And the day came, as he knew it would, for him to seize his chance. Lys and the man had stolen away from the beasts as they did more and more often. They had walked to a quiet meadow and lay down upon its soft flowers. Then the goddess told the man that she would rise into the sky above and make of herself a flower more beautiful than any the man had ever seen. His answer was laughter as he told her that she had always been and would ever be the most beautiful flower he had ever seen.
Lys smiled at her man and the winds came to buoy her up far overhead, then her form dissolved into colors of rich gold and yellow while the sky was bright, cloudless, making an azure field upon which the flower was all the more beautiful. She made of herself a flower composed of three petals depending from a center of three sepals and the man's heart swelled with more love than a human heart could contain, and only the goddess and the joy of her kept him intact when he should have been unable to bear anymore.
It was then that the shadow stole into the meadow. It regarded the man gazing overhead and the thing knew hatred for him, for the goddess had never shown the beasts of the valley such proof of her affection.
Like a thundercloud that had no place in that bright morning, darkness pounded across the meadow upon cloven hooves and bright tusks lifted high, their yellowed ends dripping with the crimson of a man's life.
And the boar turned and brought his hoof down upon the man's chest, and the heart within, already overburdened for love of a goddess, burst asunder.
The boar stood still, the steam of its breath puffing from its snout, and high overhead, the flower had frozen, all color draining out of it as the goddess discovered what one of her beasts had done.
She did not blame the boar. She had known his nature the day he had answered her call, as with all the other beasts of the valley. She had not judged him for what he was and he had loved her for it, but she understood then that had not changed him, for his heart was as black as his pelt and his adoration for her too easily twisted.
In that moment, Lys wished but one thing, and she threw all her power down and the man's heart knit back together, his entrails slipped back inside his belly, and the long gashes down both sides of his body closed as if no boar's tusks had ever opened them wide and steaming in that quiet morning meadow.
Then Lys screamed against all creation and she begged all the powers that be to bring her love back to her, but it was too late, and even the love of a goddess could not bring back the soul already fled into the inviolate realm of Death.
She looked down from the sky and a sorrow like none she had ever known seized her in its grip. Lys wept tears that hung suspended around her like jewels upon an azure field, and she emptied herself out with those tears until there was nothing left inside … until she had become more insubstantial than the air itself. Like a cork upon water, the emptied goddess was buoyed up and up, and her tears followed her for her sorrow was unrelenting and without limit.
Ever upward she went as she emptied herself of her own power in chagrin and loss and became as colorless as the finest blown glass.
In this way, Lys took her place among the stars of the night sky, and the beasts of the valley lost their mistress forever more.
They fled in the directions of the four winds and regained their homelands. In time, men would seek them out and most would disappear from all knowledge, but the least of them had remained behind, for his black heart had learned what it was to feel remorse and regret come too late.
He alone kept silent vigil and gazed at his mistress among the countless stars each night, and he alone saw the last tear she ever shed fall from the sky in a burning streak of light. He alone saw the last of the goddess spend itself in a final sign of grief and her power was no more, expended and extinguished among the heavens as she passed beyond all knowledge, even that of herself.
The boar watched and was witness as the only one he had ever adored sought out and found oblivion.
In the long years since, the yellow lions of thunder have fallen to grains of sand, the fiery salamanders have gone deep underground, and the worms of heaven ride high upon the winds above the clouds and have sworn to never descend again. The sphinx ran out of riddles and boredom set them in stone while the Golden Gazelles dried their tears and became gazelles like any other.
Only one of the beasts of the vale persisted, for his heart is black and it pleases him to destroy young love wherever he finds it as he wanders endlessly, searching, and in remembrance of Lys and the only affection he has ever known in all his long life.
He persists because he knew the blessing of a goddess and is hunted forevermore by the shadow that followed the goddess for so long and led her to call to the rare beasts of the world.
And that shadow is named Loneliness.
Goosebumps rippled down the smith’s son’s arms and he shook himself. Then, he startled as he looked up from the book’s pages.
“And where have you been?” Bellamere asked the little man sitting in the grass opposite him.
Harki's cheeks grew an odd rosy red, then with a start Bellamere understood what he was seeing … the little fellow was burning with embarrassment.
“Ermmm … I was stuck … somewhere,” came his mumbled reply.
“Stuck? What do you mean stuck? In a hole or something?”
Never had Bellamere seen Harki in such a state of discomfiture. It was unnerving.
“Yes, yes, that's what it was … a hole. A hole behind doors and doors way down underneath.”
“Well you could have called out for help, Harki,” Bellamere said, “I know we don't always get along as well as we might, but still, I would have come if you needed me.”
Harki's face had started twisting into the characteristic sneer that always preceded some sarcastic remark, but Bellamere did not care. After Etienne and the alchemist, or perhaps even before them, there was no one closer to him.
Whatever hot air had been building behind the little man's lips fled with a sigh, then he bowed deeply at the waist.
“I thank you, smith's son and listener of tales. You humble me and thus a boon is merited.
“For this, I confide to you that I have seen it written in the subtle light of darkness that you shall be a smith, but unlike a smith who works ore into metal, you shall be one who forges words and the plume shall ever be your hammer.”
Bellamere did not know what to say. Harki had never shown him respect of any real sort before that very moment. And he had certainly never done him the honor of forecasting his future, nor did Bellamere have any idea he was even capable.
“Harki … thank you. I hope you're right. But why in the world didn't you call for me? I would have come.”
The little man's face turned grey, and his eyes took on the appearance of seeing something faraway before he spoke.
“I did not dare.”
Bellamere followed the direction of Harki's suddenly distant stare, then his own eyes narrowed as a sudden realization hit him.
“Wait a minute. Did you go exploring in the tower? Is that why you disappear every time I go there?”
Harki clamped his jaws shut, then scuffed the ground with a bare foot.
“Or, more specifically, did you go snooping around in the alchemist’s cellars … looking for treasure?”
But the strange creature refused to say anything more on the subject, and it took some time for Bellamere to think of a way to draw him back into conversation because, as the Alchemist suggested, he needed to find Harki's essential truth.
“Anyway, never mind all that,” he said, “I wonder why you never bothered mentioning that the Yellow Lions were made of living stone and the Golden Gazelles shed tears that led to gold.”
Apparently, the afternoon's surprises had not finished for the little red pantsed man as his face drained of all color at Bellamere's remark.
“And what would you know of it? How have you come by such curious knowledge, for these are old tales told by no one but me, and even I have not told you this.�
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“That's right,” Bellamere replied, “You haven't. Lucky for me, Maitre St. Lucq loaned me a book that talks all about them and a goddess named Lys.”
Harki's pale face grew drawn and tired at the mention of the goddess's name. When he spoke, his voice trembled and if it was with fear or fatigue, Bellamere could not have said.
“And does your book speak of the great halls under the mountain, the corridors polished to perfection, the love dispensed upon such stone and none of it repaid in kind when the goddess slipped forever and ever behind the veil of the night sky?”
“No … erm … that is to say … “
Harki continued as if he did not hear Bellamere, as if what he heard in that moment were echoes ringing across the centuries.
“Did this book speak of the custodians called by Lys to guard her mountain castle, to keep it and care for it as only we could? Or that when she passed into the beyond, we were forgotten and locked out, our beloved halls closed to us forever more? Her vanity and egoism cast us out in the world with nothing left to us but to seek out the petty stonework of men, the most magnificent of them but a pale reflection of the grandeur we once knew.”
Bellamere was slow to answer once the little man had fallen silent.
“Harki … are you a Laminak? Is that what you are?” He took a deep breath, almost afraid of what he said next.
“I mean … are you really real?”
The little red pantsed man's face fell as he focused at last on Bellamere.
“Oh, smith's son … alas, your suspicions mean the end of our association. What was necessary was your honest camaraderie but now with doubt gnawing at the foundation of your trust, the way shall be closed to me.”
There was a slight popping sound, as if the air had suddenly filled in the space occupied by the little man an instant before. He had disappeared, and Bellamere wondered if he really was gone for good.
Or, for worse.
He could not deny that despite Harki's endless teasing and sarcastic remarks, he had kept him company when there was no one else.
“But we were friends … “ he murmured while he could not help but think there really was no one to hear him.
Bellamere sighed and decided he did not want to read any more about the Black Boar of Summer, for it suddenly felt like a shadow had slipped out from the old pages of the book and clapped itself over the smith's son's shoulders like an unwelcome cloak.
And Bellamere knew it for what it was, as familiar to him as anything else in his life.
Its name was Loneliness.
Chapter Six
It did not take him long to find the meadow and its treasure trove of strawberries.
Etienne carried a large basket with him and he wore a white linen shirt that had seen very little use, for its color was pure and the fabric still supple.
While his father might have a preference for raspberries, the alchemist's son thought it a shame that the strawberries would go to waste. There was an old woman on the outskirts of Urrune who would turn the delicate fruit into a marvelous confiture in exchange for part of the harvest.
He knew that even his father would welcome the little pots of jam with their beeswax seals that smelled heavenly when the snows came and the green forest turned grey and cold.
There was more ripe fruit than Etienne had remembered from the day before, and he worked in silence upon his knees. Birds sang around him, and the leaves overhead whispered those secrets only other trees might comprehend. And if he strained his ears from time to time, expecting to hear the telltale sound of a twig breaking under a woman's foot, Etienne did not admit to himself that he was there for anything other than strawberries.
Soon enough, his basket was near to overflowing and the knees of his trousers were soaked through with morning dew. He stretched forward for one berry that had caught his attention earlier. It positively glowed a rich bright red, its size exceptional and demanding that it be tasted right then and there as a reward for all his efforts.
Etienne closed his eyes and bit into it, and the flavors of spring rushed across his tongue in all their sweet glory. The taste was that of a flood of clean water in the mouth of a dying man in the desert. The savor like that of peaches and roses and so many other good and delightful things.
He sighed and sat back on his haunches, and it was only then that he opened his eyes and discovered his basketful of berries was gone.
“Thief,” he muttered and was on his feet in an instant.
He looked quickly about himself and there, barely perceptible, he made out several tufts of fine meadow grass that were only just then springing back up.
“Light on your feet you are, but not … quite … fast enough.”
Etienne burst forward, fleet as a wild stag.
His stride fell far longer than the faint footfalls that he read before him, yet the trail was clear and he had no doubt he would overtake the thief in short order.
Trees flew past him and his shadow grew longer as he ran, twisting and turning, then ducking low only to spring upright to chase after the faint signs of someone fleeing before him.
In time, his lips drew down and the fading smile there was replaced by grim determination. And before the race he ran was over, Etienne drew up short, his chest heaving and sweat running down his neck.
The way forward was still just as evident as it had been from the beginning. Yet, that way lay a truth just as evident even if it wounded him to admit it.
The alchemist’s son waited until his breathing took on a normal rhythm, then he turned on his heel and began walking back the way he had come as the morning had long since given way to an afternoon that would not tarry much longer either.
This time, the way was far clearer to him. His heavy footfalls had left the forest floor’s leaves in disarray, more often than not with thick clods of black earth that had clung to his boot heels before falling away just as swiftly as he had run.
He judged the distance he had run as only being half done before he would come back to the meadow of strawberries. And as he rounded the corner of a thicket that positively swarmed with tiny chirruping birds, he saw something on the trail that stopped him cold.
The basket of strawberries.
They appeared to be just as they had been when last he saw them with but one difference.
Etienne looked about himself as he approached the basket then down at an enormous strawberry that he was sure had not been there earlier.
It was easily twice as large as any other he had picked that day, and he did not hesitate breaking its ruby flesh between his teeth and savoring the juice that flooded his tongue.
The way back to the meadow did not take long after that, and as Etienne was about to step out from under the thick canopy of forest overhead, a familiar scent came to him at the same time as a soft hand slipped under his arm.
He stiffened but refused her the satisfaction of looking her way as he continued walking without breaking his stride.
“What a lovely basket of fruit.”
Etienne clenched his jaw and said nothing. Nor did he shrug away the hand holding his arm as they walked.
“However, it would seem that the day’s harvest was won with some difficulty for how hot and sweaty you are.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. A teasing bright smile framed in rich red lips that would make him forget his anger if he dared look its way.
“Apparently, my basket sprouted legs and ran me a merry chase.”
“Really?”
Her reply was a mocking one.
“Or, perhaps it had been simply misplaced ... behind a tree just beside you and you only assumed that chasing after innocents in the woods your best answer?”
Etienne felt fury rise up as a physical heat washed over his face.
He stopped dead and flung her hand away. Then he looked at the young woman at his side, his glare baleful and clear.
“Who are you? I mean, who are you really and why are you here? Tell m
e now, for I warn you that my patience is nearing its end.”
The young woman’s blue eyes widened and to Etienne’s satisfaction, he saw her take a step back from him and his anger.
Then she turned to face away from him before speaking, as if what she was about to say was something she dared not face herself.
“I will answer you ... in the best way that I can. But first I would ask you a question, Etienne.”
Etienne growled and began walking again, sparing her no thought as he took up the trail toward his home.
When her hand slipped through his arm once more, he spoke.
“Questions for answers and answers for questions unasked. Your ways tire me.”
“Nevertheless,” she said, “What would you do if one day a beast came to your door ... let us say a dog ... and you could read in its eyes several contradictory things. In its gaze you see a sadness that runs so deeply it goes beyond anything you could ever imagine. And, there is also a loneliness to match this sadness that explains why it had come to you at all. But worse still, you see the potential for violence in the thing. A hatred seethes just under the surface and you understand that this dog is just as capable of tearing your throat out as it is to fetch the stick you might throw in guise of the companionship it so desperately desires.
“What would you do with such a thing once it found its way to your doorstep?”
The way she spoke then forced him to slow his pace. He heard how torn she was as she spoke and that this might have been the most honest thing she had said to him thus far.
“I think my answer would hinge upon whatever real danger the beast might pose. Will it harm me? Will it harm those around me?”
“No. And yes, I think so.”
“Then it is a thing for which pity has no place and should be destroyed. Thus, its suffering will be brought to an end for the better of one and all.”
They walked together in silence for a time before she spoke again.
“Yours is the same counsel as that of my sister. However, my mother did not agree and, in the end, my only sibling left our home to travel to southern lands. In the years since then, we have learned that she has found a home among a traveling folk and has given birth to a niece I have never seen.”
The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist Page 8
