina and Aisha rode behind, and the last two guards, Ali and Sulayman, brought up the rear. Ziri rode out front and brought them to the hostel before he explained.

“Captain Al-Rahim overpaid to secure two rooms. The other three in the hostel are reserved for the caravan chiefs that are expected to arrive soon. The man says they come through about once per month and sometimes take all the rooms, but sometimes only the chiefs take rooms and the rest camp in the street.” Ziri shrugged. “We get the street, but we will be by the door in case we are needed. The man said they are friendly merchants, so we will see.”

“You better set your tents,” Aisha told the men. “I saw camels in the distance. They will be here shortly.”

Aisha, al-Din, and Yasmina all went inside. Then they had to sit at a table and wait for three hours until the caravan arrived, and the merchants got settled. It was late when the food came, and al-Rahim had to make some threatening noises to make sure the boys outside got fed, which he had paid for in advance.

The chiefs of the caravan seemed nice, but standoffish. After they ate, they went straight to their rooms, but there did seem to be a bunch of Berbers coming and going throughout the evening.

Al-Rahim felt suspicious from the beginning. He set up a watch on the inside balcony outside of their two rooms. Each of the guards stood vigilant for two hours in the night. Al Rahim himself stayed in al-Din’s room and imagined they would be safe enough, but around midnight he got up and ordered the men to saddle the horses and pack everything to leave. Omar, the head of al-Din’s three guards thought he was being paranoid, but the men complied and then had to sleep outside in the open.

Gwafa was on watch when an old woman came to him from one of the merchant rooms. “Please,” she said. “Tafir is an old man, and he will hurt himself. Please, could you help us? It will only take a minute.”

Gwafa looked at the curtains covering the two doors and thought it should be all right. He stepped down to the room and the woman opened the curtain. As he went in, he found two men there. One covered his mouth, though he let out a muffled cry when the other stabbed him in his chest. The two wrestled Gwafa to the ground and stabbed him several times before he stopped moving. When they went to the balcony, two other men met them.

Aisha woke as soon as Gwafa cried out through the hand over his mouth. She woke Yasmina, banged the pommel of her knife against the wall to wake al-Rahim and hopefully al-Din, and woke Yasmina again who did not want to get up.

“Dress,” she said, and brandished her knife which got Yasmina’s attention. Yasmina yawned but called to her armor and weapons when she heard the men in the hall. The men came in quiet and carefully, thinking the women were still asleep. One got Aisha’s knife. The other got sliced across the chest with Yasmina’s scimitar. Yasmina stared at what she did with dumb, uncomprehending eyes while Aisha finished the man.

Al-Rahim poked his head into the room and said, “Hurry.” They hurried, Yasmina still carrying her scimitar in her hand. When they got outside in the dark, they heard noises and a couple of screams from overhead. Aisha grabbed Yasmina’s scimitar and wiped it clean on her sleeve. She reached to put it back in the sheath, but Yasmina said, “Go home,” and the scimitar and sheath both vanished.

Aisha got Yasmina up on her horse while al-Rahim did the same for al-Din. We have to ride. Now!” Al-Rahim shouted and started down the road, right through the middle of the Berber caravan camp.

“Gwafa?” Ziri asked.

“Not coming,” Aisha said, and it was the last thing any of them said as they rode hard. One arrow came in their direction, but it fell way short. Al-Rahim pulled up on a bump in the road to look back. He could hardly see well, even with the nearly full moon and all the stars out.

“Hopefully, they will not follow,” he said.

“We could go off the road,” Omar suggested.

Al-Rahim shook his head. “This is their land. They know the countryside and we don’t.” He looked at Yasmina and Aisha, both of whom yawned, Yasmina because she got so rudely awakened and Aisha because she was what Kirstie would call a light elf, and not made for the dark hours. “Our only hope is to continue on this back road until we come to the coastal highway. Hopefully we can lose them there.”

“If they follow,” Ziri said.

“You could go this way,” someone by Yasmina’s feet spoke which made Yasmina shriek and pull up her foot. She almost fell off the horse. When she squinted down, she identified the little one and yelled.

“Creeper!”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, like he forgot. “Boo.”

“Not funny,” she said before she changed her mind. “Slightly funny.”

“Me and my gang have been following you,” Creeper spoke up. “I figure right now you could use some help getting away where they can’t follow you.”

“Do you think?” Al-Din practiced his sarcasm.

“Is it safe?” Omar asked.

“Which way?” Al-Rahim had no problem following the imp.

“Come,” Creeper responded to the old man and led them by elf ways and secret paths that put some real distance between them and any pursuers they might have.

************************

MONDAY

*

Medieval 6: K and Y 1 Married Life, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Yasmina

After 914 A. D. The Hejaz and North Africa

Kairos 105 Yasmina, Princess of Mecca and Medina

Yasmina crawled into her chair at the table and faced al-Hakim. She moved her knight and said, “Check.”

“You are very good at this game. I don’t know why I play it with you.”

‘Because you don’t want to do other things.” she answered. “That is okay. I accept that, but you know we must spend one day and one night together each week or your parents and grandparents will start asking questions. I would not know what to say to your grandfather, the Caliph of all the Fatimid Empire.” she smiled at that description. “Questions would not work out well for either of us.”

Al-Hakim huffed and moved his king. He understood. “You would become a plaything for my brother, al-Mansur, and I would not like to see that happen.”

Yasmina smiled as she moved her queen and said “Check. You like me?”

Al-Hakim lifted his eyes from the game to look at her. “You know I do. You are a great sister, and as long as you are willing to accept me as your brother, even as you suggested in the beginning. Yes, as brother and sister rather than husband and wife, I have found real affection for you.”

Yasmina gushed. “I am glad. I’m not at all ready for a husband, but I always wanted a brother so I could beat him in games and tease him about his girlfriends, or boyfriends as the case may be.”

He moved his king again and frowned, touching her queen as he looked around the board trying to find a way out. “Just like a woman to back a man into a trap.”

“Be honest. We both got trapped, but you tried at first, so I am not a virgin,” Yasmina said seriously. “Still being a virgin would have raised far too many questions for both of us.” he nodded, and she finished her thought. “Did I tell you how good and brave it was of you to do that?”

“Many times,” he said. “I know my mother and grandmother checked. It might have been better, though, if you became pregnant.”

“No,” she protested. “You would have put me away and we never would have become friends, like brother and sister.”

He agreed with that. She was the first person in his life who cared for him for who he was and did not judge him or make him feel wrong and dirty. “I don’t know if I can do that again,” he admitted.

“Maybe someday when we are older, we can figure something out,” she touched his hand briefly as a sign of her own affection and he nodded to her, so she changed the subject. “So, how is Abdallah? I suppose after all this time he has adjusted to spending one night alone in the fac-tUry.” She deliberately mispronounced the word.

“Fac-tOry,” he said with some exasperation.

“Of course,” she responded. “I keep forgetting. You know, it might help if I knew what you were doing out there in secret-land. Maybe I could remember better.”

Al-Hakim stared at her while she put on her “Hi, I’m just a stupid little girl face.” It made him grin.

“Maybe someday,” he said.

Yasmina huffed like any girl at not getting what she wanted. She moved her other horse and said, “Checkmate.” He had to stare at the board for a minute before he shrugged, and she began to pick up the pieces to put them away.

Al-Hakim stood and stretched. “I have to go,” he said through his yawn and grabbed his cloak. “I have to check on things at the fac-tUry.”

Yasmina pouted. “Now, don’t start picking on me,” she said before she smiled and followed him to the door. He stepped out and stopped. She reached up and kissed his cheek while he reached down to squeeze her butt cheek. It was their routine in front of the guards and whatever women might be in the area. He marched off down the way. She kept smiling until she got her door closed. Then she shook her head and mumbled softly to herself, “Something wrong with that boy.”

“I agree,” Aisha said as she came in from her little room next door, having heard the soft mumble with her good elf ears.

“You look older,” Yasmina responded. “Al-Mansur bothering you again?”

Aisha nodded. “I have tried to make myself look appropriately old enough to be your long-time maid and guardian and old enough to keep the younger men from getting any ideas. It doesn’t work on al-Mansur.”

“He might like an older woman,” Yasmina teased.

“A young bull. He likes all women. He isn’t picky,” she responded.

Yasmina understood as she went to the table and finished picking up the game to put it away while Aisha straightened the bed cloths. Again, Yasmina changed the subject. “I would sure like to know what they are doing in what al-Hakim calls his factory. We see the metal brought in and I know they are smelting something. Also lumber and wagon loads of various raw materials that I can’t get close enough to identify. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“As do I,” Aisha agreed as there came a knock on the door.

“Come,” Yasmina raised her voice.

The imp wife Camela came in with a “Good morning.” She was well disguised as an old lady and was followed by three maids carrying trays which they set on the table before they left. When the door closed, Camela had something more to say. “Breakfast. I thought you might need a bite to eat after a strenuous night of doing nothing.”

Yasmina thought it looked like enough food for an army. “Not true,” she protested. “He cuddles in the night. If he had any interest at all, he would make a good husband. Certainly, better then Kare the jerk.”

************************

MONDAY

Kirstie and Kare argue. Kirstie is pregnant and Kare looks for the money Kirstie has hidden away. Then Kare goes one step too far and moves out. Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

Reflections W-3 part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

It took all morning to complete the gentle turn around the bend in the stream. They had to walk their horses slowly through the rocks and briars of the grasslands, and sometimes they had to walk through the stream itself. The gully, which had been shrinking by the hour on both sides, now joined the flat grasslands, and the stream meandered across the surface of that land until, far in the distance, it ran into a great river. They could see a village along the riverbank, and Wlvn nudged his horse to a trot. He dragged Number Two along with him. Wlkn came at a little slower pace with two horses in tow, but by around three in the afternoon they came within sight of the houses. The village looked like the villages of their people apart from it being out in the open, not surrounded by trees, and yet one thing was very different about this village by the river. This village looked to have a stockade, like a little fort built at the back of the houses, right up against the water.

“Looks deserted.” Wlkn commented as they slowed again to a walk.

Wlvn nodded. “Deserted for some time,” he said, as he examined the farm fields. They were grown over with weeds like they had not been planted in several years.

“Maybe the Lord of All sent his helpers to burn them out,” Wlkn suggested.

Wlvn shook his head this time. “The buildings are run down, but still standing, not burnt. Besides, the Lord of All is not Lord of as much as he says. The arm of that Titanic monstrosity does not reach this far.” Wlvn had to shiver just thinking about that giant.

“So! There is land beyond the center of the universe.” Wlkn grinned, knowing for certain something that had long been a debate among the villagers. “The Lord can’t reach us here.” He looked happy for a second.

“I didn’t say that,” Wlvn said, as he kicked Thred again to a trot and only stopped and dismounted when they came up alongside the first hut. Sure enough, there were no fires, and no sign of people at all, but there were signs of wreckage. It looked like some kind of battle had been fought there.

“What happened here?” Wlkn asked.

Again, Wlvn did not answer right away as both the Princess and Diogenes came up into his mind and directed his eyes. He found a spear at his feet, under a tarp of some kind, with golden hairs, animal hairs, still attached to the stone tip as if glued there by blood. Just inside a big, ragged hole in the wall of one hut, in a place where the rain could not wash it away, there were more golden hairs.

“Hello?” Wlkn called out, just in case.

Wlvn walked up to the fort. The stockade had been broken through in several places, like with a battering ram, or something very heavy that got applied with great force. If he did not know better, he imagined some person might have thrown himself against the wall until he made the hole, but then he supposed even the Gott-Druk were not that strong.

“Hello?” Wlkn called again. He dismounted but held his reigns tight, no doubt thinking of the need for a quick getaway.

Wlvn dropped the reigns of his horses and stepped through one of the holes in the stockade wall. “Hello?” He echoed Wlkn. “If anyone is here, please come out. We will not hurt you.”

“So you say.” A voice responded and both Wlvn and Wlkn got startled to hear a response. Wlkn took a couple of steps back in case he had to run. The voice came from inside the hut at the back of the stockade, but no one could be seen.

“You see? I have no weapons in my hand. I only wish to talk, to ask what happened here.”

“I see weapons at your back. Dark elf, by the look of them. What are you, a Hobgob?”

“Just a boy and an old man,” Wlkn said as he stepped up beside Wlvn, having decided that standing next to the one with weapons might be the safer course. “We seek only shelter for the night and mean you no harm.” With that, Wlkn decided some show of their peaceful intent was due, and he began to gather up some lumber with the idea of making a fire while he thought, too bad they had nothing to eat. Of course, both he and Wlvn were well used to going without food for a day or two.

“Oh, no!” A head popped out of a window in the hut. It had a bulbous nose, a long brown beard that hung from the window almost to the ground, and beady little eyes that nevertheless looked old and wise and much older than Wlkn. “It isn’t safe here,” the face said. “Especially not at night. Night is when they come. You will bring them back here. They will come for you. It isn’t safe.” The head withdrew, back into the dark shadows of the hut.

“Bain!” The name, burst from Wlvn’s lips before he could stop it. The face in the window immediately popped out once with terribly wide eyes and withdrew again. The little one looked utterly shocked to hear that name, of all names.

“Bain?” Wlvn questioned himself, having no idea where that name came from, but it sounded right, even if it did not sound right at the same time. “But you can’t be Bain. You are far too young,” Wlvn concluded.

“How do you know that?” The voice fairly shouted from the hut, but the face stayed hidden. “How can you possibly know that?”

“Come out.” Wlvn shouted right back. “Let me look at you.” Something clicked in Wlvn’s psyche, and he knew this was one creature over which he had some say. The creature, a dwarf of sorts, came out of the door like his Lord had called him. He trembled, just like Wlkn trembled in the face of the Alfader. Wlkn took one look at the dwarf and dropped every stick of wood. This creature, clearly not human, made Wlkn tremble, too. “Your name?” Wlvn had it on the tip of his tongue, but he could not quite verbalize it.

“Badl,” the dwarf said, and he removed his hat in Wlvn’s presence because he felt it was appropriate.

“Badl. Of course. You must be Bain’s—”

“—Son. Yes, your worship, your honor, sir.”

“What the…?” Wlkn watched the exchange between the boy and this spirit of the Earth, and he decided then and there what had been brewing in the back of his mind all day; that this all actually had to be a dream and he was safe in his hut sleeping, or maybe he died, only he did not feel dead.

“You must be the god my dad told me about, but he said you were a woman.” Badl tried to make sense of what he felt. “But then he did say you were a man when you changed him, you know, from a regular imp to a gnome.

“I suppose I was, Badl.” Wlvn got that much out before he froze. Everyone looked up as they heard the distant sound of wailing, like a baby’s cry. The sun looked ready to set, and Badl had a quick look as if checking the time before he spoke. It felt near five.

“Lord, you have to get out of here. The night creatures, they will come like they came before. All they do is eat, and they are fast and strong and nearly impossible to kill, and…”

“What are night creatures?” Wlkn got back to his questions and looked at Wlvn. He decided that even if this was all a dream, he did not want it to turn into a complete nightmare if he could help it.

“I don’t know, except they have golden fur.”

“Mostly. Some are black and motley colored.” Badl started to answer before he shook his head and started again. “You have to get out. They hunt and eat, and never give up. They rest in the day under the shade but hunt as soon as the night comes.”

“Loki’s guardians.” Wlvn suddenly understood and put two and two together. “How long have they been walking the perimeter of the forest?” he asked.

Badl twisted his hat in his hands. “Couple of years,” he said, his face all twisted up with thinking.

“Since the days we started with horses and riders,” Wlvn concluded.

“Maybe we can fix the barricade.” Wlkn tried to be practical. He still did not know what night creatures were, but he did not like the sound of them. “Loki?” he wondered.

“No good.” Badl started to whine. “The men made it as strong as they could. Look, they used whole trees, but the night creatures busted through anyway. They just kept hurling themselves against the wall until they finally broke in. All those women and children.” Badl looked ready to cry.

“Bring the horses inside the barricade,” Wlvn told Wlkn, and the old man nodded. It was something to do to keep his mind off night creatures that he never saw and hoped he never would.

“Lord, lord!” Badl seemed about to shred his hat when Wlvn put his hand on the dwarf’s shoulder.

“It will be alright,” he said, and he stepped into the hut to look out the back window, except the back wall had no window. The hut had literally been built right up to the water and framed without an opening, so in order to see, he had to kick hard against the logs of the hut until they started to give way. “Help me,” he said, and Badl helped until the back wall opened up in a large gap. Several logs collapsed and Wlvn only looked up once to be sure the roof would not fall on his head.  He looked across the river and saw the most beautiful bird he ever saw fly down on to the water, near the far bank. It appeared to look right at him, but Wlvn assumed it could not really be looking at him, being a poor, dumb beast. It began to sing an alluring birdsong that sounded as lovely as the creature itself, and it climbed carefully to the bank. With one more look back in Wlvn’s direction, it took again to the air and flew off in a southwesterly direction. Wlvn watched it for a time before voices drew him back into the stockade.

************************

MONDAY Chapter 4

They gain a dwarf to go on the journey once they convince him the horses are not for eating.  And they find a lovely lady who will feed them.  Until Monday, Happy Reading

*

M3 Margueritte: Trouble in Banner Bein, part 3 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Margueritte looked into the dark and felt immediately overwhelmed by the smell of mold and old bones.  She turned her head.  “Will you wait for me?” she asked, and the unicorn agreed.  Margueritte nodded her thanks, and with tears in her eyes, from fear as much as from the smell, she stepped into the dark of the graves.

Down a long corridor, and she had to turn away from the light altogether.  She needed her hand at that point to touch the wall and not lose her way.  She felt sure she touched dead bones more than once, but the bones and the dark did not frighten her.  The ghosts of lost souls that haunted the passageways raised the hair on the back of her neck.

She came to no more turns before she caught the glimmer of firelight ahead.  She heard the deep, gravel voices of the ogres in the distance, but curiously, they did not make her nearly as afraid as the thought of ghosts.

“The lady will be happy with the girl,” one said.

“Is that what it is?  A girl?”  That sounded like a much deeper voice.  Margueritte guessed the first one was the female—the smart one.

“I’m hungry.”  That had to be the little one, though it was hard to tell by the voice.

“The sheep’s a boiling,” the female said.  “We’ll get a good winter’s nap from that lot.”

Margueritte shook her head as she neared the light.  The sheep were already gone.  She only hoped Elsbeth was still in one piece.

“Eh!”  That was an imp voice.  “Fingers out of the pot.”  She heard a sharp crack of a metal spoon rapped against rocks, which Margueritte rightly interpreted as the ogre’s knuckles.

“Ow! But I like it more raw.”  The ogre complained in a voice which suggested he might be the grandfather.

Margueritte stole that moment to peek and guessed that the ogres would all be turned away.  Sure enough, their eyes were on the fire and the old ogre who licked his knuckles.  The imp stood on a tall stool over a cauldron big enough for three men where she stirred the meat with a spoon studded with spikes against over eager hands.

“Well, just wait with the rest.”  The imp went back to stirring, while Margueritte, who saw an opening, took that moment to sneak in behind a rough-hewn cabinet which had been pushed only lazily toward the wall.  She waited there a long time while the ogres argued over the stew, before they settled grumpily around the tremendous fire which took up the whole center of the room.  Margueritte appreciated the cabinet, since the heat from the fire felt sweltering.

Elsbeth sat in the corner, well away from the fire, her hands wrapped with thick chords of rope, tied to the bench she occupied.  Margueritte imagined the imp tied her there since she would be the only one with fingers capable of tying a knot without accidentally breaking Elsbeth’s wrist.  Elsbeth looked awake but stared blindly as if in shock and unable to fully comprehend what was happening to her.  Margueritte tried several times to get her attention, but to no avail.

At last the imp declared the sheep ready enough and everyone grabbed a favorite piece and began to munch, bones and all.  Margueritte, who had been brought up with some manners felt repulsed by the scene.  She knew she ought to wait until they finished and hopefully went to bed, or at least to sleep, but the longer she stayed behind the cabinet, the more worried she became.  It would be dark soon.  The unicorn might not wait much longer.  Surely, they are so absorbed with eating, they will not notice her.  She saw a cupboard of sorts and a terribly oversized wooden bucket she could slip behind along the way.  And all this finally convinced her to move before it was prudent.

The cabinet was easy to get to.  But the bucket sat some steps off.  She decided to try the old rock throwing routine, but her first rock, instead of sailing over the heads of the ogres and making a nice clattering sound on the other side of the cave, it slammed into the father ogre’s head.  Then again, he did not even feel it and only paused long enough to mumble something about nasty insects.

Margueritte’s next stone sailed truer to the target.  It did not clatter quite like she hoped, but it did turn the ogre heads long enough for her to dash to the bucket.

“More likely rats.”  The mother ogre commented before they returned to their feast.  “Maybe we can catch some for dessert.”

Elsbeth saw her sister suddenly and looked about to shout out.  Margueritte barely kept Elsbeth quiet long enough to hunker down behind the bucket rim.  She still concentrated on keeping her sister quiet when the father ogre got up and stepped to the bucket.  He scooped up a drink in the tremendous ladle and then splashed the scoop back into the bucket which caused the water to slosh over the side and soak Margueritte’s head.  One step and the ogre’s vision caught up with his brain, and his arm was much longer than Margueritte would have believed.

“Hey!”  The ogre shouted and in one reach, scooped Margueritte up by her hair.  Elsbeth screamed and that caused a moment of confusion, which allowed Margueritte to slip to the ground, free of the Ogre’s grasp.  Marguerite flew to Elsbeth’s side, but the thick rope proved too hard to untie quickly.  In a moment, the imp was on her and the ogre family blocked the way out.

“What have we here?”  The imp asked.

“The Danna.  The Don.”  Margueritte answered without thinking.  “And you have invaded my house without asking.”  Her fear made her angry and opened her mouth with whatever words might come out.

“Now come, pretty.”  The imp reached out to grab Margueritte’s arm, but something like lightning from ruby slippers caused the imp to jump back and suck her fingers.  Margueritte finished untying her sister.  “I told Ping no children!”  Margueritte shouted while the imp’s eyes widened as big as dinner plates.

“You saw my husband?” she whispered through her fingers.

“I said no children, and I never said he could have even one sheep,” Margueritte raged.  “You stole them.  You are thieves and you owe me your lives in return.”  It seemed a bold madness drove the poor girl.  Even Elsbeth stared.  Margueritte grabbed her sister’s hand and marched to the door full of ogres.  Elsbeth averted her eyes because they were so hideous to look at.  Margueritte, however, stared right at them all and demanded.  “Move!”

The mother, the young one and the dim-witted grandfather were all inclined to follow instructions, but the father bent down and tried to grin.  Lucky, Elsbeth was not watching.  The sight of an ogre grinning could make the strongest stomach give it up.

“Now, then, you don’t mean it,” the ogre said.  “Why not stop for a bite to eat and a bit of calm down?”

Margueritte’s fear peaked.  “Smasher!”  She shouted the ogre’s name.  “I said move!”  She screamed and her little hand rushed out and slapped the rock-hard ogre jaw dead on.  Of course, nothing should have happened other than Margueritte hurting her hand, but to everyone’s amazement, the ogre got knocked all the way to the wall and slid to his seat, unconscious.  Margueritte was not about to look that gift ogre in the mouth.  With a tight hold on Elsbeth’s hand, she raced down the long, dark hall and the other ogres gave her plenty of space.  She turned toward the light.  She heard the young one call after her.

“Don.  Danna.  Wait.  Please.”

Margueritte did not wait.  As soon as she got out the door, she saw the sun well on its way to the horizon. Gratefully, she saw the unicorn still there, not having moved an inch.

“Margueritte?”  Elsbeth said, and followed immediately with, “So pretty!”  The unicorn dropped to one knee and Margueritte placed her sister on the beast’s back.  She slipped up behind while she told her sister to hold tight to the unicorn’s mane.  Then they were off at a soft gallop which the girls hardly felt.  Margueritte even had time to look back and see that ugly young head peek out of the open door.  “Hammerhead is a dweeb.”  Margueritte thought to herself and felt rather affectionate toward the youth, ogre though he was.  She attributed the feeling to the unicorn and imagined that one could not do other than love in the purest sense when in such a creature’s presence.  In truth, everything was by necessity pure in the presence of a unicorn.

Whether by magic or by design, only moments later they found Lord Bartholomew, Tomberlain, and several soldiers of the Franks.  The troop halted and stared in wonder at the beast which carried the innocents.  Margueritte got down right away when the unicorn stopped, a good ten yards from the troop.  Elsbeth still hugged the unicorn, utterly in love, and Margueritte knew, fully cured from the trauma she had suffered.  A tear of pure joy and gratitude showed in Margueritte’s eye when she leaned over and kissed the unicorn on the nose.  Elsbeth did not want to let go, but Margueritte got her down, slowly.  As soon as Elsbeth got free, the unicorn bounded into the forest, and so fast it looked like the animal vanished into thin air.  Elsbeth cried, but her father came up quickly and lifted her in his arms.

Tomberlain hugged Margueritte to pieces.  “I thought I lost my very best sister,” he said.

“I was so scared,” Margueritte admitted, and then she saw her dog draped over one of the soldier’s horses and she cried with her sister.

The next day, she told her family the whole story.  Elsbeth praised her courageous sister and embellished the part in the ogre’s lair almost beyond reason.  In turn, they told how they trailed her, how they found her old dog and, oddly enough, the tails of all the sheep hanging from a tree branch as if set out to dry in some strange ritual.

“I don’t think those ogres will give us trouble anymore, at least as far as children go,” Margueritte said, and then she wandered down to the kennels where her dog got buried and set a small wood cross on the grave.

“Mother?” she asked.  “Do dogs go to heaven?”

“I don’t see why not,” her mother said.  “God made them, too.”

************************

MONDAY

After the trouble in Banner Bein, there are tales and secrets to tell…  Until Monday, Happy Reading

 

*

M3 Margueritte: Trouble in Banner Bein, part 1 of 3

M G Kizzia Leave a comment

In the year of our Lord, 707, there were trolls reported in the hills of Banner Bein, those gentle, rocky rises just south of Vergenville.  Some sheep and cattle were said to be missing and everyone agreed that it would be ordinary thieves but for two reasons.  First, the animal tracks disappeared right where they were taken.  This spoke of a powerful enchantment or it suggested that the animals were literally lifted from the ground and carried off.  Of course, only trolls could be imagined carrying off a thousand pounds of beef.  Second was the matter of the children.  Three youngsters and two babies were missing and since there were no gypsies or other strangers around to blame, the accusation naturally fell upon the little ones in general, and trolls in particular because of the issue of the beef and sheep.

There were those Moslems around the king’s palace, but they were discounted because they were hardly remembered.  The Lord Ahlmored and his people scrupulously avoided any and all contact with the ordinary people of Amorica.  The ambassador was reported to have said that when the time came the people would be converted by the sword readily enough.  This did not sit well with the Breton any more than it did with the Franks who felt a man’s soul ought to be able to make its’ own choices.  The days when the Romans persecuted the Christians were in the deep past and hardly remembered, and the druids never imposed themselves on the people.  For too many centuries the druids had been a natural and unchallenged part of the culture, so they did not have to rule by imposition.  True, men like Aden the Convert were making many followers of the old ways uncomfortable, but they were tolerated for the good the Adens of the world did, and for the love they evidently had for all the people.  These Moslems, by contrast, apparently waited until they gained the upper hand, and then, at least in those days, it became either convert or die.  That rankled a lot of people, but it did not speak for their stealing babies.  In fact, the followers of Mohamet strove so hard not to have touch with the people, the people forgot they were there.

So, the common wisdom said trolls in Banner Bein, though Margueritte did not think that sounded exactly right.

Tomberlain went well into his thirteenth year that early summer and a true page for his father.  He had duties every day but Wednesday and Sunday.  Wednesday got spent at the home of Constantus and Lady Lavinia with his sisters, learning his letters.  Constantus was of the old Roman mindset who insisted that Latin was the only proper language in which to read, write and think.  He required that Latin alone be spoken in his house, and secretly appreciated the silence when guests came to visit.  Lady Lavinia, on the other hand, decided with her husband’s consent and support, to teach Latin to any and all young ladies and gentlemen within reach of her home.  Wednesday was the day Tomberlain and Margueritte made the trip, which was two hours each way.  And Elsbeth joined them when she got a little older.

Sunday, of course, was the Lord’s Day and Lady Brianna treated it like a Sabbath. She insisted that even the serfs and peasants should rest, though Sir Barth always saw that the necessities were done.  Her son, Tomberlain, became another matter.  She would not let him do his duties and rather schooled him, with the girls, in prayer and Christian virtues.  Often, Aden the Convert or other Christians from among the Breton and Franks would join them on Sunday, and to that end, just across the roadway from the triangle, she had a chapel built.  Andrew and John, or maybe James, did most of the building.

Elsbeth, who turned six that summer, got exceptionally bored on Mondays, Tuesdays and, before she was old enough for the Latin, on Wednesdays.  She could not do anything about Wednesday, but on Mondays and Tuesdays, Margueritte, who turned ten, got the sheep to take to pasture with her old dog along to help.  Sir Barth said he needed the extra hands of the regular shepherds to make up for the damned inconvenience of Sunday, as he called it.  Lady Brianna did not mind.  She felt her daughter was getting old enough to begin taking some responsibility around the manor, and besides, she spent plenty of her own youth watching sheep for her father.  This, however, left Elsbeth rather isolated and alone.  The end of the week was fine because that was when the girls were schooled in spinning, sewing, weaving, cooking, music and other arts, such as women did, but the beginning of the week felt lonely for poor Elsbeth.

It did not take long before Elsbeth began to follow her sister to the pasture.  Both girls were glad for the company, but Lady Brianna was not happy to see her baby so far from the house at such a young age.  She could not stop it, however, short of locking Elsbeth in her room, so in the end she relented.  She always sent Maven early with their noon meal, and Maven stayed for several hours, generally sleeping under a tree, until she had to get back to help prepare the evening meal.  In this way, Brianna became able to more or less keep an eye on the girls.

On one Monday in August, Elsbeth did not go with her, and Maven did not stay for her usual nap.  Apparently Elsbeth, who hated cooking, passionately, was being forced to make an acceptable pie.  Margueritte sighed for being alone.  She petted her old dog, Ragnar, and he almost woke, and then she counted the sheep for the millionth time.  In so doing, however, she noticed a strange sight.  An old man waggled toward her, slowly, leaning heavily on a staff of crooked oak wood.  Margueritte stood.

At once she saw that the man could not have been taller than four feet.  Margueritte, who already stood a good bit over four feet tall at age ten, towered over him, but she stayed respectful all the same, as she had been taught.

When he came near, she saw a man bent over, with a huge, bulbous nose and a white beard that fell almost to the ground.  His white eyebrows were so bushy she could barely see his eyes beneath, but those eyes appeared sharp to her and quick to see more than just appearances.

“Good-day old man,” Margueritte said with a small curtsey.  “What brings you to the land of Count Bartholomew?  Perhaps I can be of help.”

The man looked at her for a moment before he answered.  “Don’t slouch,” he said, and immediately Margueritte stood up straight and realized that she had been slouching to be more equal to his height, so as not to offend.  “You’re not a simple peasant girl I would say.”  The man’s voice was gruff but disguised a sweetness that Margueritte could not explain.

“No, sir,” Margueritte answered honestly.  “The Lord Bartholomew is my father. I am Margueritte.”

“Sending his own daughter out as a simple shepherdess?”  The man’s question came out more like a statement of judgment.

“Yes, sir,” Margueritte answered.  “Mother says it is good to learn responsibility at a young age and to learn to help with all the chores.  She, herself tended the sheep when she was young.”

“Brianna, the Breton wife,” the man said, and seemed to know all about it.  “But here, my plight is simple enough.  My family and I are hungry.  Our food is exhausted and there is time yet before the harvest.  It has been said Lord Bartholomew and Lady Brianna are generous and kind to help the poor and hungry.  It is my hope that your father may help us with enough to see us to harvest.”

“Oh, I am sure he will,” Margueritte said, with a touch of joy and pride in her words.  “Never were there more willing and generous folks than my own sweet parents.” The old man nodded, and Margueritte turned ever so slightly to point the way.  “There,” she said.  “After the meadow, you will come down into a hollow, and after the hollow, you will come to a stream and a grotto in the woods.  Pass straight through the grotto in the way you are going and beyond the trees on the other side you will come to the fields of my father.  From there you will see the triangle of buildings where the family is at home. Go and ask and say we have spoken if you wish.  I am sure…”  Margueritte let her voice trail to nothing as she saw the old man waving off her words, and with what she noticed as an exceptionally large and bony hand.

“I have little strength for such a journey.  Perhaps if I may have one of your sheep, it will save us.  This will be sufficient for our needs.”

“Oh dear.”  Margueritte immediately started to count her sheep, though she knew how many were there.  “I don’t know.”  She started to speak as well, but the old man looked up at her with such longing in his eyes she could hardly say no.

Margueritte looked deeply into those odd, little eyes, and for a moment she saw something Asian about him, strange as that sounded.  “You would not be lying to me, would you, Ping?”  She called him by name, having no idea where that name came from; but that it was his right name, she was sure, and doubly so when the man spun quickly once around.

“How did you know what I am called?  I don’t remember revealing myself.”

Suddenly, Margueritte saw the elderly imp right through his disguise.  It frightened her for a moment, but then she knew, like instinct, that the imp could not and would not harm her.  “Is my young sight so blind to not know an imp when I see one?” she said.  “Stay,” she added, to be sure the imp did not run off immediately.

“But.”  Ping looked up at her again with new eyes.  His disguise fell away which showed him to be just over three feet tall, with no white hair or eyebrows at all, and certainly they were Asian looking eyes.  “B-b-but,” he stuttered.

“I have heard things.”  Margueritte pressed her advantage as she felt suddenly, strangely empowered in the presence of this little one.  “About trolls at Banner Bein and the stealing of animals and children.”

“What?  No, never trolls.  Who would steal children?  That old way is strictly forbidden by the gods, and though they have all gone over to the other side, we do not forget the rules.  And as for the animals, they were all fairly begged.”  Ping clamped his mouth closed.  He had no intention of admitting anything more.

“No trolls?”  Margueritte imagined.  “Ogres then able to go about in the daytime.”  Ping nodded in spite of himself.  “And an imp or two, come up with the Moslems?”  Ping kept nodding, but his feet began to back up.  “And you are right.  I have forbidden the taking and eating of children,” she said, though again she hardly knew what she was saying.  She looked at the imp also without knowing what came-up into her eyes, but the imp shrieked, and he did turn, and he ran off as fast as his little old legs could carry him, which proved far faster than any human could run.

Margueritte sat down with a thump beside her dog who barely stirred from his nap. She put her hand tenderly on the beast’s side and wondered what that was all about.