A Tale of Lost Children (2007)
(excerpt from a work-in-progress)
Prologue: A Witness
I see now, through time. Should it come as some surprise that now, as the evenings wane and this stool that has held me so comfortably in my years seems to creak and groan with each breath, perhaps even more than my own old bones, now my thoughts turn to those days, threescore and ten years past, when that fellow gave me the vision that changed me forever? Why now, when my hands, finally giving in to the wisdom of the oak trees, so knurled and twisted that they no longer hold a brush, suffering in stoic stillness, can I finally remember the dream and promise of the promised dream? The land so clear, with brilliantly hued flora and beasts of magic and wonder, bright and joyful, haunts me now without remorse or mercy.
The only memory in my life of walking (running!) on two healthy, sound feet, thighs pumping, drawing one before the next, the sheer joy of motion, comes from that momentary vision. All of those children running ahead of me cannot know that my pleasure of that moment was not in the destination, promised us by that mystical elf in the red and the yellow; it was not in the joyous music that cavorted through the air like ten-thousand drunken butterflies, tumbling and spinning from the puckered lips of the slender reed hanging about his neck and catching us up in its whimsical dirge. For mine was the exaltation of freedom from the slavery of myself- that ponderous, frustrating, hobble of the lame, magnified through the knowledge that I should have been dancing and quarreling with my friends on a spring afternoon when the barnyard had been swept out and the animals tended.
It was this briefest moment of knowledge of the beauty of the world that has sustained me through the years since that happy dreadful day in quaint, fey Hamelin. My art lives in that quiet place between pain and pleasure, between fear of the unknown and knowledge of the fearful. It is a pastoral meadow, just north of the river Weser, at the foot of a tall and rocky hill. This is the meadow where the goats graze in the summer, feasting on the late vintage grass. This field sustains a community of voles, ever burrowing and keeping to the dark, rich earth. Ants and earthworms and field mice abound—all the small things that crawl and gather and hunt and enliven the land, making it fit for children to play their merry spring afternoon games. Somewhere across the Weser overlooking this field, I am certain there lives a silent gaggle of rats descended from one spry and stout specimen that survived his fellows and made it to safety. They know their place now, and have never ventured forth, but I found solace for many years in the thought that I was not the only one to be left behind by the red-and-yellow man.
Still, I know that quiet place so intimately it has grown into my bones. For three years after their joyous exodus, I spent my afternoons sitting, standing, straining at the spot where I last heard the music—desperate for the return of the mad butterflies and tender notes of magic that might recall the freedom I had lived in that lifetime of a moment. But eventually I outlived that dream, and the men and women of that accursed town outlived their folly. The rocky slope never revealed a hint of the realm that lay behind it.
As for the Red and Yellow, his pipe was not heard in this world since, and rumors of foreign peoples springing from the dark mountains in so many reaches of the world all find their way to the small sad town north of the Weser. Like the town, all these years, the rumors remain fruitless.
...
Acha knelt by the blankets and wiped a damp cloth over her mother's brow. She bent and touched her lips to her mother's forehead with precious gentleness that only a child can muster. Leyt murmured to her daughter softly. Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled.
"My child. My heart. Why do you linger over me when you can run and play with the others?"
Acha lowered her eyes. "They will not have me, Mother. They do not see me."
Leyt raised a trembling arm and touched her daughter's cheek. "Then stay with me, my heart. I will tell you a story. What will you hear?"
Acha did not hesitate, "Tell me of my mother."
"You will hear that again? You never tire of the same tales, do you? Very well, my child, I will tell."
Acha smiled and settled back to listen.
From Leyt
"There are eyes in the darkness. They glow faintly with reflected yellow moonlight. Human eyes, it seems, though they stand far above the ground; inhumanly tall. The muted sounds of a dense forest rustle and chirp all around as the eyes fix upon a shadow drawing nearer. After a brief, tense moment, something relaxes in the eyes.
Moments later, the shadow resolves to a tall, lanky form. Pale, so it takes on the dull yellow sheen of the moon, the figure wears a woven tunic covering its lean body. Its head is crowned with an unruly bush of golden hair that stands a full hand above its head. It has similar eyes, but much closer to the ground. The figure halts, and peers straight ahead.
"I see you, High One. The krune are moving tonight," said the eyes.
Moh squinted, but kept his eyes level, crinkling his nose in reflex upon meeting one of the Moll. "Have you caught your fill?"
The eyes blinked and leapt down from the tree branch, silently settling into a crouch to the left of Moh, who continued to avoid looking at them.
"They are fat and slow this season, High One. We catch many. The feasting is good." The crouching figure extended a browned, slender arm and pointed through the trees. "That way lies their run. High One would be safer walking around."
Moh clicked his tongue in exasperation. Walking around the path would delay his arrival. For a brief moment, Moh was tempted to ignore the Moll and continue on his way. A single krune would pose no threat. He had little to do with them alive, of course, but he had seen krune from a distance—they were imposing, if slow, creatures.
Moh sighed. A single krune posed no threat, but a herd of the animals might crush him underfoot without a pause. He turned and walked in the opposite direction.
"Goodnight, High One," said the eyes. They watched steadily as the figure disappeared into the night. When the slight noises of the High One's tread had gone, the brown, naked body clambered back up into the branch overhanging the path to continue the watch.
Ten steps later, Moh had forgotten about his encounter with the Moll, focused as he was on his trek back to his berg. In the twilight, his thoughts drifted back to the previous day, and the bargain he had struck. It had been his first trip to The Berg, and his first time at negotiating an exchange. The task had previously fallen to his uncle. A stone fall and a maimed leg made the journey impossible, so now, it was Moh's responsibility.
...
Moh peered into the darkness, turned, looked in another direction. If not for the moll and the damned krune, he would be at the berg by now, but he didn't know this part of the forest well. Shrugging, he stepped off again. The way soon became more difficult, with loose stones to turn the ankle and dense scrub to trip the feet.
Indeed, he did trip, catching himself with his hands, and feeling the stones unstable, crawled forward. He found a small run through the underbrush and pushed through. The talus gave way to larger stones and patches of clay, and Moh stood, rubbing his cut and bruised hands.
The grade began to climb. Moh smiled, sensing that he had found the right track. The trees were becoming smaller, the ground rockier. For a moment, he tried to imagine where he was relative to the path, to the berg. If this was the opposite slope of the foothill, then he should bear eastward.
He heard the stones move before his feet began to slide, and then he was on his back tumbling down a steep bank. Again he stood, this time wincing from the pain of scraped knees and elbows.
He was in a narrow ravine, with steep walls of stone, but a floor of soft soil. Looking one way, then the other, Moh decided that the ravine was running roughly east and west, and he could follow it towards the berg. He bent to press some of the soft, dry dirt onto the worst of his cuts, and began walking.
It was deep in the night when Moh saw the pale points like a dozen eyes. He thought at first that he had stumbled upon a camp of the Moll, but he quickly realized that there was no movement among them. Then he knew what he was looking at, and gave a shout of joy.
He ran forward, heedless of the aches and burning of his wounds. When he reached the small tree, growing precariously along the side of the ravine, he grinned stupidly.
The white teardrop-shaped fruit of the moonstree was a rare and prized delight, and an omen of profound fortunes. Moh turned and looked over his shoulder, finding the dim moon near the horizon. It was nearly morning.
He found a patch of long dry grass nearby and plucked several leaves, quickly braiding them into a short length of string. He chose the four ripest of the moonsfruit and tied their stems with the grass, draping his makeshift brace over his shoulders.
Satisfied, he looked back at the moon once more, fingered the fruit still on the tree, and then set off again, determined to reach his berg before the sun rose.
Moh had emerged from the ravine and was now moving steadily uphill. He was sure now of where he was. Just beyond the ridge he was ascending would be the main entrance to his berg, tucked in among large stone and gravel falls. The night was black as pitch now, the moon and stars hidden by dense cloud. He fixed his gaze on the crest of the ridge and lost himself in the rhythmic slap of his bare feet against the cold stone.
In time, he closed the distance, and as he came over the rise, a chance parting of clouds bathed the valley below in moonlight.
The movement of the herd caught his attention, and his feet stopped of their own accord. A vast sea of scale and bone undulated slowly and unceasingly across the distant valley floor. It seemed an endless field of swaying heads and tails, rippling like tassels of tall grass in a prairie wind. A change in the direction of the wind carried the long, low moaning calls for which the krune were named.
That call sent an involuntary shudder of fear through Moh's body. He was glad now that he had taken the long way around. Glad, he forced himself to admit, for the warning of the Moll who had directed him around the herd.
Krune were not particularly violent creatures, or aggressive. Their diet was exclusively vegetable. However, everyone knew that they were very stupid, or perhaps they simply did not perceive people the way other animals did. A krune would make no effort to avoid trampling a person in its way. Since they were also fairly slow moving, they were not difficult to avoid singly. It was when they traveled in the vast annual migrations that they became deadly.
Their lowing call echoed out among the ridges once more.
At the far side of the valley, Moh could just make out many figures darting about among the stampeding krune. With ropes braided of the tough prairie grass and long copper-tipped spears, they were taking animal after animal. Moh watched as they used the ropes to draw one out from the edge of the mass, then descend upon it with repeated thrusts of spear points.
It was an ancestor of five generations ago who had first made the pact with the Moll to trade meat for metal. Moh knew the story of this trade, as did all of his berg. He knew that each year, the Moll brought mighty slabs of krune meat, piles of skins, bones, horns, and sinew and piled it all outside the berg, carrying off copper that the berg had set by in exchange. Never before, though, had he actually seen the Moll hunting the krune. It was a dreadful and fearsome sight even at the far removes from which he watched.
Long he stood there, watching. Finally, he shook himself from the spectacle and begun his descent down the rocky slope.