Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
DargonZine Volume 08 Issue 02
DDDDD ZZZZZZ //
D D AAAA RRR GGGG OOOO NN N Z I NN N EEEE ||
D D A A R R G O O N N N Z I N N N E || Volume 8
-=========================================================+<OOOOOOOOO>|)
D D AAAA RRR G GG O O N N N Z I N N N E || Number 2
DDDDD A A R R GGGG OOOO N NN ZZZZZZ I N NN EEEE ||
\\
\
========================================================================
DargonZine Distributed: 05/13/1995
Volume 8, Number 2 Circulation: 609
========================================================================
Contents
Editorial Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
A Lighter Burden Jim Owens Firil, 1015
Ship of Doom Carlo N. Samson Seber 1013
"I am my Lord's Possession" Alan Lauderdale 20 Firil-7 Naia,
1004
========================================================================
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the Dargon Project, a
collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the Internet.
We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the project.
Please address all correspondance to <dargon@wonky.jjm.com>.
Back issues are available from ftp.etext.org in pub/Zines/DargonZine.
Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 8-2, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright May, 1995 by
the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb <ornoth@wonky.jjm.com>.
All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual
contributors. Stories may not be reproduced or redistributed without
the explicit permission of the author(s) involved, except in the case
of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
========================================================================
Editorial
by Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@wonky.jjm.com>
It's not really an important point, but there was recently some
discussion on the newsgroup rec.mag.dargon about the role that Robert
Aspirin's "Thieves' World" books had in inspiring the Dargon Project,
and I thought it worth reiterating here.
Dargon does bear a strong resemblance to "Thieves' World" (henceforth:
TW). And in a sense it's true that in 1985 TW inspired me to start a
collaborative fantasy writing project that would print stories in
FSFnet, the fantasy and SF emag that I'd founded a year earlier. I can't
argue with that.
Way back then, TW was the only popular example of a collaborative
writing project, and that description hadn't even been coined yet. So at
that time I usually described the Dargon Project as "similar to Robert
Aspirin's Thieves' World series" because that was really the most
effective way of getting the concept across. However, the TW books are
not as ubiquotous as they once were, and several other similar projects
have led to a popular understanding of what a collaborative writing
project is without having to tie it to TW. So a while ago I dropped the
"Thieves' World-like" comparison from the DargonZine FAQ.
But why is it so important to drop the reference to TW, anyways? you
might ask...
Well, from the start, TW served more as a negative model for the Dargon
Project than a positive one, and I (and many of the writers) consciously
tried to avoid the problems we thought had killed the TW series. These
included (but were not limited to) powerful/destabilizing magic,
archetypal/stereotypical characters, superlative characters, authors
investing ego in their characters, competition between writers who tried
to make their characters "better" than the rest, resorting to
end-of-the-world plotlines, authors working virtually independently and
"springing" their stories on the others, and so forth. Fortunately, we
didn't have to suffer the added complexities of divvying up the
royalties and the temptation (that many TW writers succumbed to) of
printing garbage just because it was guaranteed to sell or because they
were contractually obligated to produce.
So with all those criticisms of TW, you can perhaps understand why I
wince when people cite it as "the inspiration for the Dargon Project".
Looking back on that list of things we wanted to avoid, I think we (the
Dargon Project) have done a pretty good job of avoiding the pitfalls
that were TW's fatal flaws. I can only think of one glaring failure
where someone managed to violate several of those guidelines, and
years later we're still trying to restore the project to normalcy!
Beyond that, I think our problems have been minor. I just chastised the
writers about "springing" surprises on people, but that wasn't because
people were doing things behind others' backs, but because an author
might waste a lot of time in writing a first draft of an inappropriate
storyline if he/she doesn't run an outline by the group first. And while
we do occasionally print garbage too, the reason for that isn't
financial gain or obligation, but because we're amateur writers learning
how to write, and it doesn't always come out as well as we'd like.
We've also got problems of our own, though. The Baranur/Beinison war has
taken us six years to write, and it's still going strong (despite all
efforts to the contrary)> Taking on something that big was probably our
biggest mistake. There's also ongoing conflict between the high and low
fantasy camps, the people who want background detail and those who think
it shouldn't be defined until it's needed, the realist versus escapist
camps, the newbies versus the geezers, those who think fantasy stories
need themes versus those who say it's ok to just write to entertain, and
so forth. There are *ALWAYS* things to argue about in the authors'
discussion group (and if there aren't any, we'll create some!), but
hopefully that's all healthy discussion that everyone learns from.
But enough pontificating. We've got a great issue lined up for you here.
Leading off, we have a thought-provoking story by none other than Jim
Owens. Jim last appearred in FSFnet 9-3. That was December of *1987*!!!
He dropped off the net for the longest time, but he returns with this
great short. We hope to see more from him, as well as a couple other
veterans who have recently resurfaced.
We follow that up with a new Cydric story by Carlo Samson. Carlo is also
an old-timer, and was last published in DargonZine 6-5, which was
December of 1993. Carlo and a couple other authors will be visiting me
in Boston later in the month, and I'm sure there'll be stories to tell
in the next editorial! Hopefully we can motivate Carlo to get stories
out a little more frequently than once every 18 months! Carlo's last
story left his protagonist (Cydric) in port, about to embark upon a
voyage of exploration. "Ship of Doom" takes place at an unspecified
point in that journey, which Carlo's future stories will present in more
detail.
And batting cleanup is a great story by one of our newest writers: Alan
Lauderdale. Alan joined the project in January and has hit the ground
running. I found "I am my Lord's Possession" engrossing, and I hope you
enjoy it as much as I have. And Alan assures us that his next story is
already half written, so hopefully it won't be too long before his works
appear again.
At present, I don't have an ETA for the next issue, but it'll be out
just as soon as I've got the submissions! Hopefully this excellent issue
will help tide you over until then.
========================================================================
A Lighter Burden
by Jim Owens
<jimo@moose.erie.net>
Firil, 1015
The day had dawned cold and gloomy. It was raining, light but
steady, just as it had been for several days. Levy's heart was heavy
within him as he stepped outside. He looked to his left, to where Sarah
was bent over, working in her herb garden, little Jen sitting beside
her. Sarah straightened a moment, her swelling belly becoming apparent.
She glanced at him, but then bent back to her work. Levy's heart sunk
even lower. He turned away from her and walked on.
He crested the hill his house was built on. He looked down into the
valley where his wheat crop was planted. Muddy water lay where wheat had
sprouted only days before. Only as he walked closer could he begin to
make out the young shoots, laden with mud. Levy's heart hit bottom.
I'll no doubt lose most of the planting, Levy thought. The shoots
will damp off and then we'll have neither seed nor crop. Why do we have
such problems?, he asked, only partly to himself. Most of the winter
wheat was taken south to help feed the soldiers during the war, leaving
barely enough for food and planting. Without this crop, we'll have to
sell my tools to get through the winter, assuming we could even find a
buyer. He looked heavenward. Is this fair? He turned back towards the
house, disheartened.
At the top again, Levy glanced over at Sarah, still working in her
garden. The sight, which nomally would have brought him comfort, if not
joy, now merely added to the leaden weight in his soul. Married for over
seven years, Levy wondered, and yet we still cannot agree on such a
simple thing. How will we be able to agree on something like raising a
boy? Or girl, he reminded himself; Sarah wants a girl. Levy sighed. We
can't even decide whether we want a girl or a boy, he mused. He almost
laughed -- good thing they hadn't had to choose on the first three!
He lifted his eyes to gaze at the town ruins on the neighboring
hilltop. Here and there among the shattered houses he could see the new
buildings taking form. What a burden, he thought. They take our food,
they take our men, and leave us to the scavengers. To add insult to
injury, we don't even have enough men left to properly rebuild the
buildings the raiders knocked down. Levy snorted in disgust. It would
take weeks just to haul off all the debris. Still, it had to be done
before they can build the new houses, Levy reminded himself. Then, too,
much of the debris could also be used in the new homes. In every
obstacle there's an opportunity, he reminded himself. You could build a
lot of houses with what was lying in heaps on the distant hill. Just
like the one Sarah wants.
Levy walked into the tool shed, to get his tools for the day's
work. The smell of metal filled his nose. Suddenly he longed to be back
working metal, cutting it, selling his services to the highest bidder,
like he had in his younger days in Dargon. In Dargon, he could make
enough money to build a big house, with a separate bedroom for the
children! He savored the thought of having privacy again -- Eli, the
oldest, was starting to notice the sounds at night. Not that there had
been many of them lately, he mused ruefully. Again he glanced back at
the herb garden.
What would be so bad about moving into the village, he wondered.
With the war over the press gangs would again be banned, and a clump of
houses would no longer seem an inviting target for food-gathering raids.
Still, why crowd into town when all the countryside lies open and
waiting? He had set his house apart from the others for a reason -- Levy
prefered some solitude. With life in town came problems not of one's own
making, the problems that other people brought with them.
But it can be good to be where the people are, he countered, taking
Sarah's side in his mind. Our children ought to grow up with other
children to play with, to learn from. They have cousins there, and aunts
and uncles (not to mention two solicitous grandparents). Besides, Sarah
wants the hustle and bustle of town life. After growing up in isolation
she wants to be with people now. Then too, the marketplace is there,
with its goods and stuffs, which should be plentiful with the war past.
And the men would now be returning. He remembered the angry
disputes in town, with some wanting to go and fight, and Levy insisting
that war was not the way, not how the Barels had lived their lives in
the past. Moving back into town would mean the returning soldiers and
their resentment and hostility. Or perhaps not. Perhaps a few years in
the field had taught them what Levy already knew -- war was a waster, an
enemy, not a gain or a glory. Or, Levy shuddered, perhaps they would not
be coming home at all. He dreaded the thought of his little town, bereft
of its men, its strength, its hope. Either way, town would not be an
especially joyous place in the near future -- at least not for Levy.
So many things to consider, so many points to ponder, he thought.
Levy stood and stared into the distance for a long moment, weighing his
feelings. Sarah's got good reasons for wanting to go back, he finally
realized, but I just don't want to live in town. I want to live here.
With his feelings again clear, Levy headed down toward his sodden
ground.
The next day dawned clear and warm, outside at least; Sarah still
wasn't talking. Levy walked over the hill and down to the wheat field.
He saw what seemed to be a large rat grazing on the far side. He stooped
for a rock, then threw it, the near miss sending the startled animal off
into the nearby brush. He stopped at the side of the field, where he
found a surprise. Despite the silt weighing them down, thousands of
wheat shoots had pushed themselves aloft, straining towards the sun.
Levy beamed at the sight.
"Well done, faithful servants. You push aside this world's burdens
as you fight for life." Levy paused thoughtfully. Now there's a thought.
What burden am I laboring under? Am I a faithful servant? He sat there
in a funk, part of his mind pondering this concept, part of his mind
resentful at having been brought up short from its normal routine.
Lately I've been very aware of what I want, Levy admitted, yet I
haven't thought much of what anyone else wants. Eli, for instance. Have
I ever considered that he might benefit from being around the other men?
Or Eleya, the middle one, would she benefit from being around the women?
Would they all be better off seeing their grandparents more often? Or
the grandparents, seeing them?
He stared unseeing across the field. How often had someone
complained about the long trip to his shop to have something fixed? A
growing realization plagued him. Perhaps I've been putting too much of
myself on others these years. During the war I've not been much help to
many in town. Oh, I've helped Mattan and Father and the widows, but life
has been hard for everyone, and I've been out here. The Barel way is to
serve, not fight, and I can't serve very well out here. Perhaps it's
time I served someone other than myself, he concluded, his thoughts
returning to Sarah. He walked back to the house, deep in thought.
Levy walked to where Sarah was pouring milk into a large tank. He
set aside the bucket, and took her in his arms.
"I've been thinking. Perhaps you are right."
Sarah's eyes were quick and distrustful. "Are we going to move into
town?"
"If you think that would be best."
She softened, her arms not as stiff. She returned his embrace,
tucking her head under his chin. "What made you change your mind?"
Levy sighed. "Our heaviest burdens are the ones we make for
ourselves. Mine finally got too heavy." He looked into her upturned
face. "I'd like to carry yours for a while, instead."
========================================================================
Ship of Doom
by Carlo N. Samson
<macgyver@vpnet.chi.il.us>
Seber 1013
Cydric awoke in darkness, confused; for a moment he believed he was
in his bedroom at the castle, until he remembered it had been months
since he had slept in a real bed. He lay still, waiting for his strength
to return; his body ached as if from prolonged exertion, and his clothes
felt cold and damp.
Fragmentary images of water flashed through his mind, with memories
which, no matter how hard he concentrated, remained tantalizingly out of
reach. After several minutes he gave up the effort; he slowed his
breathing and listened intently. Gradually he became aware of the sounds
of creaking wood, lapping water, and a faint flapping sound. He felt
rough wood beneath his fingertips, and soon perceived that whatever he
was lying on was slowly rocking.
A ship, Cydric thought. I'm on a ship.
The realization allowed him to retrieve one of the memories that
floated beyond his grasp. He had been on a ship -- the _Vanguard
Voyager_ -- and there had been a storm in the middle of the night. He
had been on deck when the captain ordered him to go below. A wave
crashed into the ship, and the captain was thrown hard against the
starboard rail. He went to aid her, but another wave smashed into the
vessel, and he felt himself being swept over the side into the churning
sea ...
Feeling somewhat stronger, Cydric levered himself into a sitting
position. Aside from the ache, he felt relatively whole. His tunic and
breeches had begun to dry, but wetness still remained in his boots. How
long had he been lying here? And where was here? Was he back on the
_Vanguard Voyager?_
He realized that the darkness seemed to be lifting; he was out on
deck near an opening in the bulwark. Huge tattered sails flapped from
the ship's three giant masts, and the rigging seemed burned and torn in
several places. There was also the very faint smell of smoke in the air,
but he was unsure whether it was from tobacco or wood.
The thought of tobacco brought on a powerful urge to smoke. He felt
for his leather pouch and was relieved to find it still attached to his
belt. To his disappointment, the tobacco was thoroughly wet. He sighed;
it didn't matter anyway, since he was missing his pipe. He checked for
his dagger and was satisfied to find it still at his side.
Warily, the young man rose to his feet. He appeared to be the only
one on deck. This was a bigger ship than the _Voyager_, but its crew was
far less considerate. Why else would they have left him to dry out on
deck like a wet washcloth? He had no memory of being rescued in the
first place ...
He recalled flailing about in the water to keep himself afloat. The
_Voyager_ was nearly invisible in the darkness and rain, and he had felt
himself being swept away from the vessel. He had shouted until his
throat was raw, but no one seemed to hear and soon he had completely
lost sight of the ship. He continued struggling in the water, but it
wasn't long before he felt himself slowly sinking, dropping down through
the dark sea and into unconsciousness ...
"Hello?" he called out. "Ahoy! Anybody on board?" Silence. It was
now considerably lighter than it had been when he first awoke. He
thought it might be nearing dawn, but the light seemed to have a strange
greenish cast to it. Upon realizing this, a warm thin sweat of anxiety
broke over him. Without quite knowing why, he rushed to the bow of the
ship, where a large catapult was mounted. He peered over the rail at the
figurehead; it was a large black dragon, its massive wooden head thrown
back and its mouth open in a silent roar. Cydric stood transfixed,
gripping the wooden rail. There was something in his gap-riddled memory
about the dragon, but he couldn't quite grasp it.
A cold chill suddenly ran through him, and he felt a presence
nearby. He tensed, wanting desperately to look behind him yet lacking
the nerve to do so. Finally, he forced himself to turn around.
For a moment he saw nothing. Then a shadowy form coalesced out of
the air in front of him. It was a young man of about Cydric's age and
general build, dressed in clothes that were at least fifty years out of
style.
Suddenly afraid, Cydric pressed himself back against the rail and
tensed for a leap over the side. The strange youth raised a hand and
looked at Cydric with fearful eyes. "Go," he said in a thin, almost
inaudible voice. Cydric remained frozen where he stood, unable to take
his eyes off the ghost, for that was surely what it was, as surely as
this was a ship of ghosts.
The spectral youth cast a glance over his shoulder, and his eyes
filled with alarm. "Go, please!" it said, almost imploringly. He looked
behind once again, and abruptly vanished.
Cydric stared at the spot where the youth had been, unwilling to
relax even the slightest bit. This is a drowning-dream, he told himself.
It must be!
A few moments later, Cydric felt another wave of coldness, but this
time it was accompanied by a feeling of overwhelming fatigue. He felt a
strong desire to yawn, and his sight dimmed as if his eyes were closing.
An instant later the feelings vanished like a candle flame being blown
out, and he saw --
The ship was no longer deserted and no longer a derelict.
Rough-looking sailors, all in old-fashioned seaman's garb, crawled among
the intact rigging and tended to the full, billowing sails. Other
crewmen scurried about to orders barked by a large thickly-bearded man
who surveyed the scene from the aft deck.
Unsure what to do, Cydric stood where he was in the hope that he
would go unnoticed. That hope proved in vain, for the bearded man soon
began storming his way toward him. Cydric decided that this was the
moment to go overboard.
He turned around and prepared to launch himself over the rail, but
a strong hand gripped his shoulder and slammed him down. Cydric struck
the deck and sprawled onto his back. The bearded man glared down at him
and said, "So, Tullis! Wanting to bail on us, eh? You gutless worm!" He
reached down and hauled Cydric up until their noses were almost
touching. "The captain'll be right pleased to see you."
Cydric closed his nostrils against the man's foul breath. "I -- I'm
not Tullis," he said with as much composure as he could muster. "I'm not
-- I was in a storm, and --"
The bearded man laughed. "Did you break your head when you fell?"
He called over his shoulder to a pair of nearby sailors. "Take Tully Boy
here down to the captain. He was wanting to jump the gunnels!"
"No, I --" Cydric wrenched himself from the man's grasp and backed
away. "I don't belong on this ship. I don't know --"
The bearded man lunged forward with surprising speed and struck
Cydric savagely on the side of the head. The young man felt an explosion
of pain in his mind and went limp, collapsing to the deck.
Dim thoughts drifted through Cydric's mind as he teetered on the
edge of oblivion. A flash of green -- green lightning? A name -- Sarkos?
A black ship with the figurehead of a dragon ...
Slowly he returned to consciousness. He was on the floor of a
silent room that smelled of must and decay. When his eyes adjusted,
Cydric could see the silhouette of a man outlined by a single lantern
that was mounted on the wall. The man was seated behind a small table,
and his face was hidden by flickering shadows.
The man said nothing as Cydric slowly rose to his feet. For several
long moments neither spoke; finally, the silence was broken as the man
said in a cold, deliberate voice, "So, Tullis. You've ... returned."
"My -- my name isn't Tullis," Cydric said, aware of how loud his
voice seemed to sound. Cydric strained to see the man's face through the
gloom of the cabin. A realization struck him; continuing to stare at the
man's face, Cydric said, "Forgive me, *Sarkos*, but I'm not a member of
your crew."
The man seemed to stiffen at the mention of the name. In the same
cold voice he said, "You'll address me as Captain."
Cydric held his breath and said nothing.
"ANSWER ME!" Sarkos suddenly cried, slamming his fist on the table.
Cydric jerked back, deeply startled. A moment later he found his voice
and replied, "Yes -- Captain." He decided it was prudent not to
antagonize the man.
Sarkos rose and turned the lantern up slightly, increasing the
light just enough for Cydric to make out the Captain's lean, slender
frame, his dark hair and short beard, and the deep-set, hollow eyes
embedded in a long, tired face. Sarkos sat down again and regarded
Cydric with the expression of a man who has just discovered a worm in
his piece of bread.
"I don't know why you've ... come back, but nothing has changed,"
Sarkos said tonelessly. "I am the captain; on this ship my word is law.
I have the right to punish those who break my laws." A humorless grin
tugged at his mouth. "You think you are above my justice?" He paused.
"Do you?" he repeated slowly, his eyes narrowing.
"No, Captain," Cydric replied quickly, a tingle of fear racing up
his spine. Sarkos was a dangerous man, there was no question of that.
"And was it worth it, do you think?" Sarkos was not looking at
Cydric, but somewhat past him. "I had every right. I still have the
right. Do you think it was worth it?" Without waiting for an answer,
Sarkos placed an intricately-carved wooden box on the table.
"Go ahead," he said. "Look at it. See if it wasn't worth the cost."
Cydric stared hesitantly at the box, mentally sorting out what
Sarkos was saying. Apparently, someone named Tullis had violated one of
the captain's rules, and it had something to do with the contents of the
box.
"LOOK AT IT!" Sarkos roared. He pounded the table, causing the box
to jump.
Cydric approached, paused, then lifted the lid of the box. What he
saw inside made him gasp. Resting on a bed of red velvet was a huge
oval-shaped emerald, about the size of a clenched fist. Forgetting
himself, Cydric reached out to touch the emerald, but Sarkos slammed the
lid shut.
"Now get away," he said with a low snarl. Cydric put his arms to
his sides and backed off. He suddenly remembered his dagger, but decided
that trying to fight his way out of the situation would do no good.
For a moment Sarkos said nothing, then cracked Cydric across the
face with the back of his hand. Cydric staggered from the blow. Sarkos
gripped the front of Cydric's tunic and yanked him close. In a sullen
whisper he said, "And to think that me, of all people, trusted you."
The captain's eyes now seemed full of a dark, concentrated fury.
Fear clenched Cydric's gut, and he knew that Sarkos intended to kill
him.
But before either of them could make another move, the door burst
open and a dark-skinned crewman stuck his head into the room. "Captain!
The Duke's ships -- they're attacking!"
Sarkos's anger suddenly seemed to drain away. He released Cydric
and sagged back against the table. "Gods damn," he muttered listlessly.
A moment later he looked up, his face a mask of resignation. "Prepare
for battle," he said. "And--" he glanced at Cydric--"lock him in the
hold."
The dark-skinned man nodded and entered the room. He drew the
cutlass that he wore at his side and used it to motion for Cydric to
walk ahead of him.
A short time later, Cydric watched as the door to the damp ship's
hold slammed shut, leaving him alone. Thin beams of light filtering down
through cracks in the cargo hatch above provided barely enough
illumination for him to see dusty crates, barrels, and coils of rope
strewn about. He waited a few moments, then tried to force the door open
with his dagger. It firmly resisted, so he went over and sat down on a
crate to consider his situation. If this was a dream, he thought, it was
certainly the most realistic one he had ever experienced.
A scuffling sound interrupted his thoughts. He leaped up and spun
around, dagger in hand. Staring into the shadows for a breathless
moment, he detected no one. Then a small furry shape skittered across
the top of a barrel. Cydric relaxed -- it was only a rat.
Sheathing the dagger and sitting down again, he mused about what
the dark-skinned crewman had said to Sarkos. Duke's ships attacking?
"Which Duke?" he wondered aloud.
"A Duke of Pyridain," came a reply. Cydric drew his dagger again
and looked around for the speaker. From the gloom at the other end of
the hold a figure gradually emerged. It was the youth who had appeared
before and urged him to leave the ship.
"Who are you?" Cydric demanded, rising to his feet and taking a
defensive stance.
"My name," the youth said wearily, "is Tullis."
At the sound of the name, Cydric lowered his blade. "So *you're*
Tullis," he said. The youth nodded sadly. "Why does everyone on this
ship think that I'm you?"
"I tried to warn you. You should have escaped when you had the
chance."
"What ship is this?" Cydric demanded.
Tullis sighed. "You are on the _Rampant Dragon_. Her captain is
Jaren Sarkos, whom I believe you've already met."
The name of the ship stirred something in Cydric's memory. His brow
furrowed as the image of the black dragon figurehead, illuminated by
green flames, came to him. The _Rampant Dragon_. He had heard the name
mentioned somewhere before. The _Rampant Dragon_ ...
Suddenly, it all returned to him.
He had been on lookout in the _Vanguard Voyager's_ crow's nest,
high atop the main mast, when he first glimpsed the strange green
lightning. At first he dismissed it as a random imagining produced by
his cold and tired mind. But a little while later he saw another flash,
clearly this time, on the darkening horizon. Curious now, he remained
alert and carefully watched the sky and sea around him, hoping to catch
another glimpse of the unnatural lightning.
His watch ended without another sighting. In his report to the
officer of the watch he mentioned only that he had seen lightning,
omitting any mention of it having been green. But as he made his way
below, he caught sight of a third stroke of green lightning, far out
over the water.
In the _Voyager's_ galley he encountered Captain Brynna Thorne,
enjoying her customary early-evening bowl of dried figs. With her was a
white-haired seaman by the name of Avron, who was the oldest member of
the crew and known to have a vast knowledge of ocean lore. Cydric was
hesitant to ask Avron about the green lightning with the Captain
present, not wanting her to think that he was prone to irrational
imaginings; but his desire to know if he had in fact seen some kind of
natural occurrence won out, and he told the old sailor about what he had
seen.
Avron frowned and pursed his lips when Cydric mentioned that he had
seen the green lightning three times. "Not a good sign," the old seaman
muttered ominously. He then told the young man that there was an old
belief that anyone who saw green lightning three times in one day was
fated to join the crew of a wandering ghost ship called the _Rampant
Dragon_, a pirate vessel cursed to sail the seas forever.
Captain Thorne shook her head skeptically. "Old seadog talk,
nothing more," she said with a tone of dismissal. "My father told me the
same stories when I was his cabin girl. And I've also heard it said that
one can see a flash of green at sunset, if the sky is right."
"Believe -- or disbelieve -- what you will, Captain," Avron
replied. "The sea holds many mysteries."
Cydric asked the old sailor to continue, but he refused to say
anything more about it. Cydric came away believing that the story was
indeed an old sea tale ...
... until the storm the following night that washed him up on the
ghost ship. Cydric stared at Tullis, whose form seemed somehow
indistinct. "This ship is cursed," Cydric said, and repeated to Tullis
what he had just recalled.
"That is the story," Tullis affirmed with a solemn nod.
"But why was the ship cursed?"
Tullis gave another sigh and related the story of how, many years
ago, Captain Sarkos -- a cold-hearted pirate who regularly raided the
southern coast of Baranur -- disguised himself as a nobleman and tricked
the only daughter of a powerful duke of Pyridain into giving him the Eye
of Cirrangill, a huge perfectly-cut emerald the size of a man's fist. It
was one of the family's treasures, and the duke was furious at the Eye's
loss. He sent out his three fastest ships in search of the _Rampant
Dragon_, and after three days they caught up with the pirate on the open
sea.
The _Dragon_ was larger than the duke's ships but surprisingly fast
for a vessel her size. She was able to keep just ahead of the pursuing
ships, until one of them managed to get close enough for several
ballista-launched flaming spears to set fire to her sails and bring her
to a stop. The three ships maintained a flaming-spear attack, while the
crew of the pirate vessel returned fire with catapult-launched stones
and burning coals.
The battle soon turned in favor of the duke's fleet. Sarkos, seeing
the heavy damage to his ship and fearing capture, came to a drastic
decision: he called upon Cirrangill, god of the seas, and offered up the
namesake jewel in return for help. The sea god manifested himself as an
immense waterspout and agreed to aid Sarkos. The duke's fleet was caught
up in the vast watery vortex and sent to the bottom, but the _Rampant
Dragon_ remained unharmed.
Cirrangill then demanded the emerald, but Sarkos knew the mythical
history of the jewel: it had originally been a gift to a poor fisherman
from the sea god himself, as a reward for the man's honesty. Over the
years the emerald changed hands many times, but it had always been a
gift -- never once had it been bought or sold. Sarkos knew that unless
he willingly gave it up, the sea god could not reclaim the jewel.
Knowing this, the pirate captain greedily refused to part with it.
And so, angered by the pirate's ingratitude, Cirrangill laid a
curse upon the ship and crew; they would be doomed to roam the seas for
all time and relive the battle with the duke's fleet, which now ended
with the _Rampant Dragon's_ destruction.
"... and that is what is happening now," Tullis concluded, casting
a glance up at the roof of the hold.
"But why aren't you with them?" Cydric asked. "Aren't you affected
by the curse?"
A grim look came over the youth's face, as if he was recalling a
painful event. "This is a ship of ghosts, but I ... I am a different
ghost." He paused, as if to compose himself. Then he continued.
"During the chase, the Captain was always on deck and rarely came
back to his cabin. I had heard about the jewel and knew where he kept
it. One day, I couldn't resist -- I took the box out of its hiding place
and looked at the jewel. I don't know for how long I stared at it, but
the next thing I knew, the Captain was in the room, shouting at me --
hitting me. He took me down here, to the hold and ... " Tullis stopped
and gazed into the shadows.
Cydric read his look and knew what had happened next. In a whisper
he said, "Sarkos killed you."
Tullis nodded, unable to speak.
"So you're a true ghost."
Again Tullis nodded. "Yes -- and doubly cursed for it. Everyone
else has only the faintest notion that they've been repeating the same
events, but I seem to be only one who truly remembers."
"But why *does* Sarkos and the crew think that I'm you?"
"You are not the first man to be taken aboard this ship. Each one
before you was mistaken for one of our men who'd been killed in some way
or another in the past. And the only way any of them left this ship was
by bailing overboard."
Cydric now understood Sarkos's behavior toward him. The pirate
captain no doubt believed that Tullis had come back, and had tried to
justify his actions to relieve his guilt. But knowing that was little
comfort -- what he needed was a way off this ship of doom.
Stepping over to stand directly in front of Tullis, Cydric drew a
breath and asked, "Will you help me escape?"
The ghostly youth nodded his agreement. "But I first have to ask
you this: will you help me to end this curse upon our ship, so that we
may finally know rest?"
Cydric paused before replying. "Will you still help me if I don't?"
"Yes. I said that I would."
Stepping back a pace, Cydric frowned slightly as he considered
Tullis's request. It would be easy to simply leave him and the others on
board the ship to their fate. He was certain that Sarkos deserved his,
but what of the rest of the crew? And what of Tullis -- was his
transgression so great that he deserved to spend forever in this waking
nightmare?
Cydric gave a mental shake of his head. Who was he to judge any of
them? But if people like himself were unwillingly drawn into the
punishment reserved for the _Dragon's_ crew, didn't he have a
responsibility to try and ensure that it happened to no one else?
A long moment passed. Finally, Cydric spoke. "Then I'll help you."
Tullis showed Cydric the location of a rusted axe, lost behind a
row of crates. Cydric used it to hack away at the door after being
assured by Tullis that no one was nearby. After escaping the hold,
Cydric followed Tullis to the Captain's cabin. The spectral youth
directed Cydric to a loose plank underneath Sarkos' bunk that was the
hiding place for the box containing the Eye of Cirrangill. Cydric
removed the emerald and turned it over in his hand. He cast a dubious
glance at Tullis and said, "Are you sure this is the only way to end the
curse?"
"Yes. And at the right moment you must do what I told you,
otherwise the curse will continue."
A short time after leaving Sarkos's cabin, Cydric emerged from an
aft hatch onto the deck of the _Rampant Dragon_. The air was thick with
smoke and the shouts of the crew. Huddling near the steps leading up to
the aft deck, Cydric looked to port and saw three ships in a loose line
a short distance away. The starboard-side hull of the middle ship was
ablaze, but the other two were undamaged. Suddenly, a great spear of
fire leaped from the foredeck of the lead ship. It soared in a graceful
arc toward the _Rampant Dragon_ and buried itself in the portside hull
just above the waterline, sending a shudder through the vessel.
Cydric staggered and fell to the deck, coughing. A moment later, a
gust of wind cleared the smoke from the deck, allowing him to observe
crewmen with buckets racing toward the port side to dump water on the
flaming spear. Looking up, he saw other crewmen in the rigging
struggling to put out fires in the mainsails.
Two more flaming spears flew from the attacking ships. One fell
short of the _Dragon_, but the other grazed the mizzen sail and set it
afire. Cydric leaped up and scrambled out of the way as crewmen rushed
astern to combat the flames. He made his way forward and crouched
against the starboard rail, not far from the steps to the foredeck. He
watched as Captain Sarkos bellowed to the men manning the catapult to
winch the arm back to firing position. When it was ready, one man dumped
a bucketful of large dark rocks into the bowl and another man set them
ablaze with the torch he held. They stood back, and a moment later
Sarkos gave the order to fire. The catapult arm slammed upright and
flung the rocks toward the lead ship. Most of them missed, but a few
landed on the deck where a crewman quickly extinguished them.
Tullis materialized beside Cydric, who looked up at him and said,
"It's not going well for Sarkos, is it?"
Shaking his head, Tullis replied, "It will become worse. The Duke's
ships will start to draw closer; two will continue the attack, while the
third will attempt to ram."
Cydric felt a twinge of fear. "And then?"
"The attempt will succeed. This ship will sink, and all hands will
go down."
"But you'll all be brought back to go through this all over again."
"Yes, unless you are able to put an end to it. Be ready."
The battle soon began to unfold as Tullis described. All three
ships ceased firing, then pointed their bows toward the _Rampant
Dragon_. Sarkos screamed for the crew to finish repairs to the sails and
ordered the catapult attacks to continue.
As the Duke's ships approached, the first and last ship in line
altered course slightly so that they would pass directly fore and aft of
the _Dragon_; the middle ship seemed to hang back, but was on a course
for the pirate vessel's midsection. Sarkos directed the catapult crew to
concentrate fire on the first ship, but a well-placed flaming spear
smashed into the catapult frame and set fire to one of the men.
Cydric stood up to see if Captain Sarkos had been hit. A few
moments later he quickly crouched down again as an arrow sped past his
face. The flanking ships had closed to within arrow range and their
archers were raining death down on the _Dragon's_ deck. Cydric covered
his head as crewmen all around him sharply cried out in pain. A few
screams seemed to rise in volume and then abruptly end with a muffled
"thump".
After what seemed like years, Cydric heard Tullis whisper that the
ships had passed. He lowered his arms, stood up, and was struck with
horror to see arrow-pierced bodies littering the deck of the _Rampant
Dragon_. Turning to face port, Cydric saw the middle ship rapidly
bearing down on the pirate vessel.
Tullis appeared, his face stricken with anguish. "Now, Cydric!" he
shouted urgently. "The jewel! Do it now!"
Pulling the emerald from his tobacco pouch and holding it aloft,
Cydric faced starboard and said in a loud voice, "Great Cirrangill! God
of the Seas! I offer to you your sacred Eye in return for the release of
the souls on board this ship!"
There was no immediate response. Cydric quickly repeated the offer,
and was about to do so a third time when Tullis cried out a warning.
Shooting a glance over his shoulder, Cydric saw Sarkos staggering toward
him. The captain's clothing was blackened, his face was bloodied, and an
arrow protruded from his upper back.
The young man from the _Voyager_ took a step forward just as Sarkos
gave a yell and leaped. He slammed into Cydric, and the two of them
collapsed to the deck. Cydric lost his grip on the jewel and saw it
skitter away; Sarkos pushed off of him and dived after the emerald.
Retrieving it, the pirate captain lurched to his feet. Just then, Tullis
materialized and confronted Sarkos.
"You murdered me!" the ghostly youth cried. "You killed me with
your own hands!"
Sarkos recoiled in shock. "No," he whispered hoarsely. "You
betrayed me. I had a right to kill. I had every right!" He gave a scream
of rage and flung the emerald at Tullis.
At that moment, the _Rampant Dragon_ shook violently as the duke's
ship impacted the pirate vessel's side. Tullis vanished as the green
jewel passed through him.
As the ramming ship pushed its way into the _Dragon's_ hull, a
shimmering translucent mass formed in the air over the water to the
starboard side. It assumed the vague shape of a bearded human face.
Cydric watched as the emerald flew in a leisurely arc toward the
shimmering mass. The jewel tumbled end over end until it appeared to
cover the left eye of the translucent shimmering. A green light exploded
outward from the emerald, filling the sky. The light blinded Cydric, and
he lost all consciousness.
There was the sensation of falling a long way, stopping abruptly,
then slowly rising. A pale green curtain wavered in the distance, and
the feeling of rising quickened the closer the green curtain approached.
Suddenly the curtain was pierced --
-- and Cydric found himself breaking the surface of the water and
being hoisted into the air. Hands grabbed him and gently set him down.
Cydric opened his eyes and saw a group of people huddled over him.
Among them were Avron and Captain Thorne. I'm back on the _Voyager_, he
thought. He blinked his eyes several times and tried to speak, but
instead gagged and vomited the seawater that filled his throat.
A little while later, Brynna and Avron visited Cydric as he
recovered in the crew quarters. Brynna told him that not long after he
went overboard, the storm had abated and they found him floating only a
short distance from the ship. He then told them, somewhat hesitantly, of
his experiences on the ghostly pirate vessel.
"Actually, I'm sure it *was* just a drowning-dream," Cydric
admitted after he finished.
"In true fact, though," said Avron, "there really was a duke of
Pyridain who ordered a certain pirate hunted down and captured. But all
the ships were lost in a storm, so it is said."
"And there's the explanation," Brynna said with satisfaction. "A
simple story blown into a mysterious sea legend. That's how most of them
start."
Avron opened his mouth as if to argue, but closed it and merely
nodded.
Brynna patted Cydric's shoulder and said, "You should be better
tomorrow. Is there anything you need right now?"
Cydric thought a moment. "No, but I do have one request."
"Yes?"
"I'd like to go back to galley duty, if I may."
High up in the crow's nest, a crewman gazed out over the dark
water. His watch was almost over, and he thought about leaving his post
a little bit early. But just as he made up his mind to do so, his
attention was drawn by a tiny dot of green light at the limit of his
vision, seeming to be just under the surface. He brought the spyglass to
his eye, but was only able to catch a brief glimpse of the green light
dimming and going out, as if it had sunk into the depths of the cold,
mysterious sea.
========================================================================
"I am my Lord's Possession"
by Alan Lauderdale
<lauderd@phadm1.cpmc.columbia.edu>
20 Firil-7 Naia, 1004
[20 Firil, 1004.]
Sir Ongis Fennic scrounged up a drumstick and strolled over to a
window. His sharp, commanding black eyes gazed out at the morning
shadows and mud of his courtyard. With wolfish ferocity, he tore into
the cold leg he held. His black hair and physical strength only added to
the lupine resemblance. (It was a pity that his oversized nose spoiled
any appearance of feral cunning.)
"She still there?" he asked around his gnawing.
"Yes," Cahill replied. Cahill partook of the servant's lot of
anonymity. Like the rest of them, he tugged his forelock, knew his place
and stayed out of the way. All that distinguished him was a modest
calligraphic skill and a scar on the left side of his face acquired
while learning to stay out of the way of Sir Ongis's horse.
"Risser's teeth, she gets up early."
Cahill refrained from commenting that the morning was in fact far
advanced. He knew too well that such a remark was dangerous to his
health.
"Standing there every day ... she's just asking for a whipping. She
doing anything?"
"No," Cahill replied.
"No evil eye, no chanting, no spitting on my gateposts?"
"No."
"If she's a witch, she's a cowardly one."
"She never said she was a witch, only the creature's mother,"
Cahill thought. He kept silent, though. There was nothing he could think
of to say that wasn't either lickspittlishly beneath his shreds of
dignity or unbecoming to a servant who wanted to survive. He gazed
uninformatively at his liege lord.
Sir Ongis nodded over at the covered birdcage. "What about her?" he
asked.
"No better."
"Worse?"
Cahill shrugged and nodded.
Sir Ongis threw the drumstick at the fireplace and strode to the
cage. He tore the cover off and glared through the wickerwork at the
small figure within. The creature looked like a girl but her height was
only about three hands.
"Say the words, dammit!" he shouted. "Just say the damned words."
She raised her head and looked at him. "I will not." Her voice was
scarcely audible over his own breathing. "I want to go home."
"You'll go where I send you!" Sir Ongis exclaimed. He replaced the
cover approximately and turned again to Cahill. "What about my wife?" he
asked.
"Your wife, sir?" Cahill asked, surprised.
"Yes, my wife." Sir Ongis stalked toward his servant. "Remember
her? She's sick too. Or had that slipped your mind? How. Is. My. Wife?"
"She's much better," Cahill said quickly. "Much better! Memfis --
you know, the leech? -- he says she's improving. He says she's much
better."
"He's been saying that for a week!" Sir Ongis roared. "If she's so
much better, why's she still in bed?"
Sophie stood outside the gates of Sir Ongis's hall. Sophie knew Sir
Ongis had her daughter, her Mouse. Sophie knew Mouse was her daughter's
name, not Melisande. Sophie knew how her daughter had come to be given
her true name ...
[Yule, 994.]
She was always small, even at her birth. She slipped out of her
mother's womb quickly and with no fuss. For Sophie, the event was
routine; the baby was her seventh. She no longer bothered with a midwife
-- or even summoned her sister, whose house in the village she'd come to
visit for the birthing. Sophie knew what to do. She stood up from the
birthing stool and put the infant in the old basket -- the one that
would be burned. Then she dressed and, taking both the old basket (with
baby) and the Naming Basket, she went along to the other temple.
Not the temple of Kurin -- the only god who ever seemed to answer
his worshipers these days -- but the older temple, the one dedicated to
the Stevene. The one whose only remaining purpose, it seemed, was
washing and naming infants. And burying the stubborn remainder who
insisted on worshipping the superseded god of everything. The temple
persisted only because of the continued patronage of the family Fennic.
Otherwise, "something" would surely have happened to it by now, the
Kurinish priests and leaders of the congregation were so hostile to it.
Even the Fennic's support wasn't enthusiastic; it was merely a family
tradition. The great-grandfather of the present Stafhold would have died
as an infant but for the wisdom of a Stevenic priest. The good will left
over from that event wasn't quite depleted yet.
Since that time, every mother brought her infant to the stevenic
temple for naming -- though it was beginning to crumble these days.
Fanatically devoted worshipers of Kurin were beginning to bring their
infants to the new temple (a century or two old, but still "new") for
blessing. The one remaining priest of the Stevene, Bartleheim, was too
weak to protest this breach of tradition. He was old, he was tired, he
was blind. He was irrelevant.
Sophie, though, wasn't fanatical about much, certainly not about
debates over whether to worship the sun or worship everything. She went
to the old temple because that was where she'd taken her six previous
babies. And three of those were still alive, so she was doing all right
doing it the traditional way. Two were old enough to help their father
already and the other would probably train in clerking in a few more
years. Sophie had done well by the Stevene. No reason to change.
She rang the bell in front of Bartleheim's shack, then continued on
to the old temple itself. She went in and went to the chapel where the
naming font was. Fortunately, she'd birthed by day. Otherwise, she would
have had to bring her own candles. The temple used to have candles and
lamps burning all the time, then only at night, then just whenever
people came. Now people almost never came (except to name their babies)
and the temple had no candles. The last lamps had disappeared years ago.
Sophie put the basket down and checked the water. At least the font
still worked. (She recalled that keeping the font functioning was mainly
what the Fennic patronage accomplished.) She skimmed dead insects and
scum off the surface of the water and sang quietly to her new daughter
while she waited for Bartleheim.
Her ring gleamed slightly when it swept into the water under the
floating muck. Sophie smiled at it. Actually the thing was badly and
permanently tarnished and probably a cheap metal (tin? copper?) to begin
with. It wasn't a wedding ring. Gregor hadn't been able to afford
anything like that then. No, he'd found it in a field about a year ago
and brought it to her with much joking ceremony. She'd appreciated the
joke, accepted the belated token, and liked the ring itself even if it
was homely. It fit snugly and almost never called any attention to
itself. Gleaming was unusual, but this was supposed to be holy water.
Bartleheim showed up finally, led by the only acolyte the stevenic
temple had. He was an idiot named Henri (who could hope to become priest
only by default when Bartleheim died). Henri positioned Bartleheim by
the font while Sophie unwrapped her baby. Then the acolyte wandered off,
touring the rest of the dark, dusty chamber. Bartleheim started blessing
the Stevene with comfortable, familiar words. Sophie immersed the tiny
girl in the water and cleaned her for the first time. The water was
cold, the girl displeased by the experience. She began to cry.
Bartleheim recited louder.
He reached the point where the omniscience was supposed to advise
him of the baby's name and paused. Since a god of everything was
terribly busy -- too busy to reliably choose a name that would please
the baby's family -- custom allowed the mother to whisper a suggestion
to the priest at this point. Sophie, keeping a firm grip on the unhappy
infant, leaned over to recommend the name Merry to the divine principle.
"M -- owww!" she exclaimed. There was a flash in the font and a
sharp pain in her fingers.
"By the grace of God and in the love of her family, the child's
name shall be Mouse," the blind Bartleheim said with a mental shrug.
"Praised be the name of Cephas," chimed in Henri from the shadows
elsewhere in the building. He knew his cues, but wasn't good at
perceiving when a ceremony had careened off its track. The acolyte came
back (empty-handed) from a survey of the temple's almsboxes.
"You may now burn the basket," Bartleheim went on helpfully.
"But that's not supposed to be her name," Sophie complained.
"It's what you said," Bartleheim replied.
"Yes, but -- where's my ring?" Sophie stared at her hand. (The
other hand was busy cradling an infant who'd suddenly decided to be at
peace with the entire situation.) Where the pain in her fingers was
worst was where her ring used to be. It was gone now. Sophie started
fishing around in the font. With only daylight available in the chapel,
the bottom of the basin couldn't be seen. And no ring could be felt
anywhere in it.
Sophie felt tired. She'd lost her only piece of jewelry and gained
a daughter named for the vermin who helped keep her family hungry too
often. "Her name is Mouse?" she asked, continuing to feel around the
basin.
"Praise Cephas," Henri affirmed, taking it upon himself to attempt
to burn the old basket. Recognizing the potential for catastrophe in
this plan, Sophie abandoned her search and relieved the acolyte of the
basket.
"Can we change it?" she asked.
"And offend God?" Bartleheim responded. "I'd rather not."
Sophie started to ask about her missing ring. Then she considered
Bartleheim's clouded eyes and Henri's vacuous grin and thought better of
it. Perhaps Gregor could find her another. Perhaps she was just never
meant to wear jewelry. Silently, she burned the basket while Bartleheim
said a little basket-burning prayer and Henri gazed raptly at the flame.
Then, she dropped a couple of coins into Henri's hand. ("Because it's
customary, that's why!" she thought to herself in annoyance over why she
should make an offering for a botched ceremony.) Finally, she gathered
up her contented little Mouse in her new basket and went home.
Gregor held Mouse and listened to Sophie's account. He gazed
thoughtfully at his first daughter. She gazed thoughtfully at her first
father. "Well," he said at last, "it makes a better story than if you'd
succeeded in naming her Merry."
"I just hope you won't regret that opinion," his wife told him.
[20 Firil, 1004.]
Gregor paused at the end of the row. Morgan, his ox, was content to
stop pulling the plow also. Both stared out across the fields
thoughtfully.
Gregor was farming. That was what he did. He got up and worked;
later, he might rest. Sophie might go and stand outside Sir Ongis's hall
for hours hoping that he might relent and give her back her child. He
still had work to do and many mouths to feed. Mouse, though, had never
been much of an eater.
[Summer, 994]
The infant Mouse declined to eat. To say that she "refused" to eat
would be putting it too strongly. She simply declined it almost all the
time when Sophie offered her breast for suckling. She slept and she woke
and she greeted the world with great interest, but tears were rare and
eating was rarer. Sophie worried (first of all, it was uncomfortable)
and Gregor heard about it every evening.
Sophie asked her friends for advice and Gregor heard a report about
every suggestion. She got 27 different sure-fire ways to persuade a baby
to eat from 11 different friends. Two thirds of these really only
applied to solid food; the others didn't work.
Gregor advised her to take Mouse to Merton, the most accessible of
the priests of Kurin. (He also advised her that Bartleheim was useless
and she agreed.) So she did, and reported to Gregor every detail: Merton
looked at Mouse. Mouse looked at him. Merton smiled at Mouse and Mouse
smiled back. Merton drank some milk and ate a biscuit. Mouse stared at
the window of his office. Merton put his hand gently on Mouse's forehead
and prayed to the sun for guidance. Mouse put up with it. Merton
received no clear guidance from Kurin. Mouse and Sophie went home.
So Gregor had resigned himself. Sophie had given him Cedric and Con
(Gregor the Younger) and Follano and Petrin and Dorian and Tobric. (And
she would follow the Mouse with Armonk and Quinn and Widric and
Barberry.) Cedric and Con were strong, healthy boys who already were
helping their father work the land. Dorian was growing up fine. If poor
Mouse went the way of Follano, Petrin and Tobric, that would be sad, but
life would go on. Sophie would go on.
But Mouse flouted the alternatives -- eat or die. She continued to
sleep and play with the world. She also continued to avoid eating and
crying. She stayed small, but she stayed alive and contented. For
Gregor, who started off waiting sadly to see how long the Mouse would
take to waste away and die, the vigil shifted gradually to appreciating
this strange, small blessing. His daughter continued to be1 another joy
around the house but not another mouth to feed (though Sophie never
stopped trying).
Mouse loved sunlight. Left to her own devices inside the cottage,
she would eventually maneuver herself into any illuminated patch of the
floor. Outside, she lay on her back and laughed at the light. Since she
seemed to treat Gregor and Sophie with equal love, Gregor sometimes took
her along when he went out to his fields. (Especially after Sophie
became pregnant yet again.)
The hawk reminded Gregor that it was dangerous for his daughter to
be small.
Gregor was pulling weeds; Mouse was gurgling in a basket. Gregor
was in a struggle with an especially deep root when the baby's scream
jolted him out of it. He looked up and saw the bird swerve past Mouse's
basket and lurch upward into the sky again. For want of anything more
effective to do, Gregor threw a stone or two at the retreating hawk, but
Mouse continued to scream. Gregor went over to her and made sure that
she'd come to no harm. The baby clung to her father the rest of the day,
crying (very uncharacteristically) if put down. After that, Gregor made
sure that his tiny girl was not quite so exposed when sitting outside.
(Gregor grimaced and urged the ox into starting another row. He
hadn't been there when she was taken.)
He remembered that Mouse took up crawling before anyone except her
mother thought it appropriate. (Gregor regretted her precocity. Once she
started crawling amongst his crops, the pleasure of her company was
overbalanced by the trouble of looking after her. He had to leave her at
home most of the time.) Everyone else reminded Sophie that now she'd
have to make sure that Mouse stayed away from dangerous things like
cooking fires, but Gregor knew that there was no worry. Sophie was an
experienced mother and a wise one, who knew how to do that
automatically. She told him that she was just glad that something about
Mouse was normal. She was equally pleased when Mouse began walking and
talking; she only worried because her daughter was still so small.
[20 Firil, 1004.]
Gregor stopped. The furrow was going wayward, as was his mind. He
brought Morgan back into line and resumed the plowing. Mouse was never
wayward, he thought. Almost never.
Sophie stood nursing Barberry and still remembering her other
daughter, the one Sir Ongis was holding prisoner. Mouse was always a
good little girl. She almost never made trouble for her mother or anyone
else in the family. For example, there was the day that Sophie left her
knitting out. There were the needles and the orderly knots and all that
yarn that any kitten would have known to make a mess of. When Sophie
realized that the house had been quiet for too long and went on patrol,
she found Mouse sitting next to the needles and yarn, staring at them.
Remarking "When you're older, we'll make some socks together," Sophie
gathered up the knitting and put it away where it belonged. (Mouse
watched her in solemn silence.) It was so much later when Sophie
discovered the extra row that she decided she must have knitted it in
herself by mistake.
Now, though, Sophie felt a twinge of doubt. Why else would she
remember the matter (except that she never erred in her knitting besides
that one time)? Was Sir Ongis right in declaring that Mouse was a faerie
princess who should be presented to the Duke of Dargon himself? Sophie
didn't think so. For ten years, Mouse had been Mouse, daughter (tiny
daughter -- smaller than the brand new Barberry) of Sophie and Gregor.
How could she be changeling or faerie? Wasn't that what the naming at
the stevenic temple was supposed to prevent?
Mouse knew what her mistake had been. She should never have let
Dorian get her to come with him into the woods. Mommy Sophie had told
her always to stay close to home. She'd warned her that so many things
were bad when you were small. Mouse hadn't known that that included
people. Now she knew.
But Dorian needed her. He'd explained to her that Farnace had
loaned him a book. He'd been looking in the woods for a safe place to
keep it because Con and Cedric sometimes abused the books he had at
home. He'd found a safe-looking spot in a shallow cave but the cave
turned out to have a false floor which fell through under the book and
the opening was too small to get through unless you were Mouse and would
she help?
Of course she'd help.
So she went with Dorian out to the woods with some twine to fetch
back a book from the bottom of a mysterious cave. It was an adventure;
it sounded like fun. At the cave, Mouse tied the twine around herself
and Dorian lowered her through the hole in the floor. Down she went in
the darkness until the downing ended with ground. She started feeling
around for the book and, just as she felt somethi
ng that was probably
the book, she realized that she was looking in the darkness at two
glowing eyes. She jerked on the twine the signal to get her out of
there. The eyes didn't move, but neither did the twine -- at least not
right away. So she jerked again -- and flew upward.
She was just lucky she didn't crash into anything on her way up.
She got back to the surface all right and argued with Dorian about his
paying attention to her signals and being more careful bringing her back
up. Then, she went back down -- only this time with a makeshift lit
torch.
(Dorian's very smart, actually, and almost always had with him the
flint and stuff for starting a fire. Mommy Sophie didn't like Mouse
playing with that stuff, but Dorian was just enough older and bigger
that it was all right for him.)
Nothing bothered Mouse while she and her light dropped again
through the dark. With the torch, she found the book easily. It was
broken and some loose pages had scattered. She ignored that at first,
though, looking around for the thing with the glowing eyes. Not finding
anything, she next set about reassembling the book. Then she untied the
twine, wrapped it around the book and re-tied it. She hopped onto the
book, signalled Dorian to lift her out and, as the book was beginning to
lift off the ground, she saw the glint.
She made another mistake. She jumped off the book and went to see
what the sparkle was. It was a small, dirty disk, only as wide across as
her hand. There were two of them, lying on the ground, and they glowed
slightly. She'd found the eyes! She picked one up -- and it burned her
hands so she dropped it.
"What happened?" Dorian called down.
"Found something," Mouse shouted back.
"What? Mouse, are you all right?" Dorian called again.
Mouse sighed. He hadn't heard her or understood her. People almost
never did unless she was sitting on their shoulder. She glanced behind
at her landing spot. The twine dropped down to the ground again. Dorian
had removed the book and put a pine cone in its place.
"Mouse? Come on, we've got to go."
Mouse made another mistake. She decided she didn't want to leave
without the disks she'd found. She ignored her brother. She wrapped her
hands in the folds of her dress and picked up one of the disks. It
wasn't easy, but she managed to get both disks over to the pine cone,
one at a time. After a while longer, she'd wedged the disks in between
the pine cone and the twine. She signalled to Dorian to bring her up.
Nothing happened. She signalled several more times and still
nothing happened.
Mouse sighed and began to climb the twine. Climbing up and down
things around her home was something she was used to. Climbing back up
this twine wouldn't be that hard. She'd have some things to say to
Dorian when she got to the top, though.
She pulled herself up through the hole in the cave floor and was
immediately picked up by hands the size of her Daddy's. Surprised, she
screamed.
"A faerie princess!" an unfamiliar voice announced. "In Sir Ongis's
forest." Mouse looked at the strange, bearded face; the face was staring
at her in amazement. A hand was still wrapped around her middle.
"Let me go!" she shouted, grabbing and trying to pry loose the top
finger. She always did that at home when picked up and it never worked
there either.
"That's my sister!" Mouse heard Dorian shout. "Let her go!" He was
running toward them. Other voices joined his: Cedric's and Con's. He'd
gone for help. But others were also with her captor. Though Cedric and
Con and Dorian argued long and loudly (and Mouse joined them and was
ignored by all), Sir Ongis's men -- for that was who they were --
brought her to Sir Ongis.
Sir Ongis found the faerie princess fascinating and would not let
her go. He dubbed her Melisande, the daughter of Queen Braia, the Great
Lady of the Forest. She explained that she was Mouse, daughter of Sophie
and should be allowed to go home. He told her that that was a most
unimpressive pedigree to be presenting to the Lord of these lands. She
told him impressiveness didn't matter if it was the truth. He told her
that as Lord of these lands, it was up to him to decide what was true.
She stamped her foot and said no. He laughed at her outburst since it
took place on his trestle table.
Then he told her that if she was indeed a mouse and not a
melisande, then he was her lord and master and therefore could do with
her what he pleased, including ordering her to play the part of a faerie
princess named Melisande. She disagreed, but was ignored yet again. Sir
Ongis went on to say that he didn't much care if she was really a faerie
princess or only a freakish peasant. Faeries and faerie princesses were
just stories anyway. What Sir Ongis intended to do was dress Mouse as a
faerie princess and present her at Dargon for the amusement of Duke
Clifton. Mouse again said she'd rather not; she wanted to go home.
Sir Ongis became annoyed and ordered Mouse to swear allegiance to
him and promise to obey his commands. He said that she had to do this
because she had been living on his lands. She said no again.
"You are my possession, little mouse," he warned. "Now say it. Say
'I am my lord Sir Ongis's possession'."
"No."
"Very well," Sir Ongis said. "I can be patient."
This Mouse doubted.
He put her in this covered cage and here she still was, wasting
away. She hated Sir Ongis.
The cover flew off the cage again. "Well?" demanded the bad lord
himself.
Mouse had little to say to him. Everything she could think of to
say had been said before and denied. She took a deep breath and
attempted to bellow "May I ... please ... sit ... outside?"
"Not until you -- " Sir Ongis began yet again, then stopped,
apparently changing his mind. "Will you give me your parole?" he asked.
"What's that?" Mouse belted out.
"It's a promise that honorable prisoners make to their captors in
exchange for certain liberties during their confinement. You're an
honorable faerie princess, aren't you?"
"Honorable," Mouse shouted, nodding. It was too much effort to
debate the question of whether she was faerie.
"All right -- "
"This," Mouse continued, gesturing to the cage, "honorable?"
"Yes it is!" Sir Ongis shouted at the tiny creature's impertinence.
"How dare you impugn -- ?" He broke off, paced across the room and back
and tried again. "I am an honorable vassal of Lord Fionn Connall who
owes service to the Duke Clifton himself. I am honorable and I believe
you to be an honorable faerie -- or whatever you actually are. I think
we might arrange a parole. Will you promise not to attempt to escape if
I let you sit outside?"
Mouse thought about that. "Yes," she agreed.
"No crossed fingers or anything like that."
"Yes," Mouse repeated her promise, holding up her hands in plain
view.
"And if anyone else tries to help you escape or kidnaps you, you'll
do whatever you can to stop them and failing that, return here as soon
as you are able?"
Mouse thought longer about that. "Yes," she finally agreed.
"Good," Sir Ongis said. He picked up her cage, carried it out onto
the terrace and put it on a table. Mouse waited for him to open the cage
door. He didn't. She stared at him from within the cross- hatching of
sunlight and shadow. He watched her.
"Outside," she finally bellowed.
His eyes narrowed. Finally, deciding agreement, he opened the cage
door. "Leaving the table would be attempting to escape," he remarked as
she crawled across the cage and out through the opening. If she said
anything in response, it wasn't to him.
Mouse fell out through the cage door and sprawled on the table. She
lay still in the sunlight. Except for her size -- perhaps three hands
long -- and pretty face she scarcely looked like a faerie. Her dress was
still filthy from her sojourn underground. Her light-brown hair was
matted and disheveled -- but her mother was none too clean-looking
either. Her exposed skin was deathly pale and hanging loosely on her
bones.
"You should eat something," Sir Ongis said, appraising her
condition and worrying about making her presentable to the Duke.
She ignored him.
"Why won't you eat any of the food I offer you?" he asked. "What do
you want to eat, choice nectar?"
She shrugged. "All right," she breathed into the table.
Sir Ongis stared at his sick prize. Then he went to see if anyone
besides bees knew how to collect nectar. Thank goodness it was spring,
he decided.
Sir Ongis was a busy man, what with his own keep and household to
supervise (while his wife was sick) as well as his extensive lands. (His
servants, on the other hand, wished that he had a war or something
somewhere else to keep him amused instead of spending all day hectoring
them.) Nonetheless, he managed to visit his terrace from time to time
that day. On each visit, he found Mouse the same: She was lying
motionless in the sun, asleep, as far as he could tell, since she
ignored everything he said to her.
Late in the afternoon, he stepped out onto the terrace just as a
shadow was finally creeping across the table.
"Wake up!" he shouted. This time, she stirred, rolled over on her
back, and looked up at him. "Time to go back to your cage," Sir Ongis
announced. "I could let you stay out," he offered, "if you swear that
oath of allegiance."
Mouse said nothing. She went over to the wicker cage and climbed
in. Sir Ongis spat a curse over the balustrade of his terrace and
carried the cage back inside.
The next day, Mouse and Sir Ongis repeated themselves almost
exactly. Sir Ongis allowed Mouse to sit out on the terrace and Mouse
gave the same parole she had the day before. The only differences were
that Mouse looked healthier when she scrambled out of the cage in the
morning and Ongis chose slightly different words in the evening when he
reminded Mouse that she could end her imprisonment in the cage with a
few simple words. He said
"Unless, of course, you've enjoyed this freedom and are willing to
swear that oath."
Mouse looked at Sir Ongis and shouted (simply so that he could hear
her) "Not freedom. Just sunlight."
Sir Ongis exploded. "Then you can rot in darkness!" he shouted. He
shoved Mouse into the cage and then carried the cage inside. He grabbed
the cage's cloth cover and carried both down to the keep's cellars where
his small, but adequate dungeon was. Going in, he slammed the cage down
on the ground and settled the cover over it. "There are rats down here,"
he remarked, savoring the thought. "Hope you don't get into a wrestling
match with any of them." He went out, securing the door behind him.
Walking back up the stairs, he muttered to himself "Damn her! I
will have her play the toy for that Duke! It would be such a shame to
damage her though."
The next morning, Sophie failed to show up outside Sir Ongis's
gate. Ongis nodded at Cahill's reporting this, the first time she'd
missed an appearance since the princess had been brought in. He imagined
all the explanations: Sick brat at home, too much work at home,
neighbors needing help, husband needing help, husband talking sense into
her, giving up hope. He considered going and breaking the news to the
mouse, but then remembered that he'd never told her about Sophie's vigil
to begin with. And right now, he wanted her left alone down there with
the imagined rats.
No, better to tell her that she'd even been abandoned by her
mother. Sir Ongis smiled, lit a torch, and strolled down to the cellar.
Nice touch that: He'd bring the light of companionship and then carry it
away again after telling the mouse the news. He unbolted the door of the
dungeon, entered, walked to the cage, pulled the cover off --
and stared at the empty cage.
He crouched down, incredulous. He stared at the new hole in the
side of the cage, the one made both by pushing the wooden slats aside
and by gnawing at them. He jumped to his feet and prowled around the
chamber, looking for some evidence of a dead Mouse or how she escaped.
He found some. The door wasn't a perfect fit; there was a small hole in
it. Likewise, there were one or two small holes at the base of the walls
of the room, suitable only for a mouse -- or Mouse, perhaps. It was
difficult to guess how small a hole that creature could wriggle through.
Sir Ongis stood up, thinking. The teeth-marks were evidence and
there almost certainly were rats down here, but he simply didn't believe
that his faerie princess had been carried off by any vermin. No, the
more telling clue was the absence of the girl's mother. She wasn't there
today because she knew the Mouse would be gone. She knew the Mouse was
gone because she helped her escape in the night -- or at least was
outside to meet her daughter when she emerged.
Sir Ongis ran for his stable, shouting for men to join him. Soon a
party was riding out to the remote part of his lands where the farmer
Gregor had his house. He returned that evening empty-handed.
[7 Naia, 1004.]
Lady Kathryn Fennic awoke in the darkness. She felt different --
she felt better. She could feel! She felt the way that her willowy (and
emaciated, right now) body was too long for this sickbed. She felt
itching in her scalp from long, straight, dark brown hair that had been
confined too long under that cap. She felt weak and fatigued still, but
it was a good fatigue, a tiredness as though she'd finished a job right.
The lump in her belly wasn't weighing on her, sucking away her strength,
as it had for the past month or more. There was a weight on her chest,
though, and that was new too. She opened her eyes and beheld the faerie
princess for the second time in her life.
(Sir Ongis had once shown his melisande to his wife immediately
upon acquiring her.)
"You ran away," Kathryn said. "Many days ago." She'd heard the news
but hadn't cared much about it.
The princess dropped onto her hands and knees; she was close to
Kathryn's ear. "I came back," she said.
"Why?"
There was a pause before the princess said anything. "Your Ongis
came after me," she began at last.
"I know. He couldn't find you. He told me."
"He found my family. Did he tell you that?"
"You have a family? He found other faeries?"
The princess's tiny face moued disgust. "Faeries! My father's a
farmer. Was. My mother's name's Sophie. She came here looking for me.
Did you know that?"
"No."
"I didn't either. Not until Dorian told me. He's my brother. I went
home and talked to him after I ran away from here. He told me that my
mother came here to try to get me back from your Ongis. She waited and
waited and then she went home. I never got to see her --"
"Didn't you see her when you got home?"
The princess made another face. "Are you stupid?" she asked. "It
took me days to get home. I didn't know the way exactly, I don't walk
very fast, and I was trying to keep away from foxes and people both. By
the time I'd gotten home, they'd already buried her. Besides, why would
I want to look at her body?"
"She's dead?"
"Yes, she's dead!" the princess hissed. "Your Ongis killed her."
"How -- how do you know?" Kathryn asked.
"He did it with my brothers watching, didn't he? He marched into
the house where my mommy and daddy and brothers and Barberry all were.
He marched in just after my mommy finally got home after walking all
night. He marched in with a bunch of his men and ordered my family to
give me back. And when my mother smiled at him and said they didn't know
where I was but anywhere else was better than his keeping, he got mad
and killed her. And that made daddy mad and he picked up a kitchen knife
and Ongis and his men killed him."
"Oh, Kurin ... "
"So that left Cedric and Con, because Dorian wasn't there and
Widric and Barberry were both crying. They looked at each other and then
at Ongis, but they didn't move. Ongis glared at them and then at the
carnage in that kitchen. Then he left. So he didn't tell you about
that?"
"No."
"So when Dorian told me, I had to leave again right away. I didn't
even see any of the others and I didn't tell them where I'm going or
what I'm doing. Do you understand that? It's no good going there again.
They don't know anything."
"Yes, I understand that," Kathryn said. "So what are you going to
do?"
"I decided to come back here. It's your Ongis's fault and mine my
parents got killed, isn't it?"
Kathryn preferred to avoid any answer to that question. "But now
what are you going to do?" she asked.
"Well, the way I see it, I have to do something to your Ongis -- "
"I wish you'd stop calling him *my* Ongis," Kathryn exclaimed. She
tried to sit up, but was reminded how weak she still was. "He's Sir
Ongis, and you should refer to him that way."
"No."
"Well, what do you think you're going to do to Sir Ongis? Are you
going to murder him for killing your parents?"
"You *are* stupid, aren't you?"
"I prefer not to think so," Kathryn said. "What's stupid about it?"
"If I just kill him because he killed them, that would make me no
better than him. And I think he's bad. I don't want to do anything like
him. So I'm going to do something else."
"What?" Kathryn asked. Then her eyes widened. "Do you think you're
going to kill me?"
The princess sat back and folded her arms. "That's stupid too. You
were dying already and besides, that's still too much like your Ongis.
Nope. I've cured you -- "
"You cured me?" Kathryn laughed.
"Well, me and God together."
"You and -- " Kathryn was about to say "that useless, gutless,
rattling old voice", but one chooses very carefully the occasions to
blaspheme. Instead, she said "And how did you do that?"
"I prayed to God and told her that you had a lump in you that was
killing you. And that it needed to go away."
"Yes, and I also had Brother Cwynydd visiting me daily and praying
-- "
"To Kurin. I know. And also that leech. Memfis. Sucking out your
blood. That's stupid."
"How do you know they didn't cure me?"
"They've been visiting you more than a month, haven't they?" The
princess grinned. "You didn't get better until I started praying for
you. Now you're cured."
Lady Kathryn Fennic frowned. She had no intention of ever ascribing
her healing to Cephas Stevene; the Fennics had made that mistake before
and only the early death of Henri the idiot priest had finally repaired
that error. "All right," she said. "I'm cured. What do you expect to
gain from that? If you expect me to kill Sir Ongis for you -- "
"No," the faerie princess waved away the idea. "That's still too
much like him. No. You're his wife. You're the mommy for his children --
if he has any children."
"One. A boy. Also named Ongis."
"Huh. I don't like that much. Anyway, he murdered my mommy and
daddy and now you're all better because I prayed to God for you to get
better. I want you to stay with your Ongis -- "
"Sir Ongis!"
"and hate him for me."
"Hate him?" Kathryn asked.
"Uh huh. He's a bad man. I've told you that, haven't I? It'll be
easy. All I want you to do is stay close beside him, right next to him
-- " the faerie bent close to Kathryn's ear, " -- and hate him for the
rest of his life." Then she crept away from the sickbed, leaving Lady
Kathryn staring upward at the invisible ceiling.
She sighed. "I already did," she murmured.
========================================================================
