Here There Be Monsters: CH 1: HARBINGERS Scene III (updated 080806)

[Qwillion]

PROLOGUE​

A GODFORSAKEN PLACE, imagination's boundary, the limit and the verge; this land is all those things.

Before history began, it was a shinning utopia, rising to unknown heights of power and wisdom, its purpose to make the world a better place. Generations had succeeded in making it the guiding star for the world to follow. It was a place where everyone belonged and everyone was welcome.

Yet, The Adversary is omnipresent, in every antagonistic act against that which is good, in every act of malevolence. The folly of utopia is pride in having eliminated The Eternal Enemy. That very belief made The Vile Lord an even more potent force. None had more pride than Dhaval the Second Lord of Heaven. He was an immortal, who loved the mortal races and had saved countless thousands by bringing them to paradise. He also zealously persecuted the slightest appearance of evil. This led to his corruption, becoming the monster he hunted; he was Dhaval the Betrayer, the Idolater, the Kinslayer, the Widowmaker, and The Eater of the Dead. Every living hand turned against him, so Dhaval brought the spirit and body of every dead hand to his service, so began the Ur-rathi War, The Great War. Paradise defeated Dhaval but the victory was ash, for nothing of their society endured

We do not even know the name of this great civilization, the war destroyed it, and the war itself is almost lost and forgotten. The survivors became refuges, a shattered people, they fled their homeland never to return, they used their little remaining wisdom and power to erase both word and memory of their past from the land.

The ages passed, the world moved on, generations were born and died, until all save one had forgotten what had gone before.

The Followers of the Ancient Ways discovered it first; this loose knit society of traditionalists that practice the old faith. They rejected the ridged doctrines of their preachers, pastors, and went out seeking a personal relationship with the universe. A fellowship within the Followers called the Aimless Wanderers found a land beyond the mountains of the Marklands. The first mortals in recorded history to transverse beyond the Pass of Mourning, they were mangled in the passes by the Antaean Giants; each left to push on with a crippling injury.

They traveled without purpose; discovering a savage paradise sheltered behind a ring of mountains and the shattered gate of the pass of mourning, yet they discovered dire beasts as well. Eched’Na the mother of Monsters found them and took one as her mate. Three were lost forever wandering the Hedgeweb and all the wanderer’s women become slave-brides to the Taurian Bull-men.

Their greatest discovery was the kra-sila also called The Vivifying Gift or the Vim Grace a perplexing fruit that grows wild in the lands beyond the broken gate. This fruit when processed and alchemically refined grants experiential memory to those that consume it, the memories, skills and abilities granted seem to tailor themselves to the person in uncanny and extraordinary fashions that even the experts find arduous to predict much less control.

They discovered all we know of the history of this land for they found the Shattered Crypt: A vast mausoleum of yore that must have served the whole land, though now an abode of Ur-rathi. Here the Aimless Wanderers found the dead of their company serving Dhaval. When they sought shelter in a small forest, they died by the scores, naming it Woe Weald. Then they sought the advice of the Hagwitch Rama. She told one the way home, the others she sacrificed in the old way. In the end, only a single boy arrived in the Markland town of Gatesage with their map, the land they had named writing:

Here There Be Monsters amongst the bones of the Fallen Kingdom.

In the current Age, the Lords of the Marklands have begun to trade with the paradoxical Taurians. They barter slave-brides for the kra-sila, paying tolls to the Antaean Giants, and tribute to a terrible power. Yet none goes beyond the Pass of Mourning, They do not wish to enter this godforsaken place and wake the monsters.


--

 

[Qwillion]

Chapter One: HARBINGERS Scene 1: A message to the Exemplar

Chapter One: HARBINGERS
Scene 1: A message to the Exemplar​

“He shalt have many names, not all shalt be kind. Yet, for a time he shalt have only the name of a champion and a charge”---Prophecies of the Fallen Kingdom, author unknown, est. -1000 bh

A few standing against many: A fair-haired youth with bright eyes, a diseased and deranged woman with untamed dark hair, and a old man with misshapen legs and a walking stick. They are standing against six soldiers of the western imperium. The first, their captain, with black eagle pins new upon his collar, rushes the unarmed boy. The second a raw recruit eagerness shining in eyes that matched the green of the imperium’s uniform and the third a grizzled veteran with a scar running from left ear to left eye charges the old man, the rest going for the sick woman. The captain feints and the boy dodges right into the captain’s second strike, his bright eyes reminding the captain of his own sons. There is an audible click; the old man moves like coiled lighting with a single mirrored flash in the air. The raw recruit’s hand lies upon the ground and lying next to it, dead, is the veteran, his throat cut wide open. The handless one screams. The forth soldier closes with the sick women but before his blade leaves it’s scabbard, his feet lift off the ground and his throat makes a disgusting crunch. His body then flies onto the fifth soldier’s blade trapping it, the fifth soldier’s eye explodes in his head, his screaming drowning out the handless one. The sixth soldier makes a quick thrust and strikes something solid he cannot see, and the blade sticks in the air. Then the sixth soldier’s elbow inverts with a satisfying crack bent the wrong way. His screaming makes for a calliope of sound with the other two soldiers. ”When attacked with arms, destroy the arm.” the sick woman says in precise clipped tones as if she is quoting some esoteric martial text. The captain turns and flees, and his remaining men follow him. “Spread legend, fear and that your only hope is to flee before us” in the same concise and exacting pattern of speech.

Stooping over the boy’s body the crippled old man grumbles in a voice strained by years and hard use. “Time for us to flee, was before the price was paid.”

The old man’s twisted legs slow them all, but they move with all their speed. They crash through the dark forest. Slipping in black mud, falling tasting fear and the hunger of their own need, "Gold doesn't lose its worth, when it falls into the mire", says the sick woman as she laughs her manic laugh. The diseased woman lifts the boy’s body and pulls the old man along with a strength her body could not posses. She does not feel her broken toes or her bruised ribs. Her illness long ago robbed her of those senses, along with most of her mind.

The old man groans more from the constant foolishness the sick woman spouts than the constant pain in his legs. “Luck hates me” he protests rather loudly, suddenly the captain burst out with a long knife, the old man’s sword-cane flicks out and is a cane again, the captain lay dead. “And death loves me” the old man whispered. The sick woman giggled, “The uncontrollable hunger, uncontrollably hungered for.” The old man groaned again. He could not decide if the sick woman meant death or love, he hoped she had meant love. The boy said nothing

He had not had the heart to tell the sick woman to leave the boy behind, not that the sick woman would have listened. It did not matter. He had one last duty to perform before he would lie down and die. A message to the Exemplar and they had almost reached his haven.

 

[Qwillion]

Scene II, It Is Better To Be Alive.

My name is Victor Ward. I was born and raised at the far end of nowhere, on the outskirts of a tiny village you will never hear of. My mother is Matria Ward-ritter, to me, she is the mother of all mothers, if there is fault in her parenting, it is only that she loves me more than I deserve. She labors in our home from before dawn until after dusk, smiling all the while. My father is a smith who makes things for other smiths, his name is Rundall Ward, and I have known him all my life and know him not at all. My cousin Fidus Ward is my closest friend, raised with me since before we remember; his parents died of the Grace Loss when he was too young to remember.

I enjoy my life. My father and I seldom speak but that is his way, and my mother speaks of his love for me. I am both happy and content. Who would ask for more?

Today I am awaiting Fidus. He said he had a wondrous surprise for me. So I came to this glade, it is a place I have always loved. It has an almost mythical feel to it, but a sense of sadness as well. Here the grass seems a bit greener, the maple trees that surround the glade are a bit taller, there is stillness here, and even the sounds of the forest seem hushed. The pool of water is deep, Fidus claims there is no bottom; if there is I have never found it. Growing out of the ground, high up into the air, up and out over the waters is a Gift Tree, the tree will not bear fruit, even next to the Deepspring of Ruinark. The imperium’s merchants tried and failed, for all the gift trees west of the mountains are barren.

Suddenly there is a rustling in the woods and a piece of the gift tree’s bark falls into the Deepspring. The underbrush to the east parts and coming out of the woods is a bizarre sight.

A short, crippled ebony-skinned man with clubbed feet leaning heavily upon a walking stick comes hobbling out of the woods. His hair is clipped short, and has gone all silver-gray, he wears dark blue, almost black, robes that are surprisingly clean even though parts of his body are splattered with dry mud. His arms are a mass of corded muscle which surprises me in a man so old, but I guess if you don’t have good use of your legs your upper body has to make up for it. As I look closely, I notice that his chest is quite broad, reminding me of a barrel of skylights. When he sees me the old man grunts as if some one hit him full in the gut.


Next to him is a tall woman in a tattered and torn red dress. The woman has a storm of black hair upon her head, she is beautiful and wild with flawless skin, a beguiling body and eyes dark and deeper than the Deepspring of Ruinark. She giggles and then laughs at me outright, a dark, cutting laughter. “Take a journey, confront monsters, and unearth the treasure of your true-self.” She spits this out amid fits of laughter, as if it is some private joke. I find it hard not to stare at her, but I finally look to the burden she is carrying lightly at her side.

Looking at him I only know it is better to be alive, his form lies limp and unmoving, as the wild woman turns him I see empty, vacant eyes, unblinking, staring back at me. It is better to be alive. I remember falling out of the Gift Tree and him catching me, before I fell to my death. It is better to be alive. I remember him hiding in my father’s workshop, and us hiding all of father's tools. It is better to be alive. I remember us fighting in End's square over a kiss from a drover girl. It is better to be alive. I remember my mother crying when he fell from Gift Tree and broke his arms. It is better to be alive. I remember my father smiling at him when he finally beat him at the lanceboard. Oh Fidus! What did you do?

“What did you do …to Fidus?” My shout is harsh, tinged with the grief I am barely holding down. I let red rage take its place. A stone flies from my hand and strikes the woman in the temple. “Damn luck and all her fickle whores.” The old man curses as I run toward Fidus, I dodge to the old man’s side as he brings his stick up in front of him, I kick him in his side with all my might. The stick strikes my knee, but my kick follows through and topples him over, the blinding pain in my knee replaces the rage. I reach out and touch Fidus’ hand but it is not Fidus. Fidus is gone. What I touch is nothing but cold emptiness. The old man leaps using one arm, his other arm lashing out like a coiled viper and the stick takes me in the head. Darkness follows pain.

 

[Qwillion]

chapter I: Harbingers; Scene III: Time, Pestilence and Death

“..Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.” It is the woman’s voice, soft and almost breathy in its tone.

“Stagrubbish, Exemplar or no Exemplar, I won’t blasted have it, the boy gets a damned choice.” My head starts to clear as the old man spouts another curse under his breath that I do not catch. My leg is a batch of white-hot pain.

The woman quips back with a hint of humor and regret. “When you fall in deep water, you have two choices: swim or drown.”

I do not plan to choose to drown in the Deepspring of Ruinark, broken leg or not. “Welcome back to the waking world young ender, you throw a rock like a true scat-pitcher, knocked the witch out clean.” I open my eyes and see a white-bright smile standing out from a stark black face, the smile reaching the very nature of his eyes. “Now don’t you try and loving stand, I didn’t go to the trouble of not breaking your knee for you to ragging fall down and break your fool neck. First, we did not kill Fidus; we counted him a friend. He found us and guided us here. Second, the rutting imperium killed him because he just happened to be with us. Third, they call me Swanur and my raving mad companion is called Adara.” Adara turns and looks at Swanur as if seeing him for the first time when he calls her name. She is alluring, even covered in mud. Her eyes hold something more than any girl I have ever known. Not a girl, a woman, there is no hint of age, only maturity. “Third, what be your name ender and how close to the village are we?” Swanur seemed more interested in the answer to the latter and the former seemed a courtesy. Adara seemed intent upon my first answer as I spoke.

“Victor.” They give no surnames so I did not give mine; Adara then looked away and seemed to ponder my answer.

“We are only half a league from Civ’s End.” Adara spoke in a soft-addled tone “Yes Fidus” she said looking at my friend’s corpse “Here civilization ends and barbarism begins. I hope your friend will join us.” The woman spoke to Fidus’s corpse, carried him around, spoke as if giving instruction, and looked at everything as if seeing it for the first time. “Heaven’s mercy! She is Lost in the Grace!”

Suddenly my rage is gone, and I cannot find my grief. I am at the mercy of a diseased madwoman and an angry old cripple with nothing to defend myself with but the good will of my dead friend, whose apparent good will got him killed. I do not think I have ever really known fear for my life until now. I mean I was afraid of my father’s disappointment and my mother’s tears but now I am afraid that I will never know that fear again. I hope I will see my mother and father one last time. As I passed into unconsciousness again, Adara said “ Time, Pestilence and Death, These Harbingers Three by grace, come unto thee”