Category: Stories

Evensong: A Tale of the Aaralyn (A War of Canticles Story)

The last of the notes rang out over the plain, a minor note, mournful and haunting, fitting, given the surroundings.

The Aaralyn Sisters, linked through holding hands, their auras overlapping, stopped their singing and pulled their minds back from the focused blast they collectively sent into the midst of the warriors bearing down on their surviving remnant.

In the waning state of their collective trance, they heard the bodies of men and horses falling, weapons clattering and clanging as they fell from the dead soldiers’ hands, or fell to the ground, tossed from too far away.

They heard the cries and gasps, curses and screams, as men, used to the power of their strong arms and cruel methods, fell like slaughtered bulls at a pagan feast before the power carried in the singing voices of women half their size.

In the moments that followed, as if from a dream, they opened their eyes.

Gradually, the effects of so great an incant took its toll: some collapsed, most began crying, some cheered, others embraced.

Singer Krista, the Elder among them, merely looked out over the carnage, and gave a deep sigh.

She had given everything, and in victory, felt as empty and afraid as when they began fighting.

The multi-sided attacks decimated their numbers, and there were things that now needed doing that took her beyond the immediate sense of relief and celebration.

The priests, the wizards, the witches, the sorcerers and sorceresses had all come a-killing, to take the voices, and power of the Aaralyn, because they dared not abuse it to rule the world.

The warriors were the last.

In not fighting, Krista knew now, the Aaralyn made the world think they could not.

They’d just proven the world wrong, though the cost was dear.

The sun was low in the sky, and the clouds were breaking.

In the distance, the birds began to circle.

“Is it finally over, Singer Krista? Do you hear anything?”

The speaker was young, new to them by two years, gifted, but untried, until now.

Krista turned weary eyes to her, and saw the young woman trembling, eyes wide, still fearful, full of nervous energy and adrenaline, but skittish now; the carnage had overwhelmed her resolve.

Had the battle continued, this one would have bolted, or died, but Krista could not hold that against her.

“We are all that remain, Singer Willow.”

Singer Willow embraced Krista tightly, needing something solid to hold onto, physically as well as mentally, and Krista returned the embrace, looking out on the carnage as the girl’s body shivered against hers, her quiet sobs muffled in Krista’s dusty robes.

She cries on me, for she believes me to be strong, but there is no one stronger to comfort me.

I hope the Victory Canticle is completed, or the last thirty years have been for nothing.

 

***************

By the time they returned to Singers Hall, the snow was falling, and they had just made it in before the storm.

Baths ran long, wine flowed freely, sleep ran deep, and as the days passed, the sick were tended, the wounded bound, the dead buried, and those who needed help to deal with what they’d seen and done received it.

In the weeks that followed, as the snow melted, and the roads were muddy and troublesome, but passable, and the sea more or less temperate, if cold, some packed to return home, renouncing the elite sect of Singers.

Singer Krista bade them farewell, and wished them the best, and released them to their destinies outside of the Aaralyn’s ranks.

It was not a calling for everyone, and those who tried to force themselves to be a part of something that went against their better judgment, went against their own souls, were counseled to voluntarily leave.

They forcibly expelled those who did not take that option, but continued to struggle.

******************

Singer Janis knocked on the door, and Krista bade her enter.

“How are you, Krista?”

“I’m tired, Janis, in more ways than I care to count, but we are here. The Canticle…?”

“It’s finished. I saw it personally, looked it over. We tested the incants, and they didn’t penetrate.”

“And the protection?”

“Made from the finest, by the best in the realm; it will be well protected.”

“I’m pleased.”

Janis turned to go.

“Stay a moment, Janis. I need to talk.”

Janis turned, surprised.

“All right.” She sat.

Krista sat up straighter, folded her hands in her lap.

“I’m disbanding the Aaralyn.”

Janis sighed, shifted in her own seat. “I was wondering…”

“You’re not surprised?”

“Not at all. I even understand why.”

“Why?”

“Our numbers are greatly reduced; we lost a lot of power in those battles. We need to replenish, and these young women can’t do that here.”

“Exactly. You do understand.”

“But they will marry common men; there’s no equivalent to our order among men.”

“True, but there is nothing to be done for it; the mothers will recognize the daughters who have the gift. We’ve had Aaralyn who’ve abandoned our ranks throughout history.”

Janis nodded.

“But as for the Canticle of Victory, I have a plan.”

And as the night unfolded, she told Janis about it.

**************

“Seems a bit dramatic, Krista, but all right; you know that even crystal can shatter at the right frequency.”

“That may be true of ordinary crystal; this isn’t.”

“How so?”

“All of the factions have contributed, but we put in the final piece, the key that unlocks the Victory Canticle to draw it out, without shattering the container, and its protector.”

“And what is the key?”

Krista smiled.

“She hasn’t been born yet.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Krista…”

“There is, but see it done, Janis. Please.”

Janis took that as her cue, and rose to leave.

“I’ll see it done.”

2)

 

     Toward winter’s end, as the battle weariness began to fade, and the women began to return to a sense of life, if not normalcy, Singer Krista felt the time had come, and called a gathering in the ampitheater.

The Aaralyn came, curious, excited, and nervous, as they’d more or less passed the winter in idleness, left to their own devices.

Some practiced, some studied, some pursued hobbies, and there were the usual amounts of squabbles, clique fighting and infighting, but now they were eager to get on with things.

Krista and Janis had seen to the nobility that called on the Great Hall after the cleanup, seeking their alliance in gaining this throne or that throne.

Krista let it be known that having been attacked from all sides, they would take no sides, since they’d had no allies in their hour of need.

Soon, it wouldn’t matter.

The ampitheater carried sound, so there was no need for her to raise her voice.

When Krista took the stage, the ladies grew quiet.

“Welcome, Singers. There is no easy way to say this, but this will be our final gathering.”

There were some surprised gasps and cries, but the Elder put her hands up for silence.

“We’ve known this day was coming for some time.

“Look around you.”

She gave them a moment as they did.

“These are all that remain.”

She let that sink in.

“The time has come for us to rejoin the world.”

More cries of resistance peppered the air.

“Singers…sisters…we must be realistic; our times and purposes have been fulfilled, and the Aaralyn have emerged victorious.

“But we must ever be present in the world, lest these times come again.

“And for that, we need children, and for that, we must rejoin the world.

“My own time is past, my children long taken from this world at the war’s beginning, to break me. To stop me. And it almost did.

“But those of you who remain are young, fertile, and for the most part…”

She smiled.

“…beautiful.”

There was a ripple of laughter, as intended, and she waited until it passed.

“And then, there are the Canticles.”

They once more gave her their attention.

“The books have survived, and been copied. There are compendiums, hidden, and individual copies, the ones you received. The ones you used to ensure our survival.

“When we depart, you will have these books among you, so they will be scattered throughout the world as we know it. Guard them well, with your lives if need be.

“But as you leave to start your lives over, and start your families, there is one Canticle that will remain here, buried and unmarked.”

Murmurs of surprise filled the theater.

“This Canticle will be used to defeat any more factions that may gather in the future; it is the most potent of all. It will supersede all others, even those written by the factions against us.

“It was worked on in secret by the most gifted Aaralyn, centuries before most of your births.

“We had to search for it, and in the searching, we lost more of us, even as we were devastated in the killing that almost consumed us.

“The remnant of factions against us that survive already works its opposite to counter, but as yet have not succeeded, according to such spies as remain among them.”

She noticed them beginning to shift, and knew she had to close.

“This is the last piece that needs to be done before we go.”

She removed from beneath the podium an ornate teak box with bronze reinforcements and locks.

Opening it, she removed a faceted crystal, light blue, with an opalescent vapor slowly swirling about within it.

The women admired its beauty as Krista held it in sure hands.

“This is the Canticle of Victory.”

She placed it back in the box, and removed another; this one was black with silver reinforcements and locks.

From that, she removed a coiled serpent, wrapped three times, also of crystal.

Some of the women murmured at that, some looked away.

She then took the crystal out again, and placed it in the serpent’s coils.

The opalescent vapor in the crystal came out, and entered into the coils of the snake.

As it filled, the snake’s hood spread, revealing it to be a cobra.

Krista could sense the repulsed fascination, and indeed, as Janis said, it was dramatic.

Her audience gasped.

“The Canticle of Victory is now sealed, until the next time it is needed. It will be left in a mountain cave with nothing to mark it, the passing of time burying it further still, but don’t worry, Singers.

“Whoever needs to use it, they will find it. She will be told of its existence, and if she is the right one, at the right time, she will find it on her own.”

Another silence, but this one was heavy, as the Elder began to weep.

“It has been my life’s honor to fight beside you.

“Your bravery, though unrecorded, will live on in the fact that the world still exists, tattered and bruised though it may be.

“Our power, and our unity, did that.

“The earth you now walk is the one you helped save, and as we depart from here…”

   She sniffled, and dabbed at her eyes.

“May your daughters be blessed to fill our Great Halls once more with song, and our world with peace.”

“We are adjourned.”

She put the serpent and crystal in the black and silver box, and sealed it with an incant.

Her attendant came, took it, gave a brief nod, and left to start toward the mountain cave.

Applause thundered, tears flowed, cries, songs, and ululations rocked the ampitheatre as the women hugged, kissed, and embraced each other.

Krista moved among them, smiling, blessing, and as the sky darkened and the theater emptied, the sun set and the moon rose, and the chill winds blew snow from the peaks, the age of the Aaralyn passed into history, faded with time.

And the final notes of their farewells soaked into the stars above, to disappear in the light of a new dawn.

**************************

When Singer Lisa arrived at the cave, the moon was high.
The horse was somewhat winded, but she’d explored the mountains often as she hunted, and she’d remembered to bring oats, carrots, and let it drink from the stream where she’d spent many an afternoon poring over her Canticles.
With deft movements she exposed the cave’s covering.
When a gust of wind blew sparkling virgin snow, she placed her scarf over her mouth and nose as she retrieved a lantern from another pack she’d fastened to the saddle.
This needs to be done quickly.
She left the pack with the box on her back; she’d endured its discomfort there for the sake of its importance for the whole ride; a few more minutes wouldn’t make a difference.

She slipped inside the cave.
In the narrow tunnel she had to bend, but it would open back up to where she could stand again.
She reached the space, allowing the lantern light to fill the space and her eyes to adjust.
A figure in a black robe lined with silver sat on a rock, and turned to look at Lisa.
Its eyes were blood red, and glowing, and its skin white as the virgin snow surrounding them.
It stood up, and in its left hand was a walking stick of old bone.
Its lips were thin, and flushed with red as well, darker than its eyes, but stark in contrast against its face.
Langorously, it extended its right arm, and the hand, with long fingers and hooked red nails, was palm up.
It spoke to Lisa in a woman’s voice, low, almost sultry, belying its bizarre appearance.
“Ah, welcome, Singer…” it tilted its head a bit, “…Lisa, is it? I see you’ve come to return my pet.”

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.    2015

Nomad

I was down on the waterfront, looking out at the waves, watching the boats and jet-skis, looking over at the private beaches, where the sun shone more brightly, and the illusion of a better life beckoned like a whore in a neon lit window.

One last time, I wanted that illusion.

One last time, to try to make it real for me.

That’s why I was down here, burning up in the high humidity of a day in July, waiting for the contact to give me the latest information on my final assignment:

Who do I kill next?

I’m called Nomad. My real name was erased years ago; I didn’t like it anyway.

No family to speak of, no wife, and no candidates for that position on the horizon, I was free to travel and murder at will.

It was a dangerous life, and so far, I’d come out on top; that wouldn’t always be the case, I knew, and there were times it got close, but not close enough.

I lived with it; death was the dance partner who every now and then stepped on your toes and kneed you in the balls just to let you know she was not enjoying your company.

The contact waddled up, all sweaty and wheezing, trying to light a cigarette with the lighter in his right hand while he fished around in his pocket for the chip with his left.

“Here.” He held it out in his sweaty palm.

I took a napkin out of my pocket and took it from him; he narrowed his eyes at me, and I smiled, and he looked away.

I put the chip into the port they inserted behind my ear, and heard the locking click.

The file took shape: holograms, maps, pictures, names, dates, locations, and finally the target.

“Who is he?”

“Your counterpart in that country.”

“And we want him, why?”

“You don’t get paid to ask questions; with him removed, you actually make more money.”

“He looks like he’s twelve.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t do it if he was.”

That was probably truer than I cared to think about at the moment. I let it pass.

“You gonna confirm, Nomad? It’s bitchin hot out here.”

I confirmed.

“You leave in two hours.”

I nodded.

He walked away, gave a lazy wave, and the bullet burst his skull like an overripe melon.

Gonna be late for my flight…

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.

The Making of Vy Rill (2)

2:

She was very much aware of his presence, though her body had been sleeping.

He did not realize that there was nothing he could do to her that she did not allow, for as he smeared her blood across his fingertips and tasted her, a thread of his dead spirit filtered in through her, and initially corrupted, then enhanced her nature.

Enduring the sickness, she did not let him see her tremble, and through some miracle, managed to hold her gorge.

He was not merely old, but ancient, and smelled of the dust and bones of ancient catacombs long buried and forgotten.

She also felt the essence of his lust, a thin, light band of energy over the corruption; she saw the faces of women, lovely and in their physical prime, saw the bodies writhing beneath him, grinding over him, and what he did with them when it was over.

Multiple abattoirs dotted the landscape where he’d been at work.

She made a silent vow to avenge them all.

 

************

   “Janyris,” said her father, “this dabbling in things mortal is not for you; it will come to no good end. You must be ready to ascend your station when your mother passes.”

   For awhile, she complied, and played the dutiful daughter until her mother actually passed, not in the traditional sense; she merely went to the underworld and never returned.

   Her father was suspect that she had gone voluntarily, to be with the gods that dwelt there, but he dared not go after her, for fear of finding out if that were true.

   He’d been a good father, but as to husband, Janyris couldn’t say.

   She left too, unannounced, unsuspected, and left her father to fend for himself, and find succor where he would.

   She observed the mortals for awhile, creatures of habit, and routine, much like ants and migratory birds, scattering in panics when crisis came, then banding together to rally and rebuild, if they could.

   They were boring, but she admired their tenacity to survive and keep their mundane species in existence.

   In time, they came to amuse her, and she was content to meddle in minor ways, until one day, she saw something that piqued her interest, and went into a deeper world.

   A small boy was sleeping, the moonlight soft on his innocent face, and she saw a shadow in his room detach itself, and come to stand by his bed.

Its eyes were open, and a pale violet shade.

She grew intrigued, and looked closer.

The shadow reeked of death and evil; she dared draw no closer, lest it sense her presence; indeed, it had already looked up at the ceiling twice, sensing something, and she wasn’t sure she’d hidden in time, but as it didn’t pursue her, she knew she wasn’t seen.

   This was the sort of being that killed when discovered.

   He took the boy’s hand, and pricked the skin of his index finger with a long nail of his own.

   The child thrashed under his covers, then grew still, and the shadow retreated.

   As the sun rose, the boy’s body simply dissipated, skin melting into bone melting into the dust motes in the light of the morning sun, and his body simply drifted apart, his soul taken and his flesh removed.

   The parents were in agony, and did not last long together, and in their isolation, grew despondent, and died not long thereafter.

   She wanted to go to them, but she dared not.

 

Then came the fateful night they met, and she made her vow in front of him.

He saw the glimmer of something in her, and showed his true face, and she knew in that moment she had him.

And now he was a part of her, and she of him.

It was going to be glorious fight.

Ah, my dear Rillion, you don’t know what you’ve done. Taking your soul will redeem my own, and the damnation that awaits you is beyond description.

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.   2015

The Making of Vy Rill

1)

By the light of a single candle, she lay sleeping.

He knew from what she’d told him before that the glow made her feel warm inside, the color and motion of the flame always pleased her eyes; she’d fallen asleep watching it.

High above, the moon shone what light it could from the cratered crescent slice hanging in the heavens.

Her raven braids, thin and intricate, languished across the pillow that cradled her head.

Her honey brown skin glistened with amber highlights.

He looked at her form, outlined in the covers; it was curvy and full, and if he’d still been mortal, he’d have found himself stirred as in the days of old.

She was beautiful, but it wasn’t enough; she was good, kind, loving, even-tempered, patient, and loyal.

Long were the months he watched her, through seasons, through years, past her first decade, just short of her full second. He observed her almost daily then, interacting with the people in her life. The times she lost her temper, her composure, and control were rare, but she was human, after all, and he’d seen those times as well.

Even then, she would not lash out; she would cry and rail and scream, but she never hurt anyone, or anything. For the most part, she carried out her tantrums in the privacy of her room.

In his last choosing, he’d chosen an exceptional girl; she’d been so in every way, but he soon found there was nothing to mold, nowhere for him to begin to groom her for who she was to become.

Her inherent arrogance, combined with her beauty and her newly bestowed gifts, made her insufferable, and in the end, in a violent, savage act, he took her life.

This girl, while above average, would prove to be more pliable; her heart was naturally giving, and that would be to his advantage.

He was indeed grateful they’d evolved; no longer the red, messy biting and tearing, however subtle and sublime, of tender flesh, warm to the touch, the coppery ambrosia of life flowing into, and down, sating hunger, inciting passion, as lips, teeth and tongue formed a trifecta of perfect murder, picturesque deaths.

Now, he had but to take her hand, so he did.

She didn’t wake, but stirred, undulating under the covers, a soft little moan on her sweet lips. She instinctively pulled her hand back, and he let it go.

The deed was done. The pinprick of his fingernail had drawn her blood in through the flesh pads of his fingers. He smeared her blood across them, felt the warmth of it, saw the soul-glow inside of it.

 

He licked his index finger and almost swooned at the taste. It was tempting to take more than he needed with this one. Her blood was as sweet as her personality, but he refrained.

There was something else in her blood,, something he didn’t expect.

There would be others to draw from soon, and he would have his fill, but this one was special.

He’d met her years ago as a child, and there was something in her eyes that recognized him for what he was, yet she’d shown no fear.

She was enchanting, until she told him something that piqued his curiosity.

“I’m going to kill you one day.”

A pinprick of rage briefly altered his features into the demonic, but it was only a flash.

She was the only one who saw it, and she grinned.

He saw the red glimmer of the seed in her eyes as she looked at him, and vowed he’d come back for her.

This was that time; he was calling her to him, and would mark her as his.

If she could still kill him after that, it would be no small feat; her power would be great indeed.

Greater than his.

And that, he could not allow.

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.  2015

Night Roads (5)

A rush of wind wrapped around the inn as a night storm approached, a night I’d now be spending alone because of my…. stupidity. It mattered, but it didn’t; anything in excess wasn’t a good thing, and we’d renewed our ‘affections’ that afternoon. Truth is, that probably was a mistake as well, but if I didn’t survive, I’d have lovely memories while the life leaked out of me.

Alazne and I had worked things out; we were going to kill Jonas Noll first, she said, because it would quickly dishearten the others, maybe even cause them to run. We’d start tracking him in the morning. The next planning session was with Amia, to find out what she was going to do about Malika. If she was as powerful as Amia said, and found out what we were doing, she wasn’t likely to stand idly by and let us go unfettered as we wrecked her plans. I was and wasn’t looking forward to that. Sprawled out on the bed, quieting my thoughts with deep breathing, letting the candle gutter, I heard the rumble of distant thunder; it sounded like a giant snoring under a blanket, and the sky began to flash with the heated brilliance of lightning gathering power. It had been a long day, and I had a lot to think about, but it was late and I was tired.

I closed my eyes, and stopped thinking of the details that still niggled at my mind; this was not going to go perfectly, no matter how well planned. I’d lived long enough to know that nothing ever really does. I wasn’t even sure of my motivation for doing it. Was it to rekindle what I had once with Amia? She’d changed so much, grown so powerful, no longer the innocent ingénue she actually was when we first met, that a reunion of substance didn’t seem likely. In looking back at how I filled that time between then and now, there’d been no real progress;

I was, at heart, a mercenary, mostly playing at bounty hunting. The work suited my temperament, and I traveled in the process, meeting a wide variety of crazy people, getting into harrowing situations, and somehow still coming out alive, if not always victorious. And who were these women Amia wanted to join?

Having no interest in magic myself, it had sometimes been at the periphery of things I was working on, whispers and rumors I dismissed as superstition and spent no time investigating, since it never impeded my pursuit and capture of the person I hunted. Who would benefit from them retaining their foothold, and how did Amia really know their true intentions if she had not yet been admitted to their ranks?

And then there was Alazne: young, enigmatic, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, stealthy as a spider and just as quiet. Why was she with Amia? Where did she come from, and how much of wood lore and weaponry did she really know?

She was tough to get a read on, and if it was just bravado (I didn’t think it was, I just wasn’t sure), we were both going to die by Jonas’ hand. So much for letting go. I turned, pulling the covers over me, reliving the events in my mind of a long, pleasantly physical afternoon that I could have actually been reliving…actually. It would have to suffice, for now.

Sleep was a while in coming, but eventually, her soft fingers lowered my lids, and a thought drifted up like a tendril of mist from warm soil on a chilly morning.

Great, a mid-life crisis on a rainy night. Only you, Haskell. Only you…

*************************

Sometime before morning, a floral fragrance filled the room; I knew all of Amia’s perfumes, and this wasn’t among them. Alazne, who I had no doubt could get into any room she desired, always smelled of earthy loam: a combination of soil and pine and creature.

The storm was over, and the sky outside was paling, but there was, as yet, no physical light. The woman who sat on the stool beside my bed looked at me with gentle eyes and a small smile on her lips, as if she were watching a baby she didn’t know who’d aroused her maternal instinct. Her hands reposed in her lap, weaponless, but that meant nothing in a being of magic.

“Hello, Haskell,” said a dulcet and mellifluous female voice.

I pulled myself into a sitting position, and studied her back. The smile grew a bit more, and the eyes didn’t waver, but locked with mine, inviting me into their depths.

I knew without knowing, and named her. “Malika.”

She inclined her head, and strands of a glorious raven mane draped her cheeks. Her eyes were the blue of snow in moonlight, a soft and pale shadowy blue; everything about her was still, and calm. Had she not spoken I might have believed her a piece of painted sculpture.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re here to tell me not to help Amia.”

She took a little breath, pulled the strands off her cheeks, a pretty, feminine and elegant gesture;  I found myself wishing I’d done it for her first.

“On the contrary, Haskell. I’m  here to tell you that I’ll  help you do it.”

I let that sink in; it took awhile, but she waited, calm as a boulder in a raging river.

“Why?”

“Because we want the same thing, but I’m about to tell you something Amia doesn’t know yet, and you’re not to breathe a word.”

This was getting to be tangled roots, and that was never a good thing, but I waited.

She gauged me a while longer than needed, and I found myself getting uneasy under that soft blue gaze. After a moment, she seemed to steel herself to trust me with her secret:

“Amia is my cousin.”

I cleared my throat, sat up straighter. “She wants to kill you.”

“And that’s why I’m here, because you have to stop her.”

“Let me guess; without letting her know who you are?”

“Yes.”

“How am I to do that?”

“Well, you spent the afternoon…planning…with her and Alazne; let’s spend what remains of the night planning this.”

I sighed.

Sleep had vanished around the corner, and the horizon began to bleed a thin stream of color.

“Very well.”

She smiled that quiet smile again, and my heart skipped a beat.

This was going to be a problem…

© Alfred W. Smith Jr. 2015

Night Roads (con’t 3)

3)

 

Alazne led me back to the road where she met me, again in the lead, using that unerring, unnerving, confident stride she used at the start of the night, as if the sun was shining and she could see every tangled root underfoot.

 

“The inn’s about a mile that way; you’re going to need this.”

She handed me the lantern.

“And you won’t?”

She just smiled, and slipped back into the forest, the dark swallowing her up.

 

********************

The windows of the inn were dark, but the moon was beginning to set; I was loathe to knock, but I was tired, cold, and hungry, and thanks to Amia’s generosity, I would be able to afford to alleviate all three.

My knock was answered by a grizzled old man made of whipcord muscles and whiskers.

His eyes were small and mean, and he only opened the door a crack.

“I’m of a mind to leave you outside, ‘cept the missus would have m’ hide. Yer not runnin’ from the law, are ya?”

I tried a smile. “Not at the moment.”

He didn’t see the humor, and reluctantly let me inside.

“We keep a room prepared for such emergencies. Ain’t much to look at, but it will serve for the rest of the night.”

He took my lantern and led the way.

The room was as he said it would be, functional with not much in the way of luxury.

“I’ll take yer coin now, in case yer of a mind to leave earlier than we get up.”

I felt bad for his wife; left to his own devices, there’d be no inn.

His unnecessary surliness was also starting to annoy me; while it was true I woke him up, I was no beggar looking for scraps.

I paid him, and he left without another word.

Stripping down to what I would be comfortable leaving on in case of running outside in an emergency, I gave myself over to the exhaustion that had already seeped into my bones.

 

**************

In the morning, bathed, shaved, fed, and feeling relatively like a part of the human race again, I was back out on the road.

Finding a shady spot by mid-morning, I stopped and took a look at the list of council members.

Turns out I knew the first name: Jonas Noll.

He’d been a hunter of some renown in this area for quite some time; it was safe to assume that the game he once hunted was now faster and smarter, and he decided to stop before the law of averages worked against him.

Smart hunter, but dumb if he thought Amia was going to let him run roughshod over her opportunity to advance. He’d had some experiences with her as well, and probably decided there’d be safety in numbers.

He was wrong, and I would be the one to tell him so by ending his life, or die trying: older hunters grew craftier with the years. I would really have to plan where to move, and it had to be out of his sphere of influence, with no witnesses.

I scanned through the rest; some I knew casually, others were strangers. Out of all of them, Jonas probably posed the biggest threat.

It would best to work through the strangers first; there were five of them. Two lived some distance away, and while I didn’t really see why they’d get caught up in local politics in this place, it was a safe bet money was involved, probably in matters of voting or breaking bones, or both.

This would have to be a one day event; to spread it out would mean mounting suspicion, and while I was careful, if the right person was in the right place at the wrong time, it could mean the difference between life and death.

To hit them at a meeting would be the most practical; there’d be anonymity in the crowd, but it wouldn’t be a real test of my skills.

What Amia said about my taunting came back to mind; it was a cautionary tease: don’t mess this up.

I sighed, wanting to draw it out against my better judgment and Amia’s wishes.

All right. A one shot deal. I could use Alazne’s stalking skills to good advantage.

I put the parchment back in the back; the gold was secure under a floorboard in the room, and I got up slower than I remembered getting up before, to go get the layout of the town, a bit of trepidation in my step, because this place attracted a lot of travelers

Hopefully, no one would recognize me from a past adventure in a distant land; if they did, the assignment would stop before it began.

I decided I couldn’t take the chance.

Amia was going to have to help me. My face needed to change, but not drastically. It was the small changes in details that threw off eyewitnesses: a moustache where there wasn’t one, a scar, an eye patch, or just growing longer hair, could make all the difference in escaping bounty hunters leafing a town with Wanted posters.

Unfortunately, I’d learned through experience.

With everything in me thrumming with resistance, I began walking the path back up to her place. She wouldn’t be happy to see me, but she might help me, and I really did need to speak with her about utilizing her mysterious protégé.

© Alfred W. Smith Jr

Journey to Word Mountain

When he arrived after many days, he was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted.

It was still some distance away, but at least within view, and he spoonfed his heart what little hope he was able to convey, since it lifted his spirit to at least be able to see it.

He began thinking about walking the pleasant paths, carefully picking those he wanted; it wouldn’t be that the others were not good, but he would not need them. He lit the fire of his imagination, poured some warm wine into his mouth, found some shade, and took a long, much needed, and peaceful rest, drifting off as the stars peeked at him and the moon rose to put bathe him in its soft, pale lemon light.

In the pleasant cool breeze of the coming morning, amid a raucous chorus of birdsong, he set off for the final leg of his journey.

He would climb to the summit, and from there, be able to pick and choose his next path.

At mid morning, he stopped, not quite believing he’d made it: the mountain was in front of him.

He could see it, feel the wind that emanated from it, see the shadows cast by the rising sun, and his heart swelled within him.

It was nothing short of glorious!

Wanting to gather strength, he ate a light meal, checked the large empty spaces of his bag, and approached the base of the mountain with an almost holy reverence, even as his vision scanned about for the first word.

He saw it, and his heart thrilled. Kneeling to pluck it from the clutches of the tangle surrounding it, he held it up, examined it, and satisfied that it would do, he placed it in his sack.

“Once.”

The next word, being somewhat unusual, took him longer to find, and it was almost noon before he finally saw it. He repeated the morning ritual, and again, the word went into his bag.

“upon”

By the time gathered the other two, ‘a’ and ‘time,’, the sun was going down, and he began to realize

This is not going to be as easy as I first thought.

But he had his opening line….

Night Roads

It started with a lantern on a road at night.

I was traveling alone, as I often did, my senses not on edge, but not dormant. The stars and moon were old friends now, comfortable, and not the beautiful distractions, the harbingers of romantic foolishness they’d been.

My weapons were sharp, my pace was easy, my body was sound, but I was thinking of the rest to come; they day was long, and as the horse clopped along beside me, a light came the opposite way, seeming to dance in the air, clinking as it approached.

Someone was holding up a lantern, the light pushing them into deep shadow so that only part of their face was lit.

I said nothing, and put the knife in my hand.

The light must have glinted off the blade, because they stopped.

“I’ve no money. Please don’t hurt me.”

It was the voice of a child, but that meant nothing; there were people in this world who had no problem using children as a ruse to tragic endings.

“Show yourself.”

They put down the light, and I watched their moonlit shadow as they removed the hood.

“It’s just me…”

I still kept the knife to hand because we had to pass each other.

“Move along, then, and keep to your side of the road. I’ll keep to mine, and we’ll get where we’re going.”

“But it’s you I was looking for.”

I sighed, running out of patience. “Considering we’ve met for the first time, and I don’t count youths among my friends, I doubt it, now–”

“She told me I’d find you here, on this road.”

“Who did?”

“The woman at the cottage on the hill. She said you called her ‘Amia.'”

It sent a jolt through me, because I thought I’d lost her. In fact, I had, but here she found me.

“She’s there, waiting for you. She asked me to meet you and show you the way back.”

“And what’s your name…?”

“Alazne.”

I half expected her to say she was my daughter, but nothing else seemed forthcoming, and I stood there for a moment or two longer than necessary.

“It’s getting late, sir. Will you come, or not? I am to either bring you, or tell her why.”

Nothing in me rang any warning bells; I was curious as to what happened to her, how she knew I was here, why she sent this young girl through a night forest to an empty road, and how at precisely the time of night I’d be on it.

As I recalled, she had no great powers to speak of, at least, of the supernatural kind.

Still, the best decisions throughout history were seldom made by moonlight, and perhaps a little of the old magic from those celestial bodies that have wreaked havoc on the heart were not quite done with me.

“Lead on, Alazne.”

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.

The Mark of Cane

The children were crying, wrapped in chains and manacles, covered in scars from when they’d first resisted.

They didn’t resist now. They couldn’t if they wanted to; they were hungry and tired from their long journey.

The slavers let them sleep, but didn’t feed them for a few nights, though they kept them in drugged water. In days they were gaunt, bedraggled, and dejected.

After five days, they gave them scraps, and watched them pummel, kick, and bite each other for an extra piece, laughing and betting.

After ten days, when they began nearing the city, they fattened the kids who survived the fighting up with full meals to make a decent presentation at auction, and peace reigned in the camp once more, for a time.

A day’s ride out from the city gates, the slavers woke to find their sentries dead, and the children gone. A dark figure in a broad brimmed hat stood among them as they approached him in a circle, their leader stepping forward, his own knife drawn, to confront the silent intruder, who had his head down inside the hood that hid his face.

“You have until a minute ago to bring those brats back, or tell me where they are.”

The figure, his eyes hidden by the brim, gave an enigmatic smile, and then he lifted his eyes, and looked at the slaver.

The slaver’s skin sloughed off his body in a red, wet heap, and his flesh and bones sagged like sludge, collapsing in red, gory mound, spreading out in a pool of meat and guts and bone.

He heard the sound of men crying out, vomiting, shouting, cursing, praying, and finally, running.

In less than a minute the camp stood abandoned.

The figure turned to go, when the curtain on the leader’s tent parted, and a dark-haired young girl of some twelve or fourteen summers emerged. She looked at the pile of flesh that had only last night claimed her maidenhead, and left her crying and bruised, then she looked at the figure.

“Who are you, mister?”

“My name,” he said, as he removed his hat and bowed to her, “is Cane. Come with me, and I’ll take you to the others.”

Having nowhere to go now, she put out the last of the campfire, and walked toward him, stopping to spit on the red, stinking rubble of her rapist, gave her hand to Cane, and the two of them left the camp without looking back.

 

© Alfred W. Smith Jr.

On Black History Month

“They did not take slaves from Africa; they took people from Africa, and made them slaves.”

For years, they brought them out like Christmas decorations, only it was February: Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Banneker, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the ever-ubiquitous Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry, Mahalia Jackson and Louis Armstrong.

No one but my father ever spoke of those with more militant stances, more edgy, prickly points of view: Eldridge Cleaver (Iceberg Slim) Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale (founders of the Black Panthers) Malcolm X before his renouncing of the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad, and Imiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones).

I did not know of the brilliant, biting edge of James Baldwin, the struggles of Josephine Baker, the strength and vulnerability of the tragic, plaintive-voiced Billie Holiday, the towering courage of Paul Robeson and the fiery Vernon Jordan.

These figures made people ‘afraid’ and ‘uncomfortable.’

We learned that 6 million Jews died and saw films on the horrors of the Holocaust, but as black children we were not taught about the 9 million Africans who died on the journey across the Atlantic Ocean on a sailing lane called the Middle Passage, where slaves still chained together were tossed overboard, either deliberately to lighten cargo, or jumped willingly in order to die free, or just because they didn’t survive, but neither did we learn about Nat Turner (except that he led a rebellion and died, as if that was all there was to know) or the legal victory of the black men of the HMS Amistad.

And over the years, we learned the stories of our annual decorations. We saw films on the Civil Rights movement taking place in the south, having no idea those attitudes existed in the north, and given no awareness through our history textbooks that it was a global truth, if not universal:

Dark skin is evil.

It didn’t matter what form of evil, because all sorts of stories were concocted based generally around these two principals: Black was unclean, White was pure. Black was inferior, White was superior.

Yet, I was taught in science class that in the spectrum, black is the absence of color, and white contained them all. Why were we being persecuted for something we were not?

When I sang, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, until fourth grade I did not know my fathers died differently, I believed that Pilgrims and Indians lived in harmony. When I sang America the Beautiful, I did not know that its Natives had been stripped of their dignity, slaughtered like sheep, ravaged like Sabine virgins, and tossed aside as rubble.

I didn’t even know that as low as they were, they still owned Black men and women.

I was taught that the Quakers helped slaves escape to Canada to freedom. I have learned, only recently, that it was not so. There were slaves in Canada, too, and some who were free, were sold back.

Long buried in the archives of old libraries lay the story of my people, the mixing of my own ancestry, not just here in America, but across the world, doomed to die dusty deaths in the recessed shadows of long abandoned archives, unless one truly took the time to unearth them.

And then the Internet came, and grew, and evolved, and the archives were dredged and lovingly sorted, restored, and made available. And I learned that far more Black people achieved great things in the face of impossible odds and incredible oppression: denied admission, having no transportation, being ripped off, gutting of project financing, threats of death, and they kept going and became pilots and doctors, nurses and teachers, judges and lawmen, cowboys and business owners, so many, many names bubbling out of the soil after so much blood soaked in…

Their vision was clear and focused, their drive to succeed unstoppable, unshakable, and unswerving.

And all, all, having one common thread: ancestors brought here not to live, but to work, as commodities, not people, as beasts, and not men.

And they survived.

And I do indeed live here now, a free man in America, because of their sacrifice and vision, not limited to twenty-eight days in a government building. The storehouse is mine to visit, whenever I choose:

blackpast.org

blackhistorypages

blackhistory.com

These are just a few of the storerooms available online these days, rich with information. If you would gain some perspective, I invite you to celebrate with us, and not just for the month.

There are no ‘colored only’ signs on these doors….