Thrice Advent chapters 17 and 18

Chapter Seventeen

BREAKFAST IN THE WHITE COTTAGE

Alone Marayela cared for the mortally wounded High Wasp in the clearing outside the Cottage of the white rose.  Within the cottage Dalrosse sat with Crow upon his shoulder unable to take his eyes away from the small, seemingly fragile White Rose.  It was tiny not more than a few inches tall.  An uncomfortable thought entered his mind, he could take the white rose, what use was it in this dismal cottage when with it Dalrosse could fulfil his quest that would heal the land.

The caretaker as he introduced himself was preparing food, the smell of the cooking meat and odour of spices made Dalrosse suddenly ravenous, the hunger took from his benighted thoughts of stealing the rose and swiftly continue on his journey to find the other Roses.

The Caretaker seemed amenable enough and perhaps once he heard of Dalrosse’s quest would not begrudge a cutting from the rose.  When the food was ready and lain beside the Shouel, the Caretaker was silent, as if he were relishing the bliss of Dalrosse devouring his food.  Of course the Crow perched upon his shoulder ate too, some of the cracked ham and the gristly meat that Dalrosse fed him by hand.

The Caretaker was at the window.

‘Xhanu is dead’, his said bluntly. Dalrosse looked out of the window.  On her knees, as if she did not want lift herself again into a world without her, Xhanu, the joyous beast of the Demense, a weak hand, powerless with grief held a hand upon the High Wasp as if her life would restore life into Xhanu. By the way she held her head, her body shaking he could tell she was weeping. He wrapped in some clothes the remnants of his meal and took it out to the fey maid in the clearing.

‘Here is something to keep you going.  Come into the cottage.  She has gone Marayela’

He sat beside her and held her hand.  ‘There is nothing we can do, but you need food. Here take it now and perhaps you will sleep by the wasps side and dream her last dream, of Freedom and Flight as she soared over the mountains, leaving her young ones, so she could save us.’ He opened the napkin.  ‘Look there’s lots of food left for you.’

She almost screamed. ‘I do not want food.  I need distillate; it will revive Xhanu and send her home to us from the Forest of Forgetfulness.’ For a moment her unyielding rage made him fearful, perhaps she would take from him the Red Rose cutting and fruit and try to revive the wasp.

Dalrosse repeated again. ‘There is nothing you can do’

She snapped angrily and seemed incoherent with grief and a madness that had fallen over her.

‘Well than just leave me.  I won’t go into that cottage.’

‘Then later I’ll bring you out some more food, perhaps some wine, what do you say?’

‘I told you I want nothing, especially from the Caretaker.’

‘You know of him?’ Dalrosse asked.

‘Enough.  This food he gave you, are you sure you know what it is?’

Dalrosse smiled. ‘So you are hungry after all.’

‘I would rather starve than eat the Caretaker’s food.’

’Why? What’s wrong with it?’

Marayela began to weep again and with her wet hair cleaned the dirt and blood from the Holy wasp, that had long gone from her form and dwelt in the twilight lands of the Thirteen Rivers, changed, so transformed by death that memories of another life remained but as sleeping thoughts.

Dalrosse impotently left the woman to weep and re-entered the cottage.  The Caretaker was sitting at the table the kitchen bright with afternoon sun and all the dishes of food cleared away. To Dalrosse’s dismay he could not see Crow anywhere in the Cottage.

After speaking to the woman from the Demense a slow uneasiness had slipped over him. He blurted out.

‘Where’s the crow.’

‘Oh,’ the man smiled. ‘He said he wanted to scout ahead the road for your journey tomorrow.  He said he would not be back before morning.’ Though the smile stayed on the Caretakers lips not once did his eyes make contact with the Shouels purple ones.

A bit gruffly the caretaker asked. ‘What are we going to do with wasp?  I can’t have it in the garden rotting.  Will she help us bury it?’

Dalrosse doubted it; he doubted whether Marayela would let him anywhere near the wasp.  He considered for a while, and then replied. ‘She is exhausted and when she sleeps I will help you.  That is if she will sleep, she is obsessed that distillate from the red rose will bring him from the ghost lands.’ A new thought entered his mind, tinged with guilt, yet he yearned to see her suffer no more.  I could take the White rose and with it perhaps restore the mighty wasp. For a moment he thought of asking the Caretaker for a cutting of his rose, but the black look in his eyes and the crease of a scar seemed to laugh at his unspoken thoughts.  With no longer any words between them the Caretaker gently lifted the petty rose, placed it in a glass cabinet and with a small key locked the door, putting the key in a pocket.  Irrationally, or not, Dalrosse felt the Caretaker knew exactly what he was thinking.

Chapter Eighteen

THE DREAM OF CROW

Once again The Crow was tapping on Shaneal’s window; oh he was bitter with cold, whitened with snow and ice so thick that he was frozen to the point of death. Futilely he tapped as hard as he could upon the tower window of the lady of Demerol’s window.  She opened in the window and smiled broadly.

‘O, crow, O crow’ she sang.

Not this again the Crow thought. ‘Shhh’ he said and sprang into her warm fire shadowed room and he sang her a song, a story so long that told of love and loss and forgetful as fleeting men’s minds, wretched with tragedy, a tragedy void of reason.  O the story was so long and Shaneal stood transfixed as he sang and told of the thousand lifetimes she had tarried upon the world, and in the silent, slow remembrance he threaded together into her the ageless lives of Dalrosse and Aflarien.  A veil of forgetfulness erased the pain of her captivity and the slumbering void King Loor had left her in, and the lies he had spun to snare her.  When the Crow stopped singing, bereft with no now, no yesterday, just an endless urge to return to the world Shaneal cried, but the twinkling of laughter in the crow’s eyes stilled her tears.

She remembered back, long, long years and memory took her to her Father’s Inn in Delgdreth and laughed heartedly.  ‘All I wanted was a holiday; I didn’t think I would end up in this place.

‘And I have been here a such a long  time, so long, I cannot remember when I was not lost in this perfect cell, maids to serve me, feed me dress me, give me my lessons so I would be a suitable wife for a King.’ Yet her heart mellowed and the memory of the faces of Dalrosse and Aflarien smiling at her beauty, there bright eyes filling her with a confidence she had not felt since her imprisonment began.

‘They must be dead after all this time?’

The Crow was a little hesitant when he spoke. ‘Uh, well they might be, they might be, yet still it may not be too late.  A hundred or more times I have been to this exact point in your life to help you escape from Demerol, but they have always foiled us, Loor and the shade of Krostic whose long life is lost even to me, for she came to Menerth when the Psybots fell from the sky. Maybe it is not too late; remember you are an Omelyn, the three of you, the land, earth and the sun.  Oh Shaneal I am weary and my long life will be longer still.

‘The Author has lost faith in road that he has sent Dalrosse.  I realize now that I cannot help you escape.  But, wonderful child never forget who you are. An Omelyn, remember that in all the trails that come.  Yet after this night I cannot be of aid to any of the three of you.  I must go for awhile out of the story and meet with the Author. There is something wrong- I see a dark ending, a darkening cloud over the hope of the first words of the tale.  Today you do escape Demerol and never return.  Child this is not a fairytale.  For your freedom I must suffer a little. I must die by your hand to reach Esplomeoir.  You must kill me and take bird form and be a bright shadow over the Sunbourne Sea.  In The Authors temple, I will guide him wisdom and dispel his fears.  You must go to the cottage of the White Rose and find out what ails the Dalrosse’s song. I will return to him soon and be a guide to his hope. Without you near him he will always be in danger. The Author despairs at the conundrums and the misery Dalrosse will face and he needs you, your love and wise words when he despairs. The Unauthor has sent storms and fire upon Ashenmoire and the power of the Black Rose is so weak and its impotence is destroying Menerth and the worlds beyond.  Yes.  I must go Esplomeoir and speak with the author, my brother Araden.

‘Yet Shaneal’, he said before she cut the Crows throat and sent him into the night to Esplomeoir and she transformed into a blackbird, ‘you must make Dalrosse smile when he is at his weakest, your instincts will guide and your tender touch will bring new light and imaginings in his mind. Dalrosse he is so strangely different, as brave as the forgotten gods, I feel he is stronger than the UnAuthor yet so alone, but with your love Dalrosse will make his path until he stands once more by the golden waters of Lake Leme, yet still he will need you Shaneal.’

The Crow become a mist of amber dust, Shaneal perched on the window sill, and then flew out into the snow, pulled by the tidalverse through miles of time and re-emerged from the tidewake circling about the lower reaches Mount Mull.

Like a rage of storm the amber aura of Jon Esierk ripped toward Esplomeoir and before he knew it Jon Esierk stood before the doors of the Authors chamber.  On the simple chair the Author sat.  He was staring out of the window to the sea, the brightness of the sun causing tears to fall on his sallow cheeks.  He turned slightly and Jon saw how dark and hollow with weary his once bright eyes were.  He did not greet Jon, but muttered to himself.  ‘It is too late.  I have sent him on the wrong path.’

In a commanding voice Jon spoke his true name.

‘Araden’ and clicked his fingers in front of the Authors dull eyes.

Sighing he said,

‘Ah Jon.  It is good that you are here.  It is too late you know, I can’t seem to get the story right, it has become so confused now that Lebin has died. The Unauthor has taken all hope from me and I have become tangled the liar’s web and I see no hope for the Great kin, they weaken, though they cling to a hope that is lost in confusion.

‘I have made too many mistakes and I see no way back.  Dalrosse is soft.  Aflarien will go to the ends of time and thought to corrupt the story.  You know he ate the flesh and soul of Lebin. I am so alone here. I have to do everything to try and save the Omelyns, but I don’t know how to stop him, but what can I do so alone. Aflarien has corrupted the story.  The story that was once a light, a beacon from the beginning, he has corrupted and infested it with maggots,’ The Author fell into uncontrollable tears. ‘Aflarien has killed Lebin and sucks upon his soul. He will kill the Roses and the Menerth he will lay desolate.  Jon. Jon. there will be no lovliness in the world, no songs, no freedom to smile or love, and laughter, what is the world without laughter, what need is there of a world without laughter.

‘You have come brother, come to help me with Story?  Was I wrong to rest the Roses fate on the Shouel who is unsure of his path? His heart will be broken, and all the lands will die. I no longer know how to change it.

Jon rested his hand on Araden’s shoulder. ‘Shh now. All the might of Aflarien and the aeons of dark force set against him will not hinder Dalrosse’s search for the Roses.’

Despite his smile of assurance Jon was sad.  Lebin was dead.  Aflarien had consumed his soul. Was Aflarien trying to usurp the power of the UnAuthor?  He looked at his feeble, lost brother whom he loved all the days of his long, long life.

‘Yes my brother I will help you. You must gather your strength and gather your thoughts for all the journeys and trails to come. I will help you grow strong again, and dispel you fears. Let us go to the Portal of the Unwritten Lands.’ Jon led his brother from the chamber with a grin.