Songs of the Eternal Past- Complete Trilogy

by C S Vass

  She took his large hand in her own. “Geoff,” she whispered. “It’s me. I need you to get better. I can’t do this without you. I don’t know how to find Naerumi or how to get back to Tellos. Without you I’m lost.”

  She wiped his forehead with a cool cloth and was surprised to see his eyes twitch.

  “Geoff?”

  The old knight stirred slightly, but his eyes stayed shut. He mumbled something incomprehensible. “Taha…”

  “What? What is it, Geoff? Are you awake? Do you need something?”

  “T-.. taeha.”

  “Taha? What are you saying? Take your time.”

  “Taena.”

  “Taena?” Fiona’s brow furrowed in confusion. What was the old knight talking about?

  “Taena, I… I never stopped. I’m sorry. I…” He lost his thought as a fit of coughing seized him. Fiona patiently waited for him to calm down, never letting go of his hand.

  “What are you saying, Geoff? It’s me, Fiona. I’m here with you.”

  “Taena. I’m sorry Taena. Forgive me… I need… I’m sorry.”

  Fiona was starting get worried. She had never heard of Taena before and didn’t have the slightest slue if Geoff was reliving some terrible dream of his past or merely mumbling nonsense induced by his fever.

  “I’m Fiona. You’re Geoff, the Lord Defender of Haygarden. I need your help, Geoff. I need you.”

  Geoff’s incoherent mutters turned to nothing as he fell asleep. Fiona stayed by his side, holding his hand. Should she mention what he said when he woke up? More likely than not it was simple nonsense, nothing more than the ramblings of a fever dream.

  “We’re going to do everything we can for him,” Harken said from the kitchen where he was chopping onions to put in a stew. “And in the end, that’s very liberating I think. Because it’s the only thing we can do.”

  Fiona didn’t share that sense of optimism, especially not after hearing Geoff say such unsettling things in his dream. Still, it was good to know that they were in Harken’s care. It gave Fiona a sense of assurance in her decision to not go with Jet. It was much better to be here in the care of the father then getting into conflicts that were none of her business with the son.

  “Fiona, there is something you could do that would be helpful.”

  Harken had her attention immediately. “There is an old remedy I just remembered, from my grandmother. If you walk straight into the woods from here, you’ll shortly after come across a river. Follow it west and it will lead you to a grove in the swamp. In that grove there are two things for you to gather. A purple flower that has a beautiful golden center. We want the flowers with the most sappy nectar in them.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  Harken smiled. “Rydjoyo mushrooms. They should be in abundance this time of year. They’re unique in that their bulbs are almost perfectly spherical, and they’re very large.”

  “Are they for a medicine?”

  “The flowers should help with his fever and ease his sleep. The mushrooms are for us. They’re delicious! I once fed them to Greythor and told him it was imported cattle from Tellos. The man believed me!”

  “Happy to help,” Fiona said as she rose. She took a sack for gathering her flowers and mushrooms and quickly made her way into the swamp.

  The afternoon was getting late and a fine ringlet of red wrapped the horizon to the west. It was odd, but as bad as things were for her Fiona felt rather content. As she walked towards the river she realized that rural life might suit her. She had never felt at home in the Leaf District of Haygarden; her snobby classmates made sure of that, and before that the poverty of the shamble-town she grew up in was no suitable place for a person to live.

  It was sad and ironic, she thought, that just as she was starting to figure out a way of life that held some appeal to her it was going to be stripped away. Unless of course she could get to Naerumi though that seemed more unlikely each hour. Perhaps Harken’s medicine would work and Geoff would know what to do. If not… well, no point in thinking about the inevitable.

  At last she came to the stream. Its muddy waters carried lily pads, twigs, and the occasional fish that flowed beneath the surface. Underneath her feet the ground had grown soggy and she could feel her boots slipping into the mud. The swamp carried a strange beauty unlike any she had seen in Tellos. Hanging moss draped the oak trees that stood around with their thick gnarled branches.

  There was something more to it as well. A darkness, some ancient malevolence that she could feel lingering in the air electrifying it. With a shudder she realized she didn’t want to be there longer than necessary after sundown and so she hurried on her way.

  As the sun’s final rays of light splintered through the treetops Fiona approached the grove. There was a thick mist in the air. Immediately she spotted a patch of the odd mushrooms growing at the base of an enormous oak. Before gathering them she wanted to look for the purple flowers with their life-giving nectar so as not to waste the last of the light.

  As she searched the muddy grove Fiona became aware of just how much noise currently surrounded her. A chorus of insects twittered and clicked as the glow of fireflies emerged around her. The choir of life sang in its thousands of distinct sounds. Yet despite that beauty there was still an aura of hostility that troubled her. Not for the first time Fiona thought that she was a stranger in a strange land, and she had best be careful.

  It didn’t take her long to find the flowers. They were bright purple with sprawling petals that maned their honey-colored center. She wasted no time in gathering them into her sack. When she was sufficiently stocked, she moved on to the mushrooms.

  By then darkness had fully descended.

  Fiona was surprised by how quickly the chill of night came upon her. The surrounding swamp transformed into a foggy ocean of purple-black shapes. She suddenly remembered tales of vampyres, rusalkas, and other swamp demons that were said to inhabit this land. Surely they were exaggerated? Surely the people of Morrordraed had their own misinformed perceptions of Tellos? Surely Harken wouldn’t have sent her out in the woods if it was going to be dangerous.

  A piercing howl unnerved her so badly that the demon-pommel blade was half-way out of its sheath. Shakily, Fiona spun around, trying to detect any oncoming danger. She waited for one minute. Two.

  There was silence.

  I’m acting like a scared child, she chided herself. What would Geoff say if he could see me cowering at shadows?

  Still that howl was no shadow, and it was better to be cautious than wolf-food. She quickly filled her sack and started to walk back.

  The chill in the air grew ever more severe. The wind grew colder. Then something odd happened. As she reached the edge of the grove, she felt a resistance as if she were walking through mud.

  She looked down and saw that she was in fact standing on solid ground. A blast of wind came through the trees, chilling her to the bone.

  Fiona

  The voice was hoarse, so low it was barely audible. But Fiona heard it. Heart racing, she wildly looked around, but there was nothing. The surrounding fog was growing thicker, and unless her eyes deceived her, it had grown ghastly blue.

  Please

  There was no mistaking the voice that time. Fiona dropped her sack, drew her weapon in fear, and shouted into the fog. “Who’s there! Show yourself!”

  Her heart raced as she scanned the area. The chill remained, but the wind had ceased. What in the world was happening?

  Feeling a pause in whatever strange energy had held her, Fiona started to leave the grove when she realized that she had forgotten her sack. Swallowing her fear, she forced herself to go back towards that terrible blue madness.

  Fiona bent down to pick up the sack of flowers and mushrooms. As she did, the worst chill of all blasted over her.

  Fiona

  She was staring directly into the face of a man. Not a man, an apparition. The face was translucent blue, and twisted in terrible agony.

>   Fiona Sacrosin had fought many men and had never yet backed down from a fight. But men were creatures of flesh and blood. Bigger and stronger though they may be, they bleed and die when run through with a blade. Whatever this hellish creature was, Fiona did not know how to fight it. She grabbed her sack and fled as fast as her legs could carry her away from the grove and back towards Harken’s house.

  She didn’t stop running until she was nearly back and completely out of breath. Harken’s house was just over the hill in front of her. With a shudder, she turned and looked behind her to make sure nothing had followed her out of the swamp. Her mind calm, she was able to reflect on one terrible thought. She knew that man. She couldn’t say how, but his face was so familiar. He knew her name. She recognized him. They had to have been acquainted somehow.

  Wondering what other terrible surprises Morrordraed would hold for her, Fiona continued back to Harken’s house.

  Chapter Five

  As Fiona approached Harken’s house a soft rain began to fall. Inside Harken was cheerily tending to the food. Geoff’s condition had not changed, he reported. She gave him the mushrooms and flowers and he quickly set to extracting the nectar from them.

  “The nectar will be mixed with plain water and left to sit for a day. Afterwards, it will help shield Geoff’s body from the worst effects of his fever, allowing him to properly heal. It’s an old Barrowbog recipe.”

  “Thank you,” Fiona said.

  She wasn’t really paying attention. Inside she was still greatly shaken up by her encounter with whatever spirit or apparition she had seen in the grove. She considered asking Harken about it, but didn’t want him to think her unstable, so instead she asked, “Did Jet come home while I was gone?”

  Harken’s face clouded. “I’ve heard nothing from the boy. I don’t know what that child is getting himself into, but it’s not going to end well.”

  “He’s just angry,” Fiona said. She wasn’t sure why she was defending him. Maybe she wanted Harken to feel at peace after all the kindness that he showed her. Maybe she could sympathize with someone being angry at the people in power.

  “Anger is bloodshed’s naïve brother,” Harken replied. “Greythor has tried to teach this village that when we reach out to our enemies with love and kindness, their heart’s will be opened to our humanity. But first we must seek to affirm their humanity.”

  Fiona thought it was odd for Harken, with his love your enemy mentality, to be calling anyone naïve. She held her tongue.

  “I know you think me foolish, Fiona. I don’t blame you. You’re young. Youth demands immediacy. You haven’t had time to see the bigger picture. The cyclical nature of all things as Greythor would say.”

  Fiona stepped to the table to chop some mushrooms while Harken distilled the nectar from the flowers. Picking up a knife she said, “Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.”

  “Of course not. You mustn’t think I’m prejudiced against youth. The talents of the young are unique and those who are older depend on them. When there is time for action, when energy is needed, when work is urgently and desperately required, that is when the youth can best use their skills.”

  “I don’t know. It sounds to me like you’re saying the young can do all the work just so much as they don’t think too much about it.”

  “No, no, no,” Harken sighed. “Greythor is really much better at this than I am. Think of it like this. What if we all set out to build a great city? It is the youth alone who have the skill to clear the forest, level the ground, raise the structures, and plant crops to be harvested. What good is all of that if an elder can come upon them once they’re done and say, ‘This land floods once every twenty years. Your city will be washed away.’”

  Fiona frowned. “I don’t know that your analogy makes too much sense.”

  Harken laughed happily at that. “Aye, it probably doesn’t. I have no honeyed tongue like Greythor and for that I apologize. Perhaps I think myself cleverer than I am. I don’t pretend to cleverness, but it’s impossible to reach my age without at least a small piece of wisdom. Don’t underestimate the value of that wisdom, Fiona. What I mean to say, particularly to my son, is that he best think carefully before he draws his sword. The consequences that come of that cannot be sheathed as easily as a blade.”

  Fiona nodded. “You’re right to advise caution on that count,” she said, happy to have something to agree with him on. Whatever philosophical differences they might have, it was clear to her by now that Harken was a good man and she was grateful that he had found them.

  They continued to prepare the food together. Fiona found it surprisingly joyous. She couldn’t remember ever laughing and merrily preparing food in a kitchen. Harken was fond of jokes and riddles and stories. He was also fond of very old wines, which it turned out he had quite the collection of for a simple villager in the swamp. It wasn’t long before he decided to reveal his secret collection to her and the two of them were red-cheeked and smiling as their food cooked.

  “So tell me,” Fiona said as she filled her cup again. “Why do they call this place Barrowbog?”

  “I should think that would be obvious,” Harken said with a smile. “Clearly we are in a bog.”

  “In Tellos Morrordraed is referred to as the swamplands.”

  “We are next to a swamp. A swamp is wetter and has more trees. Bogs are higher up and contain less life.”

  “I didn’t know there was a difference,” Fiona admitted.

  “There’s probably some professor or woodsman that could give you a better explanation,” Harken said. “But that’s the gist of it that I understand.”

  “What about the barrow part?”

  “Again, that should be obvious. Long ago, before the land was constructed as it is now, there was a great slaughter here. The dead, who were greatly revered figures, were buried on this very land.”

  “Who were the dead?”

  “Godlings.”

  “Impossible.” That defied everything Fiona knew about the creatures.

  “Ha, spoken like a true Tellosian.”

  Fiona crossed her arms. “Godlings are immortal. That’s what makes them godlings.”

  Harken smiled in his knowing way. “If that’s your belief then far be it from me to convince you. But you’re the one who asked.”

  “Well come on then,” she said, not satisfied at all with that answer. “Tell me about it.”

  “Not much to tell,” Harken said nonchalantly. “It happened aeons ago. There was some kind of war, or a battle perhaps, depending on whose rumors you’re listening to.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, there are different accounts of it and I doubt mine is fully true, but it’s said that long ago this was a godling settlement. They were attracted to the magic of the land and lived here in their tribes. There was peace and plenty for years until the humans showed up.

  “At first there were some accounts of a peaceful coexistence. Humans are rowdy and prone to war, but not much good will come of that when facing godlings. Eventually though, the humans started to learn a little magic from the godlings. Survival tactics, tricks that were practical and pleasurable. Innocent things. But somewhere down the line the humans started going their own way with it. They combined the magic with their own skills and interests. Some became great healers, others became soundmages. Then there were the necromancers.”

  A shadow passed over Harken’s face. Fiona hung on his every word. “The necromancers were a different sort. Death magic, as we call it here, impacts more than the deceased. It influences the mage who uses it, corrupts the soul, so to speak. The necromancers kept pushing the boundaries of what was possible, eventually reviving things best left dead. The mutant result of these twisted experiments were the vampyres, rusalka, werewolves, apparitions, and other demons that Morrordraed is so abundantly blessed with.”

  “So what about the godlings?” Fiona asked. “How did they die?”

  “Well, t
hey didn’t. Not truly. But they tried to put a stop to the necromancer’s mischief. A feud was started. The necromancers knew that they would never be able to eliminate their enemies in a true sense. So they did something much worse.”

  “Worse than death?”

  “You tell me. They used dark magic to entomb the godlings in the swamp. Not truly alive, the godlings cannot truly be killed. But they can be imprisoned, and that’s exactly what the necromancers of old did to them. They sealed their spirits in trees, in the water, in the very bones of the earth itself. This swamp is a living graveyard.”

  Fiona shuddered. “I can hardly believe it. That’s horrible.”

  Harken nodded gravely. “Indeed it is. You’d be hard pressed to find a worse fate than that. I better be good and dead when they put me in the ground; I’ll tell you that much.”

  Harken moved to stir the stew he was preparing. The fire underneath crackled ominously while Fiona pondered her experience in the swamp. The howl of a wolf. The blue face of death. She couldn’t quite bring herself to mention it to Harken. It felt somehow personal, something she needed to keep to herself for the time being.

  “Don’t trouble yourself over it, Fiona,” Harken said. “I didn’t mean to send your mind wandering with ghost stories. Morrordraed is full of them and I’m sure you’ll hear enough without me.”

  “This place is truly different from Tellos,” Fiona said.

  “Well, why don’t we fill our bel—”

  The sound of shouting interrupted him.

  “What was that?” Fiona asked.

  The two of them silently listened. They could hear horses in the distance, and the shouting of more men.

  “It sounds like Lord Raejo has decided to return to the village,” Fiona said.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Harken said. His face had turned white as snow. “Gods, I hope Jet is okay. That boy doesn’t know how to keep his nose out of trouble.”