For as long as anybody can remember, my family has lived on this island, and few have ever thought of leaving. It's not a bad deal, actually. The island's soil is dark and rich, with a sharp tang on the tongue that makes experts say there's no better throughout the Republic. Crops just grow and grow here.
There's a forest in the higher regions, near the hills in the island's center. As a young girl, I remember days of freedom, after letting myself out of the children's wing. Once I passed the animal pens and grazing fields, I was free to wander among the massive trunks and insinuating vines. I smelt orchids on the bloom, conversed with the tiny howlers that hung from the branches, and one time I fell asleep in a small clearing and then woke up to find myself covered in butterflies, their tiny tongues flickering on the salt of my skin.
Then after I grew taller and my body betrayed me, they took me out of the children's wing and gave me the honor of my own room. I no longer got to see my cousins and half-brothers and -sisters. Instead, I became the youngest addition to a circle of listless adolescents, watched over by a wizened, shambling woman we called Matron. An off-islander, she was the one to provide us news of the outside world, and the eccentric citizens who lived there.
In a hushed voice, with the lines in her face belying the brightness of her eyes, she would lean out from her rocking chair and deliver fantastic stories in a lilting, slightly foreign accent. She would tell us of a great folly called the Republic, wherein the little people willingly chose their gaolers, their taskmasters, and their swindlers. We would wrap ourselves in our blankets and draw close to hear her odd little tales of how the Republic took its people's money, and the mad citizens grown so used to servitude that they no longer even questioned it. She told us of the wars from her childhood, which claimed her father and brother and saw her exiled to our island, working through the succession of three consecutive Masters. Wars of pride and vanity, which left the flower of the Republic's youth rotting on the battlefield or bloated in the Channel. Serves them right for their madness, was her conclusion - they should have found an island and lived as we do: self-reliant, she said. She always pronounced that with a special relish.
Our nights were our own, mostly to spend in rapt attention to Matron, whom we regarded as something of a relic. She knew what most of us could only guess at - even if, as some of us began to suspect, her knowledge was decades out of date - and her very age made her a thing of wonder.
My days revolved around dining halls and parlors, silence and ceremony. Occasionally, I might notice some of the other children from the wing, grown older now and strange to my eyes, working in the yard, or see them from my window working out in the fields - and always under supervision. If it occurred to me to question why we had been separated, I never did so consciously. I had other things on my mind: During this time, I got to meet the Master of the Island.
The Master was a florid, bulging-eyed man with lank hair, and a throttled look to his face. He strode throughout the mansion as though he bore a grudge against it, his considerable weight causing tables to tremble at his approach. And if conversation did not die at his arrival, he would kill it with his harsh bellow, somewhere between the thwarted challenge from a bull in the pen, and the calculating growl of a mastiff. To the inhabitants of the mansion, he was a force of nature - implacable as a distant thunderstorm, unpredictable as the roiling ocean waves.
The older women bent their heads to him and tilted at the knee. On my first meeting with him, I was presented with about half a dozen other young people to pay my respects. Matron and a few others had been clear about the order, but the boy beside me had flustered in the presence of the Master - all scowl and jowl, the heavy breathing that suggested a suppressed rage - and he had stepped forward with the wrong leg.
The Master paused in his pacing and, with a speed that was surprising, given his stoutness, delivered a kick so hard it echoed off the four walls. The suddenness of the blow struck us all. Tears of fear began to gather in my eyes, and I bit my lip as I stared furiously into the carpet. The boy convulsed on the floor in a paroxysm of agony.
"It's the right leg," muttered the Master.
I kept my eyes down, watching my shoes, trying to keep the boy out of my vision and never daring to meet the Master's eyes. But I stole a glance at his back, as his footsteps receded. I fancied I saw a strange swell to his shoulders as he left, as though his work was done.
Matron brought a doctor in to see to the boy's leg. We caught a glimpse of him, unshaven, rambling, and the boy walked with bindings for a few months.
As we grew, so did our understanding of our existence. The Island, Matron told us, was one of several that even the Republic was not so foolish as to claim. In manifest respect of our superiority, the Republic continued to send ships that brought leathers, cloth, wax for candles, and the like. We apparently gave them nothing except grants and pledges - paper devices! We laughed at the absurdity. That a person would give something in return for nothing, and then carry themselves highly on the bargain!
I learned that the ships occasionally brought a figure called The Tribune. He had a name, but Matron did not tell us, and we did not ask. We learned that our Tribune was our wisest Islander, through his talents immune to the insanity of the Republic, and whom we sent to inveigle and cheat the Republic on our behalf in much the same way as the Republic presumed it could cheat us. Apparently, he did a very good job. The ships stopped at the coastline and disgorged their goods, which we took and used, then turned around with nothing save papers - which they themselves provided. To spare the Island from the madness of the Republic, the ships observed a safe distance at all times, approaching only in smaller vessels with the goods.
Thus we preserved the fragile sanctity of the Island. Some of us thought of the ships with fear, not knowing what invisible crazed contagion they might bring. Others were indifferent - they were just the trifling evidence of the Republic, an outpost of humanity so far from the Island it was not worth bothering about.
* ~ * ~ *
The Islanders (Contest submission story) - Completed
The Islanders (Contest submission story) - Completed
Last edited by HuManBing on Fri Apr 20, 2007 8:39 pm, edited 5 times in total.
I lost count of the years that passed before I saw a ship, but I know I had met the Master on four occasions, each relatively without note. One time he had returned from a hunt, and his clothes stank of horse and animal blood. He was in a good mood that time and we were dismissed quickly. Another time, we accompanied him and other islanders on a walk through the plantations, and the people who worked there. If any of the young men and women there once lived in the children’s wing, I could no longer tell it from my memory of their faces.
One particular day, in the nondescript train of days that never changed on the Island, a retainer came to fetch me. I was needed, she said. That in itself surprised me greatly. I was never “needed”, only summoned. But swallowing my questions, I quickly dressed for the outdoors and followed her. We took a direct path past the plantations and down to the shore.
It was colder than I remembered, much more so than my easy rambles through the forest had been. The salt spray stung my eyes, and the broken rock shingling of the beach cut my feet through my slippers. A huddle of people bent to work, dragging crates and boxes and chests off a light vessel and rolling them over cut logs towards a waiting wagon.
The vessel itself, lolling and lilting on the waves, seemed airy and insubstantial, and I stared at it a good while. The barren waste of the sea stretched out in all directions. How had the tiny vessel come across such an expanse?
The men struggled with the largest chest, calling to each other in an unfamiliar tongue. Then I felt a stab of fear – these were the mad outsiders! My hand flew to my veil, binding it closer about my nose and mouth. Would I be infected with their insanity? I looked to my retainer, but she seemed unconcerned, gazing off into the distance. Then I saw something that made me drop my veil, and understand.
In the distance, I saw the ship. It was a massive affair, an island to itself in the ocean, with three great trees sprouting upwards and shooting forth leaves of white along straight narrow branches. I turned to the retainer to mention something, but at that moment a call from the beach drew me back.
A tall person with long black hair was walking towards us. As he drew closer I saw that he was a man, not a woman. His eyes were deeply set, and his nose was beaky among the gaunt angles of his face and body. After picking his way among the rocks, he drew up beside us. I had not seen him before, but he spoke Islander without an accent, and I knew I was safe – he was not a mad foreigner.
“You are needed for the main cargo,” he said. “The Republicans have sent us a gift, and their tradition is for a maiden to be the first to lay hands.”
He stretched out a pale hand. There was a strange, abstracted look in his eyes, and he kept darting glances back at the chest. His words made little sense to me. My confusion must have been plain.
“Come,” he said. “Sometimes it is best to humor them.”
The largest chest was not of the same intricacy as the others. It was sturdily built, with long slits on the sides. Bolts held strips of metal at the edges and corners. The men handled it with a special delicacy.
The tall man muttered to himself. I looked at him, with his distant eyes watching the crate and his lips moving quickly, urgently, forming quiet words that I could not catch.
A sudden crash came from the crate. For a moment, I thought the men had dropped it while moving it onto the roller logs, but then I watched awhile longer, and the crate shuddered again of its own accord.
I began to be afraid. There was something inside trying to get out. The men scrambled around it, tightening bands and checking ropes. Beside me, the tall stranger continued his whispered chant.
The Master of the Island arrived on horseback with others, dismounting where the grass gave way to shingle. I immediately stepped into a bow, but he brushed past me to the stranger, who broke off his chant at the other’s approach. They touched each other’s forehead in salute, and a brief conversation followed.
“This is the gift?” the Master asked.
The tall stranger nodded his head. The gesture made me notice how tall he was, indeed. Even dipping his head to the Master, the stranger still towered above him – and the Master was not a short man.
“We shall bring it to the game pens,” the Master said.
“We cannot. First we must open it here,” the other responded. “They must know it was received according to tradition.”
“It is a folly, as are all their traditions,” the Master said.
“True,” conceded the other. “But this gift is in your honor, Master. I worked hard to make them see your wisdom, in their ignorance. If you offend them, I must work harder still.”
Then I looked at the stranger with new eyes. He was the Tribune. The one islander who willingly left the shores, journeying to whoever knew where, to be amongst the madmen and to practice their madness as one of them. I stepped gently away from him, wondering if I had already become infected. That explained the foreign hair, I thought – yet he still spoke our tongue, sanely enough, it seemed.
But then again, he appeared to have no fear of the Master. Perhaps he was insane, after all.
The Master at this point seemed testy, but nodded his head and gave a gesture of dismissal.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us conclude this quickly.”
Any surprise I felt at the Master’s acquiescence disappeared with the immediacy of the cargo. The crate was finally on the logs, but now a furious commotion emerged from the inside. Jolts and bumps knocked the handlers as they fought to maneuver it into place.
The Tribune motioned with his hand and called out in the dialect first, then in Islander.
“That suffices. We will open it here.”
The Master strode away, back to his horses, and the riders gathered in a huddle directly behind me. The retainer was gone – retreated, I suspected, during the exchange between Master and Tribune. I stood, more or less alone, in front of the reinforced chest as the handlers began turning the mechanism to open it.
Although I was not quite alone. The Tribune, a thin beaky column of dark robes and locks swaying in the wind, retained his place by my side.
“Do not be afraid,” he said, with surprising gentleness. “The Republican word for ‘Obey’ is bromelisk.”
The door came down amid the clanking of measure-chains, and I swallowed and looked into the obscured opening. An animal reek issued from the foetid darkness, and – there was no mistaking it – a low, slithering growl.
My legs almost failed me, fortunately, or I would have turned and fled back up the shingling and back to the mansion. Beside me, the Tribune continued in his muttered prayer or recitation. Behind me, the Master and his horsemen watched, expectantly, almost impatiently.
I took a step closer, then stopped as the unmistakable sound of animal movement came. Three steps, a mixture of padding paw and scrabbling nail, and then emerged a head, then forelegs, then wings, and tail.
The Creature regarded me with cat’s eyes, its head nearly at the same level as my own, as a forked tongue darted. Bestial muscles rippled beneath the scales with each pace. The clawed forepaws clinked on the stones with a double cacophony – the scales and the claws each ringing.
A rancid, warm breeze washed over me as it respired. I could see pieces of rotting meat among its many fine teeth. Two wings towered up, catching the wind. Some tatters of membrane fluttered, and where the wings were damaged, a foul ichor flowed in dry rivulets.
It took a few more steps forward, and its head rose up on a sinuous neck, and it snapped once or twice with its great jaw. In my mind’s eye, I saw a tiny figure standing before a falling tree. I briefly wondered how quickly it could catch me, and how many bites it would take to break me in two.
I closed my eyes. Then, the Tribune’s words came back to me. I thought of the Master behind me, the madmen in front of me, and the Tribune chanting beside me.
One animal more couldn’t make things that much worse.
I opened my eyes, and breathed in. I reached out towards the head with a hand that did not tremble, and with a voice that did not waver, I spoke the command.
Bromelisk.
The Creature’s breathing continued awhile, its body still poised. It appeared to be calculating – perhaps wondering what to make of these people around it, the woman before it, and the ocean behind it.
Then, in a sudden motion, it pinned its wings back by its sides, and dipped its head, crouching down on its limbs. It was at that point that I realized how small it really was; hardly bigger than a horse.
The men at the shore began to cheer, and the Tribune stopped chanting. The Master brought his steed, clearly skittish, down to the beach, and accepted a carved silver rod from the Tribune.
They began to make short speeches. The retainer reappeared by my side, grass stains on her dress from when she had sat down to watch my ordeal. I neither spoke nor acknowledged her as she fussed around me.
The Tribune hailed us when we were a little way up the beach.
“You did well,” he said, smiling. “The outsiders respect us. The Master approves of you.”
I nodded dumbly. He noted my distress, then sighed and nodded.
“You may go home,” he said.
* ~ * ~ *
One particular day, in the nondescript train of days that never changed on the Island, a retainer came to fetch me. I was needed, she said. That in itself surprised me greatly. I was never “needed”, only summoned. But swallowing my questions, I quickly dressed for the outdoors and followed her. We took a direct path past the plantations and down to the shore.
It was colder than I remembered, much more so than my easy rambles through the forest had been. The salt spray stung my eyes, and the broken rock shingling of the beach cut my feet through my slippers. A huddle of people bent to work, dragging crates and boxes and chests off a light vessel and rolling them over cut logs towards a waiting wagon.
The vessel itself, lolling and lilting on the waves, seemed airy and insubstantial, and I stared at it a good while. The barren waste of the sea stretched out in all directions. How had the tiny vessel come across such an expanse?
The men struggled with the largest chest, calling to each other in an unfamiliar tongue. Then I felt a stab of fear – these were the mad outsiders! My hand flew to my veil, binding it closer about my nose and mouth. Would I be infected with their insanity? I looked to my retainer, but she seemed unconcerned, gazing off into the distance. Then I saw something that made me drop my veil, and understand.
In the distance, I saw the ship. It was a massive affair, an island to itself in the ocean, with three great trees sprouting upwards and shooting forth leaves of white along straight narrow branches. I turned to the retainer to mention something, but at that moment a call from the beach drew me back.
A tall person with long black hair was walking towards us. As he drew closer I saw that he was a man, not a woman. His eyes were deeply set, and his nose was beaky among the gaunt angles of his face and body. After picking his way among the rocks, he drew up beside us. I had not seen him before, but he spoke Islander without an accent, and I knew I was safe – he was not a mad foreigner.
“You are needed for the main cargo,” he said. “The Republicans have sent us a gift, and their tradition is for a maiden to be the first to lay hands.”
He stretched out a pale hand. There was a strange, abstracted look in his eyes, and he kept darting glances back at the chest. His words made little sense to me. My confusion must have been plain.
“Come,” he said. “Sometimes it is best to humor them.”
The largest chest was not of the same intricacy as the others. It was sturdily built, with long slits on the sides. Bolts held strips of metal at the edges and corners. The men handled it with a special delicacy.
The tall man muttered to himself. I looked at him, with his distant eyes watching the crate and his lips moving quickly, urgently, forming quiet words that I could not catch.
A sudden crash came from the crate. For a moment, I thought the men had dropped it while moving it onto the roller logs, but then I watched awhile longer, and the crate shuddered again of its own accord.
I began to be afraid. There was something inside trying to get out. The men scrambled around it, tightening bands and checking ropes. Beside me, the tall stranger continued his whispered chant.
The Master of the Island arrived on horseback with others, dismounting where the grass gave way to shingle. I immediately stepped into a bow, but he brushed past me to the stranger, who broke off his chant at the other’s approach. They touched each other’s forehead in salute, and a brief conversation followed.
“This is the gift?” the Master asked.
The tall stranger nodded his head. The gesture made me notice how tall he was, indeed. Even dipping his head to the Master, the stranger still towered above him – and the Master was not a short man.
“We shall bring it to the game pens,” the Master said.
“We cannot. First we must open it here,” the other responded. “They must know it was received according to tradition.”
“It is a folly, as are all their traditions,” the Master said.
“True,” conceded the other. “But this gift is in your honor, Master. I worked hard to make them see your wisdom, in their ignorance. If you offend them, I must work harder still.”
Then I looked at the stranger with new eyes. He was the Tribune. The one islander who willingly left the shores, journeying to whoever knew where, to be amongst the madmen and to practice their madness as one of them. I stepped gently away from him, wondering if I had already become infected. That explained the foreign hair, I thought – yet he still spoke our tongue, sanely enough, it seemed.
But then again, he appeared to have no fear of the Master. Perhaps he was insane, after all.
The Master at this point seemed testy, but nodded his head and gave a gesture of dismissal.
“Very well,” he said. “Let us conclude this quickly.”
Any surprise I felt at the Master’s acquiescence disappeared with the immediacy of the cargo. The crate was finally on the logs, but now a furious commotion emerged from the inside. Jolts and bumps knocked the handlers as they fought to maneuver it into place.
The Tribune motioned with his hand and called out in the dialect first, then in Islander.
“That suffices. We will open it here.”
The Master strode away, back to his horses, and the riders gathered in a huddle directly behind me. The retainer was gone – retreated, I suspected, during the exchange between Master and Tribune. I stood, more or less alone, in front of the reinforced chest as the handlers began turning the mechanism to open it.
Although I was not quite alone. The Tribune, a thin beaky column of dark robes and locks swaying in the wind, retained his place by my side.
“Do not be afraid,” he said, with surprising gentleness. “The Republican word for ‘Obey’ is bromelisk.”
The door came down amid the clanking of measure-chains, and I swallowed and looked into the obscured opening. An animal reek issued from the foetid darkness, and – there was no mistaking it – a low, slithering growl.
My legs almost failed me, fortunately, or I would have turned and fled back up the shingling and back to the mansion. Beside me, the Tribune continued in his muttered prayer or recitation. Behind me, the Master and his horsemen watched, expectantly, almost impatiently.
I took a step closer, then stopped as the unmistakable sound of animal movement came. Three steps, a mixture of padding paw and scrabbling nail, and then emerged a head, then forelegs, then wings, and tail.
The Creature regarded me with cat’s eyes, its head nearly at the same level as my own, as a forked tongue darted. Bestial muscles rippled beneath the scales with each pace. The clawed forepaws clinked on the stones with a double cacophony – the scales and the claws each ringing.
A rancid, warm breeze washed over me as it respired. I could see pieces of rotting meat among its many fine teeth. Two wings towered up, catching the wind. Some tatters of membrane fluttered, and where the wings were damaged, a foul ichor flowed in dry rivulets.
It took a few more steps forward, and its head rose up on a sinuous neck, and it snapped once or twice with its great jaw. In my mind’s eye, I saw a tiny figure standing before a falling tree. I briefly wondered how quickly it could catch me, and how many bites it would take to break me in two.
I closed my eyes. Then, the Tribune’s words came back to me. I thought of the Master behind me, the madmen in front of me, and the Tribune chanting beside me.
One animal more couldn’t make things that much worse.
I opened my eyes, and breathed in. I reached out towards the head with a hand that did not tremble, and with a voice that did not waver, I spoke the command.
Bromelisk.
The Creature’s breathing continued awhile, its body still poised. It appeared to be calculating – perhaps wondering what to make of these people around it, the woman before it, and the ocean behind it.
Then, in a sudden motion, it pinned its wings back by its sides, and dipped its head, crouching down on its limbs. It was at that point that I realized how small it really was; hardly bigger than a horse.
The men at the shore began to cheer, and the Tribune stopped chanting. The Master brought his steed, clearly skittish, down to the beach, and accepted a carved silver rod from the Tribune.
They began to make short speeches. The retainer reappeared by my side, grass stains on her dress from when she had sat down to watch my ordeal. I neither spoke nor acknowledged her as she fussed around me.
The Tribune hailed us when we were a little way up the beach.
“You did well,” he said, smiling. “The outsiders respect us. The Master approves of you.”
I nodded dumbly. He noted my distress, then sighed and nodded.
“You may go home,” he said.
* ~ * ~ *
Last edited by HuManBing on Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
After that, I saw more of the Master. They requested my presence at more dinners and readings. I grew to recognize the circle of his wives – closed-faced women who whispered among themselves and treated the servants with scarcely more humanity than the Master himself. I learned that sometimes the mad outsiders who showed less than usual mania were even invited to a guest house on the shore, safely sequestered from the main building, and there the Master occasionally held banquets to demonstrate the wealth of his land to the impoverished outsiders.
At one such banquet, perhaps half a year after my encounter on the beach, the Master had received a powerful beverage from the outsiders made of some type of devilish spirit. He became garrulous and familiar, as did the outsiders. The Tribune was there too, and drank of the same beverage, but his head remained clear. However, the Master called in the porters to bring his prized beast to the courtyard.
Within the hour, the Creature was before us again, fuming and straining against the chains. It had grown somewhat: fattened on the diet of swine and steer-meat. And the Master, recollecting events from not so long ago, bade that I rise and go to it.
This meeting lacked the tension of our first. Despite my fears, the Creature immediately seemed to recognize me. Its struggles quietened somewhat, though it still snapped and growled at the handlers. I walked up to it and placed my hand on its head as I had done before, and it suffered me to do so.
The table erupted into celebration at this. The beverage flowed in cups and the foreigners began singing. In the corner of my eye, I noticed only that the Tribune was distracted, reciting his chant soundlessly.
As the party progressed, and I regained my seat at the far end of the table, the Master and his cronies took it in turn to go up to the Creature and touch its fearsome muzzle. After a while of this, the Creature grew angry and began to feign a bite, and then finally it no longer feigned it. Three men bore away the injured servant while another seven tried to hold down the Creature long enough to prise open its maw to recover the servant’s arm. The Master, throughout, hooted and guffawed at the Creature’s struggles.
Finally, he approached with the silver sceptre that the Tribune had given him, and, repeating the Republican word for “obey”, he pressed it again and again into the skin of the Creature. Each contact burned the Creature with an acrid smoke, and sibilant reptilian yowls of pain and rage carried far in the night air. The Master did not stop until the Creature laid its head on the flagstones, with his boot upon its brow.
The upshot of this was the Master ordered that very evening that I be moved out from the youths’ wing and into the central wing. My bedroom would be above the Creature’s quarters in the central courtyard, and I was to be its keeper.
* ~ * ~ *
The new accommodations were spacious and much more comfortable than my old. However, I paid for it in lost company. Matron was no longer there to tell us of the crazed outside world of her youth. My fellow young people no longer saw me. Instead, I found for my neighbors that I had the Master’s wives instead, and they made it very clear from the start that they could not stand my presence.
This would have upset me, had it not been for a more important development. As the Creature’s keeper, I had the right (in fact, the duty) to take it outside on walks around the Island. This meant I could revisit the forest of my childhood.
The Creature resented any disturbance and proved cantankerous. But its murderous rage seemed to be quelled around me. At least we shared a desire to explore the island together.
The Tribune had delivered to me a silver sceptre too, in case I needed it to control the Creature. But the first time the Creature saw me carry it in my hands, its eyes flashed with ire and its entire body bespoke an attitude of betrayal, and I left it in the folds of my robes instead.
Untold months or maybe years of being chained in cramped quarters had rendered the Creature’s wings useless for flight, though it still raised them skywards when threatened. There had been rumors that it understood the speech of humans, and I grew used to speaking to it as though to a friend – but I doubt it understood. Even so, it had come from the Republic, and I couldn’t understand their babble any more than they could understand my civil tongue.
I had to take the Creature out from the sunward gate, otherwise its presence terrified the herds. There, we would take a meandering, circular path across the rocky outcrops, then across the hills, and sometimes the forest. The Creature preferred open spaces, but it deigned to slither in amongst the tree boles after me on the days that I went.
One time, though, we came across a wild pig. These had descended from a few of our swine that had escaped by digging out under the fenced pens, and though they were few in numbers, we still saw them on occasion. The Creature, deaf to my entreaties and unmindful of the leash tied around my wrist, loped off in easy pursuit.
Looking back, it wasn’t truly the Creature’s fault, I suppose. If anything, I should blame the pig for the path we took. It probably knew in some corner of its cunning mind, which path would admit its own entry and exclude the massive predator behind it. But the Creature was nothing if not tenacious. First, the pig took refuge in a tree bole, and the Creature perched beside it and began tearing notches into the trunk to fell it. Once I had regained my feet, the pig shot out like an arrow and carried down the hillside, plunging through bracken, brush, and brambles in an attempt to lose its pursuer.
The Creature crashed through vegetation like so much dry kindling, uncaring about the welfare of its unwilling attendant dragging along after it. I stopped screaming after I realized I would only end up with twigs in my mouth.
Grunting with pain, I finally hauled myself level when the Creature stood sniffing around the foot of a rocky gorge, waiting by a cave mouth where the pig had run. I drew the sceptre from my robes and vented my anger, the command word spurting from my lips as though the foreign syllables carried the vulgarest profanities.
Bromelisk!
The Creature howled and spun around, its eyes wild and teeth bared, tail raised and wings akimbo. I stood, facing it, angry and stinging from the rigors of the chase, my own teeth bared in a snarl that probably matched its own. Then I realized it really could break me in two with its jaws. I lowered the sceptre.
Its eyes changed somewhat when it saw me, panting and bleeding, before it. Its wings slowly deflated, and it moved its head closer to my face. Its tongue flickered out from between its fearsome fangs, stroking the cuts on my cheeks and brow.
I sat down on a rock, wincing from a skinned knee, and reluctant to put any weight on my ankle. The Creature stood above me, pensive in the gloaming, as I caught my breath.
* ~ * ~ *
At one such banquet, perhaps half a year after my encounter on the beach, the Master had received a powerful beverage from the outsiders made of some type of devilish spirit. He became garrulous and familiar, as did the outsiders. The Tribune was there too, and drank of the same beverage, but his head remained clear. However, the Master called in the porters to bring his prized beast to the courtyard.
Within the hour, the Creature was before us again, fuming and straining against the chains. It had grown somewhat: fattened on the diet of swine and steer-meat. And the Master, recollecting events from not so long ago, bade that I rise and go to it.
This meeting lacked the tension of our first. Despite my fears, the Creature immediately seemed to recognize me. Its struggles quietened somewhat, though it still snapped and growled at the handlers. I walked up to it and placed my hand on its head as I had done before, and it suffered me to do so.
The table erupted into celebration at this. The beverage flowed in cups and the foreigners began singing. In the corner of my eye, I noticed only that the Tribune was distracted, reciting his chant soundlessly.
As the party progressed, and I regained my seat at the far end of the table, the Master and his cronies took it in turn to go up to the Creature and touch its fearsome muzzle. After a while of this, the Creature grew angry and began to feign a bite, and then finally it no longer feigned it. Three men bore away the injured servant while another seven tried to hold down the Creature long enough to prise open its maw to recover the servant’s arm. The Master, throughout, hooted and guffawed at the Creature’s struggles.
Finally, he approached with the silver sceptre that the Tribune had given him, and, repeating the Republican word for “obey”, he pressed it again and again into the skin of the Creature. Each contact burned the Creature with an acrid smoke, and sibilant reptilian yowls of pain and rage carried far in the night air. The Master did not stop until the Creature laid its head on the flagstones, with his boot upon its brow.
The upshot of this was the Master ordered that very evening that I be moved out from the youths’ wing and into the central wing. My bedroom would be above the Creature’s quarters in the central courtyard, and I was to be its keeper.
* ~ * ~ *
The new accommodations were spacious and much more comfortable than my old. However, I paid for it in lost company. Matron was no longer there to tell us of the crazed outside world of her youth. My fellow young people no longer saw me. Instead, I found for my neighbors that I had the Master’s wives instead, and they made it very clear from the start that they could not stand my presence.
This would have upset me, had it not been for a more important development. As the Creature’s keeper, I had the right (in fact, the duty) to take it outside on walks around the Island. This meant I could revisit the forest of my childhood.
The Creature resented any disturbance and proved cantankerous. But its murderous rage seemed to be quelled around me. At least we shared a desire to explore the island together.
The Tribune had delivered to me a silver sceptre too, in case I needed it to control the Creature. But the first time the Creature saw me carry it in my hands, its eyes flashed with ire and its entire body bespoke an attitude of betrayal, and I left it in the folds of my robes instead.
Untold months or maybe years of being chained in cramped quarters had rendered the Creature’s wings useless for flight, though it still raised them skywards when threatened. There had been rumors that it understood the speech of humans, and I grew used to speaking to it as though to a friend – but I doubt it understood. Even so, it had come from the Republic, and I couldn’t understand their babble any more than they could understand my civil tongue.
I had to take the Creature out from the sunward gate, otherwise its presence terrified the herds. There, we would take a meandering, circular path across the rocky outcrops, then across the hills, and sometimes the forest. The Creature preferred open spaces, but it deigned to slither in amongst the tree boles after me on the days that I went.
One time, though, we came across a wild pig. These had descended from a few of our swine that had escaped by digging out under the fenced pens, and though they were few in numbers, we still saw them on occasion. The Creature, deaf to my entreaties and unmindful of the leash tied around my wrist, loped off in easy pursuit.
Looking back, it wasn’t truly the Creature’s fault, I suppose. If anything, I should blame the pig for the path we took. It probably knew in some corner of its cunning mind, which path would admit its own entry and exclude the massive predator behind it. But the Creature was nothing if not tenacious. First, the pig took refuge in a tree bole, and the Creature perched beside it and began tearing notches into the trunk to fell it. Once I had regained my feet, the pig shot out like an arrow and carried down the hillside, plunging through bracken, brush, and brambles in an attempt to lose its pursuer.
The Creature crashed through vegetation like so much dry kindling, uncaring about the welfare of its unwilling attendant dragging along after it. I stopped screaming after I realized I would only end up with twigs in my mouth.
Grunting with pain, I finally hauled myself level when the Creature stood sniffing around the foot of a rocky gorge, waiting by a cave mouth where the pig had run. I drew the sceptre from my robes and vented my anger, the command word spurting from my lips as though the foreign syllables carried the vulgarest profanities.
Bromelisk!
The Creature howled and spun around, its eyes wild and teeth bared, tail raised and wings akimbo. I stood, facing it, angry and stinging from the rigors of the chase, my own teeth bared in a snarl that probably matched its own. Then I realized it really could break me in two with its jaws. I lowered the sceptre.
Its eyes changed somewhat when it saw me, panting and bleeding, before it. Its wings slowly deflated, and it moved its head closer to my face. Its tongue flickered out from between its fearsome fangs, stroking the cuts on my cheeks and brow.
I sat down on a rock, wincing from a skinned knee, and reluctant to put any weight on my ankle. The Creature stood above me, pensive in the gloaming, as I caught my breath.
* ~ * ~ *
Last edited by HuManBing on Sun Apr 15, 2007 11:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I came back in a mess. In addition to a sprained ankle, I had skinned both shins, both knees, and a portion of my forehead when my face hit the ground. Blood caked in my hair, turning it dark brown in patches as I tried in vain to wash it out. My right wrist, the one with the main loop of the leash, turned black and purple, and I bound my left elbow where it took the brunt of my fall down the hillside.
Fortunately, I returned late at night with the Creature, so the wives did not see me in my state. Not that I minded, personally, but I was sure they would have been scandalized. The thought of them thinking they had the right to look down on me – or even worse, to pity me – filled me with the tedious fatigue of a well-worn argument.
This excused me from various formal functions, however, and I got the bathing cistern to myself during the day. The first time I lowered myself into the herbal waters, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. But by degrees the infusions numbed my wounds and I came to enjoy lying there, perfectly still except for the ripples of my breath.
It was a few days before I was well enough to see the Creature. It whined and nuzzled me, as though aware of the pain it had put me through. I smiled and brought it some treats from the slaughterhouse, which it gulped down. Remembering the legends, I spoke to it, explaining the time it would take for me to get better, but promising to take it on a walk as soon as I was able.
As my strength returned, my formal functions did not. Doubtless, the wives were busily persuading the powers-that-were, to keep this wild young one from despoiling the dining hall with her presence again. I paid them no heed: I enjoyed the daytime baths and the prospect of walking over the island, free from cares, with the Creature.
One time, shortly before I resumed my walks, the Master returned to the courtyard on horseback, and saw me as I walked from the Creature’s stall. I tilted my head to him briefly, then, a few steps later, I suddenly remembered myself. Horrified, I turned to him again and bowed after the proper fashion.
To my surprise, he laughed.
“What is this?” he said. “I receive a bow from the mighty Dragon-tamer?” He looked at me a long while, then nodded. “Rise and be on your way, then.”
I withdrew to the wing and rose to my room. As I looked out the window, he was still there, looking up at me, as the Creature snored below my window in its sleep.
* ~ * ~ *
One night, something was wrong. The windows were open. It was cold. I sweated and the sheets were damp beneath me. Somebody was in my bedroom.
Curious, I rolled over and sat up. I saw, without surprise, the bony figure of the Tribune standing before me, one finger before his lips. He held the other hand aloft, and his fingers glowed with a gentle light.
Now this was most interesting, I thought. My dreams normally weren’t this detailed.
“It is not safe for you here,” the Tribune said, in an urgent voice. “Soon I leave for the Republic. Will you come with me?”
Laughter would have been rude, so I merely smiled and shook my head. I did not relish the company of madmen and lunatics.
“The Republic is not so bad as the Master says,” he responded. “You would be safe.”
I thought about how to respond to this crackpot advice. At length, I decided I would have to take my Creature along with me. And we would need a forest too, preferably one without pigs.
“You test my patience,” the Tribune said. “I leave you now.”
And he did, as mysteriously as he came.
* ~ * ~ *
The Creature, by the second year, was considerably larger than when I first met him. He could engulf entire lambs in his massive maw, and though he still needed to crunch and splinter their bodies, he absorbed them in their entireties in just a few gulps afterwards. The servants who raked out his cage while we took our walks started to complain about the amount of droppings left behind – hard and chalky-white, and useless, they said, for mulching the fields.
I stopped wearing the leash after the pig incident, but at this point I stopped carrying the sceptre too. It was a given axiom that anything the Creature wanted to do, he would, and the best I could do was to try to talk him out of it. I returned it to the Tribune’s shoreside residence, and his servants there said he would accept it when he next returned to the island.
The first time the Creature took to the sea, it threw me into a rare panic. What if he didn’t return or what if he drowned? What if, worse still, he swam all the way back to the Republic? How would he survive? Fortunately, after about an hour of nail-biting on the shore, I saw him turn back and return, cutting through the water like a serpent through grass. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized I should have been fearful of my own safety, and the likely punishments I would receive if the Creature had vanished. When I scolded him for his daring, he stood right above me and shook his body from snout to tail, drenching me in saltwater.
Time passed. Children were born into the family. The Elders and the Master divided them into servants and nobles. Ships arrived from the Republic, bearing more and more gifts of ever-increasing intricacy, evidently devised by the lunatic Republic citizens in their deepening madness. The Master’s head grew bald. The number of his wives increased.
Once, on a walk, I caught sight of a familiar figure, making his way along the rocky hills like the gangly-legged crabs that frequent the rockpools. It was the Tribune, walking with the aid of a staff.
“Well met,” he said, by way of greeting. And then he passed his hand over my forehead, in the gesture of respectful salute more commonly seen between men.
“You seem surprised,” he said. “Is it so unusual to greet a female in such a way? But well-earned: you are not so common a female yourself.” He gestured upwards, where the Creature swivelled his mighty head this way and that, distracted by something unknowable on the wind.
“Matters are afoot in the Republic,” he said, without preamble. “There is talk of rebellion and freedom, or subversion and treachery. Nobody knows what to believe, or whom to trust.” He worked at the haft of the staff pensively, his longer spiderish fingers pale against the dark lacquered oak. “These are times when a newcomer, perhaps one from the Islands, might find great opportunity. And his family, too.”
This last remark was clearly directed at me. I fumbled for an answer about crazy people.
“There is no need to make a decision now,” he said. “Think about it. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It stands to reason that in the land of the mad, the clear-eyed man is senator.”
I did not know what to make of this, so I said nothing. The Creature flapped beside me, then turned and set off at a brisk pace down towards the fruit groves.
The Tribune saw him leave, and seemed about to say something. Then, thinking better of it, he turned away and stood, staring at the distant ocean. I followed the Creature’s loping gait down the hillside.
* ~ * ~ *
Fortunately, I returned late at night with the Creature, so the wives did not see me in my state. Not that I minded, personally, but I was sure they would have been scandalized. The thought of them thinking they had the right to look down on me – or even worse, to pity me – filled me with the tedious fatigue of a well-worn argument.
This excused me from various formal functions, however, and I got the bathing cistern to myself during the day. The first time I lowered myself into the herbal waters, I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. But by degrees the infusions numbed my wounds and I came to enjoy lying there, perfectly still except for the ripples of my breath.
It was a few days before I was well enough to see the Creature. It whined and nuzzled me, as though aware of the pain it had put me through. I smiled and brought it some treats from the slaughterhouse, which it gulped down. Remembering the legends, I spoke to it, explaining the time it would take for me to get better, but promising to take it on a walk as soon as I was able.
As my strength returned, my formal functions did not. Doubtless, the wives were busily persuading the powers-that-were, to keep this wild young one from despoiling the dining hall with her presence again. I paid them no heed: I enjoyed the daytime baths and the prospect of walking over the island, free from cares, with the Creature.
One time, shortly before I resumed my walks, the Master returned to the courtyard on horseback, and saw me as I walked from the Creature’s stall. I tilted my head to him briefly, then, a few steps later, I suddenly remembered myself. Horrified, I turned to him again and bowed after the proper fashion.
To my surprise, he laughed.
“What is this?” he said. “I receive a bow from the mighty Dragon-tamer?” He looked at me a long while, then nodded. “Rise and be on your way, then.”
I withdrew to the wing and rose to my room. As I looked out the window, he was still there, looking up at me, as the Creature snored below my window in its sleep.
* ~ * ~ *
One night, something was wrong. The windows were open. It was cold. I sweated and the sheets were damp beneath me. Somebody was in my bedroom.
Curious, I rolled over and sat up. I saw, without surprise, the bony figure of the Tribune standing before me, one finger before his lips. He held the other hand aloft, and his fingers glowed with a gentle light.
Now this was most interesting, I thought. My dreams normally weren’t this detailed.
“It is not safe for you here,” the Tribune said, in an urgent voice. “Soon I leave for the Republic. Will you come with me?”
Laughter would have been rude, so I merely smiled and shook my head. I did not relish the company of madmen and lunatics.
“The Republic is not so bad as the Master says,” he responded. “You would be safe.”
I thought about how to respond to this crackpot advice. At length, I decided I would have to take my Creature along with me. And we would need a forest too, preferably one without pigs.
“You test my patience,” the Tribune said. “I leave you now.”
And he did, as mysteriously as he came.
* ~ * ~ *
The Creature, by the second year, was considerably larger than when I first met him. He could engulf entire lambs in his massive maw, and though he still needed to crunch and splinter their bodies, he absorbed them in their entireties in just a few gulps afterwards. The servants who raked out his cage while we took our walks started to complain about the amount of droppings left behind – hard and chalky-white, and useless, they said, for mulching the fields.
I stopped wearing the leash after the pig incident, but at this point I stopped carrying the sceptre too. It was a given axiom that anything the Creature wanted to do, he would, and the best I could do was to try to talk him out of it. I returned it to the Tribune’s shoreside residence, and his servants there said he would accept it when he next returned to the island.
The first time the Creature took to the sea, it threw me into a rare panic. What if he didn’t return or what if he drowned? What if, worse still, he swam all the way back to the Republic? How would he survive? Fortunately, after about an hour of nail-biting on the shore, I saw him turn back and return, cutting through the water like a serpent through grass. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized I should have been fearful of my own safety, and the likely punishments I would receive if the Creature had vanished. When I scolded him for his daring, he stood right above me and shook his body from snout to tail, drenching me in saltwater.
Time passed. Children were born into the family. The Elders and the Master divided them into servants and nobles. Ships arrived from the Republic, bearing more and more gifts of ever-increasing intricacy, evidently devised by the lunatic Republic citizens in their deepening madness. The Master’s head grew bald. The number of his wives increased.
Once, on a walk, I caught sight of a familiar figure, making his way along the rocky hills like the gangly-legged crabs that frequent the rockpools. It was the Tribune, walking with the aid of a staff.
“Well met,” he said, by way of greeting. And then he passed his hand over my forehead, in the gesture of respectful salute more commonly seen between men.
“You seem surprised,” he said. “Is it so unusual to greet a female in such a way? But well-earned: you are not so common a female yourself.” He gestured upwards, where the Creature swivelled his mighty head this way and that, distracted by something unknowable on the wind.
“Matters are afoot in the Republic,” he said, without preamble. “There is talk of rebellion and freedom, or subversion and treachery. Nobody knows what to believe, or whom to trust.” He worked at the haft of the staff pensively, his longer spiderish fingers pale against the dark lacquered oak. “These are times when a newcomer, perhaps one from the Islands, might find great opportunity. And his family, too.”
This last remark was clearly directed at me. I fumbled for an answer about crazy people.
“There is no need to make a decision now,” he said. “Think about it. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. It stands to reason that in the land of the mad, the clear-eyed man is senator.”
I did not know what to make of this, so I said nothing. The Creature flapped beside me, then turned and set off at a brisk pace down towards the fruit groves.
The Tribune saw him leave, and seemed about to say something. Then, thinking better of it, he turned away and stood, staring at the distant ocean. I followed the Creature’s loping gait down the hillside.
* ~ * ~ *
Last edited by HuManBing on Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Master saw me leaving the Creature’s stall. I could tell from his slouch in the saddle that he had been drinking, and that the foreigners had joined him in baiting some game animal, as was their usual custom now after the incident with the Creature.
The way he looked at me frightened me, and I pretended I didn’t see him. Instead, I made my way upstairs as quickly as I could.
He followed.
I abandoned all hopes of a bath, heading straight for my room instead. I shut the door behind me – a futile gesture, there being no lock to secure it.
He came inside, swaying slightly as he looked at me.
“You’re almost a woman now,” he said. The stale wineskin breath made me gag.
In two long strides he had followed me to the window, where I tried to call for help. A broad palm mashed my nose and lips as he drew me back, kicking and fighting, to the bed. I scraped my shoe along his shin, I trampled his toes with my heel – anything to make him let me go. But the wine was too strong; he felt nothing. Finally, with my arms pinned between our bodies and his hand still firm on my mouth, I sat down hard on the floor, trying to turn into dead weight in his arms.
That bought me a few moments when his hands were about my arm and waist, trying to haul me up, and then I screamed for help as I had never screamed before.
Then he put some distance between us, and for a wild moment I thought he was going to let me go. Instead, he kicked me in the abdomen, with a force that astonished us both. The walls went grey and distant for a while. When I came back to my senses, it was apparent that nothing I could do would make any difference.
* ~ * ~ *
When he was finished, I lay for a long time where he left me, with my swelling eye and bruised cheek against the cold surface of the dressing table. The pain came in stages, first a faint nuisance, then an overwhelming distraction, and then crippling, all-consuming in its scope. I tried to walk and teetered with nausea. By some divine luck I landed on the bed when I fell.
Lying in bed helped me think clearly. Nobody had come to help me, even after I’d screamed. I realized I had to get out. As I made my way in agonized steps along the corridor, I prayed that the wives wouldn’t hear me. More than once I had to lean against the wall as nausea overcame me. I understood, now, why they had resented me from the start. I realized why some of them looked like they’d been in a sudden accident. Only, there was nothing sudden about it. The Master had done that to them, through the years.
I first headed towards the youths’ wing, thinking in my delirium that Matron might help me. But I remembered the other staff who worked there, and I knew that they also lived under the Master’s judgment.
That left only one person for me to go to. Wearily, I gathered my torn cloak about my shoulders, and turned my burning paces towards the Tribune’s residence, far from the pens and plantations.
* ~ * ~ *
The Tribune was a man of many secrets, it turned out. In happier circumstances, I might have been awed and dumbstruck by his room. Vessels, containers, strange gadgets of foreign madness occupied every available surface in his dwelling. When I stumbled into his sanctum, it was to find him hunched over various tomes on a table, while circles etched in crazed runes glowed on the flagstones.
Impossibly, his staff was floating in midair, as motionless as though it were lying on the ground.
He broke off his chanting and looked at me. His gimlet eyes took in the bruises on my face, the bloodtrails on my skin, and the tightness of my mouth. With a motion of his fingers, the books closed and his staff floated back gently into his grasp.
“Have a seat,” he said. I noticed a chair by my side. I leaned on it but did not sit down – it was easier for me to just stand.
“I wondered when he’d start on you,” he said simply. For some reason, this enraged me. He just wondered when? How long had he stood by and watched?
He took my curses and imprecations impassively.
“Tales of his misrule are infamous, even beyond the Islands, you know,” he said, in a conversational tone. “The Senate regards him as something of a joke – they like to keep him around. It makes their own shortcomings seem so much lesser by comparison.”
He paused.
“Are you… sure you don’t want to sit down?” he asked, gently.
“Very well. As I was saying, troubling times are underway. The mainland is already rioting in many cities and martial law seems a distinct possibility. We might have avoided this if only we’d been more visionary,” he said. He sat down, passing a hand across his forehead with a weary gesture.
“Now, I suppose, I’ll have to start from here,” he said, in a voice that settled it.
I waited, sensing there was more. When there wasn’t, I began to tell him what I wanted, in great detail and in a hushed voice. I could hear my voice growing more strained and bitter as I spoke, and I was tripping over my own words in their venom. He listened to me, never interrupting as I spoke, and when I was done he nodded his head once.
“I will help you do as you ask,” he said. “Open your robe and approach the dais.”
The carved tip of the staff drew blood as he buried it over my breast, but this time I did not scream.
* ~ * ~ *
The Tribune’s body lay crumpled on the dais, like a discarded doll dropped by a child. His mouth hung slightly agape, with his breath coming in shallow draughts, and his eyes were white slits beneath the partially-open lids. The pupils moved slightly, as though in a dream.
I puttered around his laboratory, finding that knowledge and recognition of his possessions leapt unbidden to my mind.
There was a weight in my chest, and it had nothing to do with my mood. Where the Tribune’s staff had cut me, a deep red gem sat in the shape of a crescent. Though hard as any crystal, I could see fluid ebbs and flows in its depths. It pulsed, like a living thing, above my heart. This, too, I comprehended without fear or surprise.
I put on a new robe and brought a few things with me.
It was still dark outside, and the walk back to the house would take me time enough as it was, but I could feel the glowering clouds above the island. A thunderstorm was coming. I decided to take a roundabout route.
There was something more… I climbed to the top of the promontory by the Tribune’s residence, and looked out to sea. I understood now the walks he had taken, keeping an eye on the strange ships that hovered leagues distant, signalling to them through his strange Art. Now, though, they hovered much closer, perhaps to avoid the distant bank of fog rolling outwards from the mainland.
On my way back, the thunder broke. I welcomed the first few drops of fresh dampness as the skies gingerly parted, then positively rejoiced when the deluge came splashing down in curtains upon the island. The storm in me finally broke, dancing across the land faster than I could follow, coaxing me away from the path in the trodden fields. I danced in the storm’s many footsteps, singing the fierce song that broke and bubbled over my heart, matching rhythm to the heavenly onslaught of thunder, and the tears that coursed down my face. The sky sang its terrible, terrific song to my ears and I laughed and cried and followed blindly, dancing until the fury above and below was spent, finally stopping from sheer exultation after the sky collapsed and spun and I could dance no more.
* ~ * ~ *
The way he looked at me frightened me, and I pretended I didn’t see him. Instead, I made my way upstairs as quickly as I could.
He followed.
I abandoned all hopes of a bath, heading straight for my room instead. I shut the door behind me – a futile gesture, there being no lock to secure it.
He came inside, swaying slightly as he looked at me.
“You’re almost a woman now,” he said. The stale wineskin breath made me gag.
In two long strides he had followed me to the window, where I tried to call for help. A broad palm mashed my nose and lips as he drew me back, kicking and fighting, to the bed. I scraped my shoe along his shin, I trampled his toes with my heel – anything to make him let me go. But the wine was too strong; he felt nothing. Finally, with my arms pinned between our bodies and his hand still firm on my mouth, I sat down hard on the floor, trying to turn into dead weight in his arms.
That bought me a few moments when his hands were about my arm and waist, trying to haul me up, and then I screamed for help as I had never screamed before.
Then he put some distance between us, and for a wild moment I thought he was going to let me go. Instead, he kicked me in the abdomen, with a force that astonished us both. The walls went grey and distant for a while. When I came back to my senses, it was apparent that nothing I could do would make any difference.
* ~ * ~ *
When he was finished, I lay for a long time where he left me, with my swelling eye and bruised cheek against the cold surface of the dressing table. The pain came in stages, first a faint nuisance, then an overwhelming distraction, and then crippling, all-consuming in its scope. I tried to walk and teetered with nausea. By some divine luck I landed on the bed when I fell.
Lying in bed helped me think clearly. Nobody had come to help me, even after I’d screamed. I realized I had to get out. As I made my way in agonized steps along the corridor, I prayed that the wives wouldn’t hear me. More than once I had to lean against the wall as nausea overcame me. I understood, now, why they had resented me from the start. I realized why some of them looked like they’d been in a sudden accident. Only, there was nothing sudden about it. The Master had done that to them, through the years.
I first headed towards the youths’ wing, thinking in my delirium that Matron might help me. But I remembered the other staff who worked there, and I knew that they also lived under the Master’s judgment.
That left only one person for me to go to. Wearily, I gathered my torn cloak about my shoulders, and turned my burning paces towards the Tribune’s residence, far from the pens and plantations.
* ~ * ~ *
The Tribune was a man of many secrets, it turned out. In happier circumstances, I might have been awed and dumbstruck by his room. Vessels, containers, strange gadgets of foreign madness occupied every available surface in his dwelling. When I stumbled into his sanctum, it was to find him hunched over various tomes on a table, while circles etched in crazed runes glowed on the flagstones.
Impossibly, his staff was floating in midair, as motionless as though it were lying on the ground.
He broke off his chanting and looked at me. His gimlet eyes took in the bruises on my face, the bloodtrails on my skin, and the tightness of my mouth. With a motion of his fingers, the books closed and his staff floated back gently into his grasp.
“Have a seat,” he said. I noticed a chair by my side. I leaned on it but did not sit down – it was easier for me to just stand.
“I wondered when he’d start on you,” he said simply. For some reason, this enraged me. He just wondered when? How long had he stood by and watched?
He took my curses and imprecations impassively.
“Tales of his misrule are infamous, even beyond the Islands, you know,” he said, in a conversational tone. “The Senate regards him as something of a joke – they like to keep him around. It makes their own shortcomings seem so much lesser by comparison.”
He paused.
“Are you… sure you don’t want to sit down?” he asked, gently.
“Very well. As I was saying, troubling times are underway. The mainland is already rioting in many cities and martial law seems a distinct possibility. We might have avoided this if only we’d been more visionary,” he said. He sat down, passing a hand across his forehead with a weary gesture.
“Now, I suppose, I’ll have to start from here,” he said, in a voice that settled it.
I waited, sensing there was more. When there wasn’t, I began to tell him what I wanted, in great detail and in a hushed voice. I could hear my voice growing more strained and bitter as I spoke, and I was tripping over my own words in their venom. He listened to me, never interrupting as I spoke, and when I was done he nodded his head once.
“I will help you do as you ask,” he said. “Open your robe and approach the dais.”
The carved tip of the staff drew blood as he buried it over my breast, but this time I did not scream.
* ~ * ~ *
The Tribune’s body lay crumpled on the dais, like a discarded doll dropped by a child. His mouth hung slightly agape, with his breath coming in shallow draughts, and his eyes were white slits beneath the partially-open lids. The pupils moved slightly, as though in a dream.
I puttered around his laboratory, finding that knowledge and recognition of his possessions leapt unbidden to my mind.
There was a weight in my chest, and it had nothing to do with my mood. Where the Tribune’s staff had cut me, a deep red gem sat in the shape of a crescent. Though hard as any crystal, I could see fluid ebbs and flows in its depths. It pulsed, like a living thing, above my heart. This, too, I comprehended without fear or surprise.
I put on a new robe and brought a few things with me.
It was still dark outside, and the walk back to the house would take me time enough as it was, but I could feel the glowering clouds above the island. A thunderstorm was coming. I decided to take a roundabout route.
There was something more… I climbed to the top of the promontory by the Tribune’s residence, and looked out to sea. I understood now the walks he had taken, keeping an eye on the strange ships that hovered leagues distant, signalling to them through his strange Art. Now, though, they hovered much closer, perhaps to avoid the distant bank of fog rolling outwards from the mainland.
On my way back, the thunder broke. I welcomed the first few drops of fresh dampness as the skies gingerly parted, then positively rejoiced when the deluge came splashing down in curtains upon the island. The storm in me finally broke, dancing across the land faster than I could follow, coaxing me away from the path in the trodden fields. I danced in the storm’s many footsteps, singing the fierce song that broke and bubbled over my heart, matching rhythm to the heavenly onslaught of thunder, and the tears that coursed down my face. The sky sang its terrible, terrific song to my ears and I laughed and cried and followed blindly, dancing until the fury above and below was spent, finally stopping from sheer exultation after the sky collapsed and spun and I could dance no more.
* ~ * ~ *
Last edited by HuManBing on Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
The Tribune had a task for me – I had brought several ingredients from his residence, and the plan required me to mix them into the well water along with a signficant volume of my own blood. This I accomplished shortly before dawn, then returned to my chamber.
Throughout the day, as I waited in my bedroom, the servants would be carrying water from the cisterns, and it only be near the end of the day that they would draw water from the well to refill them. These would go into decanters, jugs, and pitchers, as well as baths and laundries, and nobody would notice anything unusual until the following day, when it would be too late.
Occasionally, servants inquired through the door, but I turned them away. I kept my vigil by the window. The Creature, testy at not being fed or walked, was in a foul mood, and I could hear him calling to me. Passersby, including the wives, gave the Creature’s special pen a wide berth.
Dinner came and went. At one point, servants called to me from the courtyard, requesting my presence at the meal by order of the Master himself. When I gave no response, they left and did not return.
Presently, the Master came to the courtyard. I stood at the window with my robe open. His features, originally contorted with rage, visibly transformed as he saw me and other emotions took over.
Within me, the Tribune spoke a warning.
Careful, now…
I pretended to suddenly notice the Master. I turned my head ever so slightly to one side and glanced at him sidelong from the corner of my eye. That was all he needed.
His tread was frenzied and heavy on the stairway as he rushed up.
I heard the door open with a crash behind me, and I turned without haste to look at him.
“You learn quickly,” was all he said.
Noncommittally, I shrugged the robe from my shoulders, catching it on the way down, and holding it in a bundle at my waist. I looked him in the eyes and arched an eyebrow.
He crossed the room and seized me by the elbows, burying his face into the hollow of my neck. I turned slightly in his grasp, and he pushed my back up against the wall beside the window.
He was so maddened with enthusiasm that he never noticed the sceptre, even in the tightness of his embrace, until I jabbed it upward into his gut through the robes.
The mainlander word for obedience sprang forth from my lips once, then I freed the sceptre from the cloth and struck it into his chest as he leaned, gasping in pain, against the windowsill. The command word echoed twice more, thrice more, as I seared his face, his chest, his gut, his crotch. I plunged the crackling sceptre into each of his eyes, searing them shut as I screamed at him to obey me.
The Tribune’s voice rose with my own, and I found mainlander imprecations and oaths rising, unbidden, through my lips also. I screamed at him the term for traitor, tyrant, and eater of filth. I called him dregs in the wineskin of humanity, as well as despoiler of the family name, and violator of his own daughter.
At length, when he lay blubbering on the floor before the window, I reached down, and with a strength that surprised me, I dragged him up against the sill. I put the sceptre into his ruined mouth, and told him in a hissing valediction, first in Island speech and then in mainland speech, that he would never be buried, and none would remember his rule, just as none would know his name.
Then, with a final order of obey, the Master’s head jerked back and he fell backwards through the window, arms flailing two levels down, cracking his bones on the roof of the stall below. In slow motion, as though too weak to fight it, he rolled down and came to a stop on the flagstone of the courtyard.
Unhurriedly, I dressed again and went downstairs. I called to the Creature to make sure he was awake, then I unlocked the gate to his pen. I left the courtyard as he padded out of his stall to sniff and prod at the shattered figure lying on the flagstones before him, unheeding of its feeble whimperings.
* ~ * ~ *
I rested beneath the Tribune’s flickering gaze in his residence. Tomorrow, he told me silently, the work would begin. In the morning, we would separate and emerge once again from his sanctum as two, instead of one. Most of the island’s inhabitants should prove very docile in obeying my orders, although naturally there would be some who had failed to drink of the well waters over the evening.
Even so, our servants should far outnumber them, and it would be a simple matter to eliminate them in their cowering makeshift barricades and redoubts throughout the mansion.
That done, the Island would be mine to command. And, as the gem in my breast testified, it would also be his, by extension.
Lying on the floor, almost matching the Tribune's own stillness, I dreamed of the sunrise. If the magic was strong enough, I might even be able to order all the wives into the Creature’s courtyard and let the natural chain of events take their course. I wondered how they would feel about that - I certainly knew how I felt.
For the future, though, the Tribune’s thoughts were clear in my mind. Once the mists cleared from the waterways, we would go to the mainland together to meet his allies in the Republic. Taking the Senate would be our first step. There would be opposition from the north, and possibly the lake tribes. The Islands would certainly put up a fight. But in small degrees, the Tribune would be Tribune no more – perhaps Senator, perhaps President.
And I, the lucky survivor of the Island’s terrible misfortune, would be the only sane Islander left to claim the inheritance. He would have to teach me to read and write, of course, but how bright the future was! What vistas of opportunity lay before me now!
There might be inquests about the Master’s disappearance, but the Tribune reassured me that there was no serious legal threat to my interests.
After all, the Creature, when hungry, would eat anything.
Throughout the day, as I waited in my bedroom, the servants would be carrying water from the cisterns, and it only be near the end of the day that they would draw water from the well to refill them. These would go into decanters, jugs, and pitchers, as well as baths and laundries, and nobody would notice anything unusual until the following day, when it would be too late.
Occasionally, servants inquired through the door, but I turned them away. I kept my vigil by the window. The Creature, testy at not being fed or walked, was in a foul mood, and I could hear him calling to me. Passersby, including the wives, gave the Creature’s special pen a wide berth.
Dinner came and went. At one point, servants called to me from the courtyard, requesting my presence at the meal by order of the Master himself. When I gave no response, they left and did not return.
Presently, the Master came to the courtyard. I stood at the window with my robe open. His features, originally contorted with rage, visibly transformed as he saw me and other emotions took over.
Within me, the Tribune spoke a warning.
Careful, now…
I pretended to suddenly notice the Master. I turned my head ever so slightly to one side and glanced at him sidelong from the corner of my eye. That was all he needed.
His tread was frenzied and heavy on the stairway as he rushed up.
I heard the door open with a crash behind me, and I turned without haste to look at him.
“You learn quickly,” was all he said.
Noncommittally, I shrugged the robe from my shoulders, catching it on the way down, and holding it in a bundle at my waist. I looked him in the eyes and arched an eyebrow.
He crossed the room and seized me by the elbows, burying his face into the hollow of my neck. I turned slightly in his grasp, and he pushed my back up against the wall beside the window.
He was so maddened with enthusiasm that he never noticed the sceptre, even in the tightness of his embrace, until I jabbed it upward into his gut through the robes.
The mainlander word for obedience sprang forth from my lips once, then I freed the sceptre from the cloth and struck it into his chest as he leaned, gasping in pain, against the windowsill. The command word echoed twice more, thrice more, as I seared his face, his chest, his gut, his crotch. I plunged the crackling sceptre into each of his eyes, searing them shut as I screamed at him to obey me.
The Tribune’s voice rose with my own, and I found mainlander imprecations and oaths rising, unbidden, through my lips also. I screamed at him the term for traitor, tyrant, and eater of filth. I called him dregs in the wineskin of humanity, as well as despoiler of the family name, and violator of his own daughter.
At length, when he lay blubbering on the floor before the window, I reached down, and with a strength that surprised me, I dragged him up against the sill. I put the sceptre into his ruined mouth, and told him in a hissing valediction, first in Island speech and then in mainland speech, that he would never be buried, and none would remember his rule, just as none would know his name.
Then, with a final order of obey, the Master’s head jerked back and he fell backwards through the window, arms flailing two levels down, cracking his bones on the roof of the stall below. In slow motion, as though too weak to fight it, he rolled down and came to a stop on the flagstone of the courtyard.
Unhurriedly, I dressed again and went downstairs. I called to the Creature to make sure he was awake, then I unlocked the gate to his pen. I left the courtyard as he padded out of his stall to sniff and prod at the shattered figure lying on the flagstones before him, unheeding of its feeble whimperings.
* ~ * ~ *
I rested beneath the Tribune’s flickering gaze in his residence. Tomorrow, he told me silently, the work would begin. In the morning, we would separate and emerge once again from his sanctum as two, instead of one. Most of the island’s inhabitants should prove very docile in obeying my orders, although naturally there would be some who had failed to drink of the well waters over the evening.
Even so, our servants should far outnumber them, and it would be a simple matter to eliminate them in their cowering makeshift barricades and redoubts throughout the mansion.
That done, the Island would be mine to command. And, as the gem in my breast testified, it would also be his, by extension.
Lying on the floor, almost matching the Tribune's own stillness, I dreamed of the sunrise. If the magic was strong enough, I might even be able to order all the wives into the Creature’s courtyard and let the natural chain of events take their course. I wondered how they would feel about that - I certainly knew how I felt.
For the future, though, the Tribune’s thoughts were clear in my mind. Once the mists cleared from the waterways, we would go to the mainland together to meet his allies in the Republic. Taking the Senate would be our first step. There would be opposition from the north, and possibly the lake tribes. The Islands would certainly put up a fight. But in small degrees, the Tribune would be Tribune no more – perhaps Senator, perhaps President.
And I, the lucky survivor of the Island’s terrible misfortune, would be the only sane Islander left to claim the inheritance. He would have to teach me to read and write, of course, but how bright the future was! What vistas of opportunity lay before me now!
There might be inquests about the Master’s disappearance, but the Tribune reassured me that there was no serious legal threat to my interests.
After all, the Creature, when hungry, would eat anything.