Hallsfoot's Battle

by Anne Brooke

  “It was the first of the ancient songs, and my words fall far short of that splendour. If you can imagine golden notes poured out over the brightest of water—as I know your heart element is water, Simon—then all the best of your imaginings will not echo even a hundredth of the Spirit’s song of creation. It was so beautiful that no ear can hear it or even sense what it might be.

  “As the small specks of light from the Spirit’s flesh began to break through the darkness, so the song’s notes began to form the world we know and love—earth, sky and water, rocks, trees and pastures, birds, fish, animals and insects. All of it beautiful and created out of perfection, none of it destroyed or damaged in the way we are today.

  “At last, after an equally long period of time that nobody can recount, the small lights from the Spirit’s hands came together to form the sun and moon and stars, just as you know them today, Simon—the owl, the fox, the oak and the wolf. Then the river, the elm and the horseman. Finally, after all these came the lovers, the lone man, and the vast, unknowable mountain, that which can never be measured. All of these are our stars, just as they are yours, although we do not trust ourselves to their destiny as many of your people do or see them quite as you do.

  “Meanwhile, the Spirit’s song created all that was good around us, that which lives and moves amongst us and is the form of our own spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These things are not created by law, but by harmony, which is the meaning of the song.

  “And still our world was incomplete.

  “Although, yes, all the lands were there—Gathandria, where the Spirit first stood and from where all things come, the four Kingdoms, the White Lands where you were born, the Lammas Lands where you fell into darkness again and all the neighbours between them. But it was not yet complete. What was missing were men and women.

  “The Spirit paused in its singing. The world fell silent, but there was nobody to hear the silence. For a long while, therefore, the Spirit wept at the loss that was no loss. Then it opened its mouth again and the last note of the song was heard, a note as golden and rich as a fertile river running to the sea, a note to conjure all the magic around us, in all its beauty and colour, and one that, if heard, would spoil you from hearing anything ever again.

  “This note filled the newly created air, and the Spirit of Gathandria, moved by what it had done, reached out and touched its perfection. At once, the note split, ravaged into a thousand, thousand pieces, the fragments spinning outwards. The force of the explosion flung these fragments into all the corners of the world. Some fell in the sea and were lost forever, some fell in the mountains or the rivers, some fell on the plains, in the deserts or the woods. The Spirit cried out in grief and its sorrow filled the world. The tears shed followed the fragments of the notes, drawn to them by their mystery and magic, and fell likewise into the sea, the mountains, the rivers, the plains, the deserts and the woods. Harmony and tears were joined, melted together and formed something new and equally magical, which was born out of joy and sorrow, and lives to acknowledge both men and women. This is how men and women were first made.”

  Annyeke paused in her narration. It was a long time since she had revisited the Gathandrian Creation Legend, and she had almost forgotten its power, and the way it made her feel connected to the earth and the life around her. She promised herself she would try not to leave it so little remembered again.

  Glancing up from her posture of quasi meditation, she saw Simon was gazing at her, his expression rapt. Around him hung a strange glow, deep blue in shade, she thought, though even as she looked at it, the impression of colour faded away and she wondered if she’d seen it at all. The snow-raven, too, gazed at her, perched on the end of the table, head cocked. Even the mind-cane was silent. How could they know what she was saying? Was it something in the harmony of the words themselves, spoken aloud even without the mind-link?

  “Go on,” the scribe whispered. “What happened next?”

  “The Spirit departed,” Annyeke continued, “to travel to wherever it is that Spirits go. But it left something of itself here, both in our people and in the world we live in. All those generation-cycles ago, the people who came from tears and light began to multiply and grow strong in number. At first, everything was shared within the whole community, so that nobody suffered lack and all beings were equal. Here in Gathandria, men and women worked together, building great places of light and beauty, both dwellings and for entertainment or command. That is how the city was born, the first city of the world we live in. There will never be another like it.

  “Elsewhere, in the other Kingdoms, creatures were echoing our ancestors’ progress, in all their different lives. The Kingdom of the Sea teemed with fish and strange sea-monsters. They filled the waters and subdued them, their power limited only by the land that bordered their domain. In the desert, the desert men and women grew tall and pale, their skin whitened by the need to live their lives always seeking for the shade but blanched by the sun. Once the desert was crowded with their homes and communities, but now there is nothing left, their civilisation destroyed by the mind-wars. At the same time, the snow-ravens spread their wings across the Kingdom of the Air and made the skies their own, scorning the lesser pleasures of the earth. Finally, amongst the Kingdoms, the great mountains that border the Lammas Lands swallowed up the men who fell there from the Spirit’s fingers. Flesh became stone, and man melded into the earth.

  “In this blessed time, Gathandria’s neighbours also grew and prospered. Amongst the larger of them that you know are these—the White Lands rich in the skills of writing, the feudal comfort of the Lammas Lands and their Overlords and the Marsh Lands where people can live from anything the water gives them.

  “After a while, though—and, again, no one can measure how long the time was—factions began to appear, partly based on the differences between man and man, and partly on the areas they lived in, the different skills they possessed. People began to fight each other, and every unnecessary violent death was felt here in the City.”

  “Why?” Simon interrupted. “Why did conflict begin when they were accustomed to live in peace? The differences you talk about. Surely they must have always been there. They would be familiar, not dangerous. Why does everything have to end with fighting?”

  Annyeke took a moment to gather her mind together before replying. The combination of the legend’s power and her own semi-meditation could not be abandoned lightly. She could also sense from the scribe’s aura how much he needed to know the answer to his questions. With that understanding came revelation—Simon was, at heart, a dreamer, although this trait was buried so deep that he probably didn’t know it himself. Too many years spent simply trying to survive and…

  She shook her head; she had no right to pry, especially since he had asked her not to. Blushing, she turned away, still thinking about what to say.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Perhaps it’s something no one will ever know. Even here in Gathandria, we have to train our minds towards peace. So many years of doing that and we thought everything was as it should be. But it wasn’t. And all our preparation and meditation has not protected our neighbours, or us, has it? Not in the end, not now. And, see, we must turn to war to preserve it…”

  Without warning, Annyeke found she couldn’t continue. Her eyes filled with tears and the colours of her mind were suffused with a deep crimson. Simon leaned forward and patted her hand. His touch radiated uncertainty and compassion in equal measure. The experience of red faded, as suddenly as it had begun. At the window, the snow-raven flapped its wings and Simon glanced at it, nodding as if the bird had spoken. Perhaps it had, she thought, but not to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not sure I can really answer your question, Simon. Where does anger and unhappiness come from? Why are there wars? All the books and legends in the whole of our world won’t ever answer that, but perhaps the beginnings of understa
nding lie in the way we were made. When the light from the Spirit’s hand broke into a thousand pieces, perhaps some of those pieces missed the source of their being so much that the good within them was lost or damaged. Perhaps, returning is what we all long for, and what we fight for is a desire which can never, in fact, be satisfied in this life.”

  In the silence that filled the spaces and the meditation between them after she’d finished speaking, Annyeke blinked. She’d sounded wiser than she’d realised and couldn’t help but smile to herself. She doubted it would happen again, at least not in this day-cycle, so she’d better make the most of it while it lasted.

  It was Simon who spoke first.

  “And while we wait for the answers,” he said, “why not continue with the legend? Tell me, Annyeke, where conflict began.”

  “All right.” She closed her eyes and took herself into that space in her mind that allowed her to speak and feel at the same time.

  “Conflict began in the New Lands, a place where people are most skilled in planting and bringing crops to fruition—or were, before these Wars. Back in the times when legends were not yet written, a man came to the notice of the leaders of the New Landers, but not in a good way. He was the sort of man who wanted more than he would ever achieve, who muttered darkly about the success of others and who desired the highest positions in the land.”

  “What was his name?” Simon whispered, and Annyeke could sense the full focus of his attention on her.

  “His name was Javagathlon,” she said, “or rather that was what his name became. In the language of the ancient New Landers, it means Lust. His true name is lost to us now but, in any case, it no longer matters. In our world, people become the qualities they most cling to. Lust he became and Lust he will always be. For him, the legends tell us, his obsession started with looking at the power and privilege held by the leaders of his people and desiring it most of all. From that, the colours of his mind changed from those he was born with and became red and purple, the colours of violence.”

  “Colours of the mind?” Simon interrupted again, the confusion evident in his tone. She had no need to look at him, fixed as she was on the inner and outer ramifications of her story.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Here in Gathandria, we are able to sense who people are and the shape of their inner worlds by the colours they carry inside. You are most like blue and I am green. At least, those are our base colours, although they change with the days and the moods.”

  “Why can’t I see that, then?”

  She smiled, opened her eyes briefly and saw the frown on his face. “You can. You just don’t fully acknowledge it yet. But, please, may I continue?”

  He blushed. “Of course, forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. In the New Lands, Javagathlon looked and looked at the leaders, and hatred grew in his breast for all they had that he did not, although, in our terms, that was little enough. At the same time, the colours of Lust, red, purple and black, also grew in him. And when colours are strong enough in tone or when their arrival in a character fights against what that character truly should be, they soon become out of control, influencing, for either good or bad, both the people in which they dwell and those around them.

  “Only a moon-cycle or two passed before Javagathlon drew others to himself, in whom the colours of Lust most easily flourished. They met secretly, in the richest part of the night when neither of their moons was full, or just before dawn when all their people slept. At first, their Lust was unstructured and all their meetings were filled with nothing but talk, when hatred and envy ran free. This only satisfied them for a while. Soon, Javagathlon stood before them and made his first speech inciting rebellion.

  “The sky was filled with strange noises on that night when they met in a copse near Javagathlon’s largest cornfield. Birds shrieked and field wolves howled, even when not on the hunt, though no danger approached that small group of men destined to change all. Perhaps danger itself was wary.

  “Why must we suffer the way things have always been, the rebel leader said, when we can fight the so-called leaders and take what should be ours? They have houses and fields and crops enough, whereas we stand helplessly by, tilling our poor soil and producing barely enough to keep us alive. The New Lands have had their fill of injustice; the time is right for real leaders to fight back. They are weak and unprepared, but we are strong and ready for the justice of victory. Here and now, while the mood is on us and the season is right, we must make our stand.

  “Javagathlon was not a tall or noble-looking man, but his words held power—as do all words indeed, whether spoken or thought—and his followers had soon fallen in with his plans. Lust finds many playmates, whatever the desired object may be. It took, so the books tell us, only two seven-day-cycles for the rebellion to be fully ready. Any longer and Javagathlon feared that the onset of winter in the New Lands might put his plans in jeopardy. For now, the people were busy with the harvest, but their hard labour would soon end. It might have been this industry that prevented the leaders from discovering what plans were laid against them.

  “On the darkest night of the New Lander year-cycle and at the coldest hour, the rebels struck. They stormed the huts of the three main leaders in the largest of their villages, killed several women and children who had no means of defending themselves, drove out the menfolk and set the unharvested fields on fire. It is a mystery why men do these things. I imagine that the riches and size of the leaders’ fields were what Javagathlon and the followers of Lust desired, but nevertheless this is what the legends recount. Afterwards, they rejoiced and drank in the homes they had plundered and used the treasures they had stolen in whatever way they wished. Those around them were terrified at what had happened in their midst, as such an attack and the reasons behind it had no precedent in their history. They did not dare to question it, and so Javagathlon became their leader in the place of those who had been driven away, and Lust had its way amongst the New Lander people.”

  In the pause she left at the end of this section of the tale, Annyeke could hear Simon’s rapid breathing.

  “What happened then?” he asked her, his voice unsteady. “Surely, that is not the end of the tale you wished to tell me? For if it is, then nothing can be learned apart from the things I already know of the world, that everything ends in darkness and evil desires. By the gods and stars, tell me it is not so.”

  She nodded, eyes remaining closed. “Nothing is truly over until the world itself ends, or so those wiser than I am say. But for every evil act, there is an opposite ranged against it. That is what the Spirit says and I believe it to be true. Yes, there is more to this story.”

  “Then tell me,” he breathed.

  “I will,” she smiled. “For the people of the New Lands had not chosen their leaders entirely unwisely. Amongst those who were forced to flee when the rebellion first rose against them was a man named Kadron. That, in their ancient language, means Fortitude and, once again, his original name is lost to us, but Kadron he remains. He was as opposite to Javagathlon as the day-cycle is to the night. The lustful man was small and dark, and the man of fortitude tall and fair, an imposing presence amongst any nation. The colours of his mind were gold and cream, and all the evil in the world could not overcome them.

  “For a while, Kadron and the leaders and people who gathered to him lay low in the wood’s secret places and healed the wounds, both of the body and of the mind that they bore. Worst of all these was the murder of Kadron’s wife and only child, a daughter, in the battle. Many day-cycles found him weeping with the dawn and crying with the stars. But men of courage are not laid in the dust forever and soon, as the winter truly commenced, Kadron knew he could not abandon his people.

  “So he gathered them together into what men and women later called the Cave of Determination, and spoke to them in this way:

  “We in the New Lands are a peaceful people. At least, that is what we were. But, when we did not expect it, evil men have ri
sen up from amongst us and murdered our loved ones, snatched away our livelihoods and driven us from our homes. I cannot tell you how such an event has come to pass, but you know how much it has taken from me personally and I regret the laxity in my and my fellow leaders’ counsel that evil has had its way. But, for the sake of my people, I cannot let wickedness go unpunished. Although we are not trained in war, I believe it is time to learn, time to fight back and time to recover what is rightfully ours. Have fortitude, my people and, by the gods and stars around us, surely good will prevail.

  “These words fired up the New Landers, and Kadron and his people fought the rebels at the Battle of Long Corn Meadow. This was the first battle noted down in the legends of Gathandria and all our neighbours. The weapons they used were sticks, stones and harvest tools. They used no subterfuge and no New Lander has ever possessed mind-powers. They simply attacked Javagathlon and the rebels at dawn in the heart of the village as the snows started, and the fighting continued, bloody and cruel, until midday.

  “Because the villagers had not had any warning of what would occur, there was no true understanding of what was happening, and many died needlessly. Some who wished to fight for Kadron were unable to reach him before being cut down, whereas others who had opted to fight on the side of Lust could not reach Javagathlon and caused mayhem in the ranks of those who had chosen Fortitude. Whilst the initial numbers of those fighting were men, and few at that, soon others, women and children, too, joined them from the village and its surrounding hamlets, from the fields and from the woods. They came because they did not know the reasons for such an uproar and, once there, it was impossible to escape as the crush was so great.

  “Not only that, but fields and houses were set on fire during the battle, and this brought those who saw the smoke but who were too far away to hear the sound of the dying.

  “The fighting continued until—and surely from the beginning it was inevitable—at last Kadron and Javagathlon came face to face with each other. When that occurred, the sound of the battle gradually faded away. The soil was black with blood and even the birds and dogs were silent, most of the latter perhaps already dead. I do not know. The books do not tell us that.