The Trial of the Fisk Family

This Weeks Prompt:46 . Hawthorne—unwritten plot. Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

The Research: The Sins of the Father

The court room held their breath for the sentence that the right honorable Waites would hand down. The good judge had been holding private counsel for around ten minutes, examining the various notes and passages of law that lay at his access. The anticipation and dread in the room reverberated, and killed the noise of animals around. The birds seemed to sing more quietly, less they disturb the elder thoughts of the right and honorable judge.

The only noise produced at all was the quiet crying of the Fisk boy. He had been afflcited the least by his ancestry. His eyes didn’t have the strange shaped pupils yet, the dark hour glasses that seemed like a goat’s gaze. Unlike his miscreant brother and deceitful sister, his fingers seemed firm still, not slightly long and perpetually bent like claws. Hands that seemed almost webbed at times and jointed in the wrong places. His hair was still dark, not yet the motley red and orange of his sisters. The youngest Fisk, if it weren’t for the company he kept, might have been mistaken for a normal child.

But the court knew better. The right and honorable judge Waites had seen each generation of the Fisk family. They lived in the woods and hills, among strange and wretched things that they often took as wives and husbands. Elfin creatures, the Fisk children always looked the part of Adam’s children at first, but grew into Lilith’s before all was said and done. Some grew horns, small though they were, in their hair like rams. Some had shining eyes, and over the years the charges of witchcraft merely grew. The Fisk women bewitched husbands from town to continue their awful brood. If Leah Fisk hadn’t done so yet, it was only because she had not been given the opportunity.

Leah Fisk dressed in decadent finery as it was. Even in court, she wore a long red dress with sewn patterns along it’s edges that guided the eyes and entranced them as she walked. The right honorable judge need no witnesses of her character to know what the purpose of such adornments were. Her gold earings, enameled with red gems and sea shells. The work had been in the Fisk family for sometime, and they had paid little mind to the pastoral warnings against such vanity. Gifts, the right honorable judge Waites was convinced, from their less than savory side of the family. Such ornaments were borderline idolatry for the reverence the Fisk clan held them in.

But that had never been enough. The Waites, and the Wyatts, and the Smiths, they had all known what the Fisks had done. The judge ponder the years of court cases, of slowly working down the Fisk clan one by one. They were numerous and hounding them down, whittling away their taint on the world, had taken decades. And here now was the last of them, only one willing to look him in the eye defiantly as he prepared to read the crimes and proclaim his sentence.

“Michael Fisk,” he said, staring into the hour glass of darkness. The edges of the eldest Fisks skin looked like they had been stretched over extra bones. “We find you guilty of bearing false witness against Jonathan Smith, Rachel Smith, and Timothy Wyatt. You are found guilty consorting with the barbarians of the woodlands and the demons with in their rites. You are found guilty of hersey and witchcraft employed in seducing the wives of your fellow man, sodomy, theft, and murder.”

Michael Fisk stared ahead at the right honorable judge, his eyes unwavering, unblinking. They seemed to stare through judge Waites own pupils, into his soul. The unearthly eyes did not dissuade Waites soul. His ancestors had hunted and hounded witches on the isle of Britain. He had no fear of demons.

“Leah Fisk,” He said, his eyes resting on the woman’s down cast head. “We find you guilty of false witness against Jonathan Smith, Sarah Wyatt, and Leah Waites. You are found guilty of hersey and witchcraft, of blasphemy against the Lord, and of inviting foul things in your home.

“For these crimes, the court finds fit to sentence both of you to death by hanging, to be carried out at the soonest possible interval. In light of the rampancy of these crimes by the Fisk family, the people of the parish have moved to preempt the degeneracy of the youngest, Matthew Fisk, and send him to his kin as well.”

There was quiet sobbing from Leah Fisk now, but the sentence was as expected. The only question was whether they would be hanged or crushed by stones. The right honorable judge Waites was wary of stones, despite the precedent set by the Old Testament and other works on the proper punishment being stoning. Being crushed by the weight of stones was too much like a proper burial for judge Waites’ taste. So they would hang. Judge Waites scanned the rest of courtroom as the Fisks were lead out. The gaze from the various parishioners was approving, some even nodding to each other and whispering about his wisdom. As he scanned the crowd, judge Waites’s eyes fell on a singluar figure in the back. He appeared to be an elder, dressed in proper black and with a pale complexion. His eyes were hidden by the shadow of his hair, but his grimace was strange.

It was not strange to see determination or even a degree of gravity in a court room. That generally was Mr. Waites posture as well. But as he descended from his seat and saw the strange man leave, he couldn’t help but feel there was something more to that strange expression. It looked rigid, like it was carved into a stone or worked into wood. It was a face that appeared to have taken on a form that was forever it’s own. Mr. Waites, finding himself out of his office of judge, realized that despite a familiarity in form and bearing, he did not know the man who had just been in his court room.

Mr. Waites was never one to miss an opportunity, even in his great and venerable age, to speak with a man possessing more age and thus more veneration. Power by association and education were well known principles in his profession. To be isolated was to be in danger. So on foot he followed the stranger out, walking along the road and out past the courthouse.

It was already nightfall when Mr. Waites set out, lantern in hand, to follow the mysterious man. There was only the dim light of the other man’s lantern ahead, and the moonlight all around. The trees took on a pale color, as if suddenly faded or seen through a thin fog of winter. But Mr. Waites, who would never forsake a path once he began unless danger was so overwhelming that his animal mind overcame his mortal soul, trekked on through the wets following the fair light.

At least, he came in sight of another building. An old wooden ruin of a small house. He passed by with out another thought. A few more such cabins dotted the path, as the flickering light grew somewhat dimmer. The flickering made the shadows inconstant, long things. Mr. Waites’s eyes caught them rising and falling, more than once mistaking the simple shifting of light for the approach of dread, shadow forms. His mother, God rest her soul, had once told him that in the woods, among derelict and failed ghost towns, there dwell creatures unsightly and unseemly. Dead things that were always hungry.

But he had walked the woods before. Mr. Waites was not lost. He knew these buildings, now that he had a better grasp. His prey had come through the old settlements the Fisks had, when men were foolish enough to trust them with money and wares. It had been a beginning of a great bush, a weeds roots that had been set fire long ago. Mr. Waites remembered. He was young then, when they burned it all down.

At last the light ahead stopped. Waites followed, and by lantern light saw the great broken steeple of a church. The graves beside it were arranged in neat rows, almost perfectly aligned. He watched as the old statesmen he followed walked slowly among the graves. At last, the man approached a long, open grave. The light of the stranger’s own lantern suddenly shone bright, brighter than anything. It was a green light that obscured everything else around it, a glimmering fog that rose out of the crypt. The man paused, and turned to look out at the world. His eyes settled on Waites, and Waites felt a chill down his spine and a great weight on his shoulders, affixing him to the spot. The eyes had that hourglass shape, that stark yellow hue, of the Fisk family. There was some judgement left in those eyes. The weight did not cease when he turned away. There was the sound of song and sea from the grave as the man descended, vanishing into the mist.

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The Sins of the Father

Today’s Prompt:Hawthorne—unwritten plot. Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

The Resulting Story:Trial of the Fisk Family

So, we have another visitation from the deceased. See our earlier works for more clarification of the various froms the living dead have taken over the years. This particular form of the living dead appears to be something more like a revenant or vampire than a daugr or ghoul, possessing all of his faculties. The invocation of Hawthorne positions our tale a bit more firmly, however. Hawthorne for his part was fond of writing of the earliest days of the Americas, particularly Puritan days and the early revolution.

The matters then that the undead would attend in public would have been regional imporance no doubt. Hawthorne’s themes of ancestral guilt, retribution, and surreal imagery means he and Lovecraft mesh fairly easily in ideas. So we must infuse them into this important matter that has a member of the dead in attendance.

A family matter or one with relation to public land seems best. A court case perhaps? For the disposal of a will or the distribution of deadened line. The visitor’s investment then is rooted to some degree. We know from Norse Sagas that the dead care often about how their homesteads are distributed. The out come of this redistribution is key to the story, as are the survivors of the dead men. His family members, no doubt, in the same manner as Ripp Van Winkles, are found ages after and bare a resemblance to him in phyiscal and behavioral ways. The survivors are observed by the literal ghost of the past, haunting even the discoruse of the public years after.

The tension thus lies partially in the decision, the judgement of the survivors rather than simply with the dead man. Hm…I’d place then some sin and terrible action on our dead man. A highwayman perhaps, a traitor in the Revolution, a butcher of indians, a corrupt judge, the possible sins are manifold.

For judgement to now be coming onto this New England survivors, however, the sins must to some degree have continued. Rarely does the law punish simply the actions of the old and dead. More often it punishes those that appear to be continuing the trend.

I will depart from Hawthorne’s own works then, for a better grasp of possibility. We might go to other rural centered horror. The families in Lovecraft’s own fiction, such as the Dunwhich’s witchcraft, give the possibility of dark, dangerous magics and gods intermixed with men. The mixing of blood is a horror that has little edge and meaning in the modern world. But this might serve as an example of the ancestral sin: consider, then, that our guilty parties are not guilty by our standards in this age. Or at the very least, their guilt is not as severe as we today may see it. Our sympathy may then lie with the ghost and his kindred, persecuted by a system that has lasted generations.

I will refrain from specifying what this sort of systematic abusive horror may reflect in the real world. I assume one can draw their own conclusion.

With that in mind, we might expand on the ending and beginning of the tale. If our court is prosecuting the relations between an anecstor and another, then there are a number of inhumanities that might exist at the trial. We might make the other contributing lineage non-human, to improve upon the horror. I say this, because it allows scenes that might be incredulous if it were merely mixed heritage of mankind. We cannot have disected bodies of lost cousins brought on stage, skulls of disintered aunts, and other bodily evidence as easily if the other side is also human.

It also incorporates a new layer of disturbing: the pseudo-scientific. The racial analog to this sort of story is, sadly, apparent. And the ‘race science’ that often accompanied it is sometimes swept under the rug or forgotten. There is an effort to say all racists are uneducated country buffoons. This is, unfortunately, not true. And our horror story could highlight that. From academic to simplton, the community rejects and persecutes the family, before the mournful eyes of their ancestor.

The ancestor’s departure into the underworld, I believe, might be marked with some forboding cricumstance as well. It should bare as little semblance to a descent to hell as possible. I wouldn’t go as far as an ascent into heaven, but perhaps something to shake the fate of the Puritans. Something stranger, an underworld less…amicable to their beliefs. I lean Oceanic, given our source author, but something as ambiguous as green light or crackling noise. Maybe something like static or strange flashes of light. Something that is unclear at its origin or destination. Something then, that is at once peaceful and unsettling.

I think this lays the ground work for our story. We will conjure the spectre of the story next week, in order to render judgement on his own. Perhaps we will fear what we find. Perhaps it will fear us.

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The Immortal[Imperial] Rites

This week’s prompt:45. Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases.

The Research:Maat and Apep

To His Sacred And Imperial Majesty, Great King of Cairo, Commander of the Faithful,

Your faithful servant has much witnessed many miracles in his travels. The men of the hills and their idols, fearful things along rebellious Aegean shores, and beyond. So he reports thus a mission both fruitful and tiring for his form, to that most ancient of lands Egypt.

His report must begin thus: While returning from the tasks your Majesty had assigned him in foreign lands, for the betterment of all people, your servant heard a strange rumor in Cairo’s dockyards. The rumor was something of a story that the Jewish people tell, of thirty-six righteous souls that preserve the whole of the world from the judgment of God. It was a story your servant had heard in years before and years since, and of itself was little to report.

But of greater interest was the storyteller’s insistence that he had seen these very men, in a distant farm along the Nile. There, the man said to your Majesty’s servant, they all had gathered in order to combat an enraged djinn that the Prophet Sulieman had bound in the earth at the height of his kingdom. Your servant was of two minds regarding this tale.

The first was that indeed there was a group of wise men, doing some holy meditations as the Christians say the desert fathers do or some of the Sufi’s preform. In which case, their wisdom would be for the beneficence of your majesties reign, as their wisdom could aid in all things under the sun and bring about great victories for your Majesty.

The second was that, given the past your Majesty’s servant has had seeking out strange and remote places, these men were charlatans and sorcerers. In this case, they ought be sought either to lend their talents for your Majesty’s victory or, if they are unwilling and in service of futile rebellion, put to the sword to end whatever darkness they preform. Either way, I made my way down the Nile to investigate this further. The flood was particularly swift that year, so the journey down was swift.

The location of the gathering was, according to the riverman, well known to be in southern Nubia. There, beneath a pyramid, the conclave could be found. He warned your servant, however, that some disturbances were rumored to have come from the desert. Your servant gave these warnings perhaps too little heed.

The first village along the shore your servant arrived at was fractious, and found your servant’s arrival an affront against them. Your servant explained he was not from the local pasha, but rather from a farther off land, in search of supposed wise men. They were still disrespectful to your servant, who learned hence that the village was many rebellious ones in that year. Given this, what occurred later was of little surprise.

The villages eldest, however, recalled the tale that had reached the ears of your Majesty’s servant, and directed him further inland. There, the eldest said, your Majesty’s servant might find the men who knew of the ancient clergy that dwell beneath the earth and their battle with Iblis. Your servant thanked them and continued along the path.

Suffice to say your Majesty’s servant was greatly misled in this. As he traveled through the desert, he was waylaid by horsemen armed with spears and crude sickles turned into swords. Your Majesty’s servant, lacking in the arts of war and being a scholar by trade, was quickly captured and brought back to their distant camp. Here he overheard them speaking of ransoms or murder for your servant’s great transgress of having a righteous lord. Here he learned that he had been betrayed.

By what was over heard, your servant fears rule of law has begun to slip in the region. Bandits are growing bolder, more numerous, and the remains of older orders are starting to rear their ugly head. The disuptes seemed trivial, even out here. Support for rulers who your Majesty’s elders rightfully displaced had found fertile soil with recent droughts. As food failed to grow, resentment was brewing. Your Majesty’s servant held his tongue, and did not speak out, for he cowardly feared for his life. Still, he has sent word to your Majesty’s right and honorable swordsmen.

The exact conditions of your servant’s escape are perhaps evidence of the beneficence of G-d. Or perhaps the arrogance of defiant subjects. After all were asleep, your servant was granted a miracle.

For while he was bound and gagged at the camp site, your servant found that one of the bandit’s had left abandoned a sword in the sand. Carefully, your servant crawled on his belly like a serpent to the sword, unsheathing it with some difficulty using his neck and chin as makeshift hands. With some caution he then freed himself, cutting the bonds on the blade. Able to wield it properly, your servant cut his feet free and removed all impediments to his escape.

Still, your servant was in the desert and lost. He knew not where the men of legend and righteousness were, nor even where the grasps of civilization lay. His only clue, that night, was the path of a dog he found wandering in the desert sand. Your servant reasoned that, if the dog was alive, it must be going somewhere it knew, somewhere with water and possible food. Your servant’s choice was aided by the sound of waking men in the camp, who had made clear they deisgned to kill him.

Your servant wandered thus, after phantom footprints until dawn. The cold of the desert night and the silver of the moon preyed on his mind more than once, deluding him to thinking he was in the realm of the pagan dead, where shades wander. But the rise of the golden sun, and the gust of heat it brought over the world, dispelled that notion rather soundly.

It was at dawn that, in the east, your servant saw the tips of the pyramids promised. They were not as wide or grand as those near Giza, but rather like spear heads rising from the earth. There was a small village near it, which your servant now approached cautiously. Here he found men who spoke freely, having little apparent fear of strangers coming from the desert. They were confused by your servant’s claims of your Majesty’s authority, and even laughed at the telling of your authority. Your servant would have pressed the issue, but considered it unwise.

The young men your servant found around the pyramids took him inside, and gave him good food and rest. When your servant asked after the thirty-six holy men, they told your servant that he should rest and eat, for approaching their kings while in such a state may kill him. Your servant unwillingly obliged, satisfied that at last safety had been reached.

When your Majesty’s servant awoke, it was well into the night. The moon had risen to near it’s full, altough it was a new moon and thus marked by the absence of light rather than it’s prior silver splendor. The stars alone cast some light on the soft sand and dirt, and even this required a torch to be guided through to be of any use. Your servant was then lead by one of the native guides towards the pyramids, where a set of black steps were now revealed.

Here, they told your servant, was where the wise men did their work nightly. For by day they slept, to better have energies for their holiest of works.

Your servant was lead then down these stairs to a room that was made of perfecltly locked stoned. Painted along the walls were the sigils of the Egyptians from the days of the prophet Moses, images of sun worship and cats. A great pair of beasts were resting there, something between desert dogs and donkeys. They raised their heads, which had something of a crocodiles teeth to them, and seemed distrustful of my approach, until the guide tossed some meat at them.

“You are our honored guest, they are over zealous guards. If your master is who you say he is, then he is deserving to hear of our great work.” The man said, wiping his hand on his robe as we turned a corner beneath the pyramid.

And there I saw a terrible sight. Thirty six men, in the headress of pharaohs, each with golden masks and well kept beards, stood in a wide circle. At the center of the circle they held something fast with each of their thirty six hooks. Each struck it back with their flail, chanting in a tongue foreign to my ears.

But it was the thing, the thing they struck that struck me with horror. For it appeared to be a child, beaten and bloodied so greatly that I could not tell beneath it’s rags whether they were boy or girl. It cried out pitifully at each wound. As I stared horror struck, I realized each cry was for help in a different tounge. Greek, Aramic, Arabic, Persian,French, the tounges of the distant east, tounges I had never heard. It cried out again and again. At last I turned to my guide in rage.

“What deception is this? This is what you are proud of, this is what you call holy work?” I said, nearly snuffing out our late when I reached for him.

“Of course it is holy work! Or are people beyond blind to decievers now?” the guide said.

“Explain.”

“The child is no child. It takes many forms, every night, that it might by mercy escape into the world. For it is the king of dreams the men here battle, a proteus of chaos and terror.” the guide said, frowning. “For millenia they have stood and stamped it out. When it slips it’s binds, even a little, it spreads famine, it devours empires, it overturns rightly apointed princes and unleashes plauges. The thirty six lords here must, therefore, bind and strike the beast or inflict its suffering on the world.”

Your servant insisted there must be another way to deal with the malcontent. He was told there was not one. Your servant again pleaded that the child was crying. Your servant was informed that one often cries out when struck with lashes. Your servant continued until his guide held up his hand and infromed your servant that there was nothing to be done. Such was the nature of the world, that thirty six righetous lords must inflict such punishment on the king of dreams until the end of days.

Your servant was then escorted out, but found the sun to have risen when he set foot on the edge of the stairs, and the silence of the night replaced by the clamor of Cairo. By some old magic, your servant believes he was in the end transported, back whence he came.

Your servant would suggest, humbly, some force move to the south to liberate the children sentenced to blood beatings. But he is uncertain if such a child is existent. And that aside, your servant recognizes the animosity of those regions have more pressing and immediate concerns. He sends only his humble advisement.

Your Right Hand and Clear Eye,

XXXX

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If this story was of interest to you, consider reading earlier exploits of our lost scholar here, and here.

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Maat and Apep

This Week’s Prompt: 45. Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases.

The Resulting Story:The Immortal[Imperial] Rites

We have an exquisitely preserved corpse today, my friends. For Egypt kept her kings intact, either with desert sands or by mankinds hands. And her pharaohs and pyramids are known the world over. We’ve discussed some of Egypt’s associations before, in more exotic contexts. Here we’ll examine some more or less concrete narratives.

The Pharaohs had a divinity ascribed to them, often but not always inherited from a divine ancestor(typically Ra and Horus, although lineages vary). The supernatural duties of the pharaoh and the kings before them predominantly focused on maintaining order (Maat) in the world. Examples of this include the Nile’s regular floods, which if poor were proofs of the failing power of the pharaoh. The pharaoh alternatively was key in Maat among humankind as well. The pharaoh by maintaining good and just behaviors among humanity promoted the maintenance of the eternal order of the cosmos.

This was a sort of microcosmic achievement, the actions of the kingdom extending out into the universe. This was also the purpose of state sponsored rituals and temples, to keep an order over all the cosmos. The rising sun and the flowing river needed to be maintained, after all, or all life would perish from the earth.

Notably, then, there are agents of Chaos to be opposed. The most prominent of these is Apep, a great serpent. Apep dwells in the underworld, and daily assails Ra to devour him. He is defeated by Bast and Set, depending on the time period, or even Ra himself. Apep bears a resemblance to Leviathan, who we talked about here, in his role as serpent devouring the sun. Compared to other world destroying serpents, such as Jormungandr or Vritra, Apep is rather small, a measly 16 meters (or, roughly,48 feet). Sometimes however, he is said to be the vast horizon, or just beyond it. His roar will shake the underworld, calling to mind mythological the Kur dragon. Apep posses a number of powers, including the favorite of the serpent: a magical gaze. His wars with Set are the thunderstorms. His battles below with Ra’s entourage are earthquakes. In the end, often, Ra claims him in the form of a cat. His actions betray a greater, almost immortal chaos that is waiting to be unleashed. Apep is thus the eternal enemy of the pharaoh and Maat, more than any other. Appropriately, as an immortal entity of chaos, some suppose Apep to be the first god-king, overthrown by Ra. Others say he was born of Ra’s umblical chord after Ra’s birth.

Interestingly, his name derives by some accounts from the word ‘to slither’. Apep is thus a crawling creature of chaos….and the relevance of this expands somewhat when we talk about the odd detail this corpse has. A set of black stairs. Where is this familiar image from? Mr. Lovecraft would later ascribe such stairs to the entrance of the Dreamlands. The priests at the bottom of the stairs have distinctly Egyptian sounding names: Nasht and Kaman-Tha. Furthermore, the ruler of the Dreamlands is that dread lord Nyarlahotep, who’s name is meant to evoke Egypt.

Nyarlahotep has emerged in our examinations before, but let us take a moment to note a few parallels. Nyarlahotep frequently has the form of the Black Pharaoh, a form used to create cults and according to some rule Egypt for an unspecified time. Nyarlahotep’s most eminent title is the ‘Crawling Chaos’, something akin to the description of Apep as a slithering force chaos. Bast, the Egyptian god who in many cases defeats Apep, persists as an Elder God in the Dreamlands, opposing the more chaotic elements of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Found: http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2012/04/bowen-legacy.html

We thus have the interesting opportunity of engaging with the Mythos in a more concerete way. It has been sometime before we dealt in the mythos themselves, instead of their shadows. More intreastingly, Nyarlahotep’s character is the sort that can be directly included and confronted in the story proper. Not only because such confrontations are frequent in the mythos (Quest for Unknown Kadath, The Witches House, the Nyarlahotep poem), but also because Apep was so confronted. Priests of the Egyptian faith published guides to the overthrowing of Apep, dismembering his body.

We thus have established perhaps a society of immortal pharaohs (and truly old pharaohs as well. Apep is first referenced it seems in 4000 BC, placing our Pharaohs as older than any hero of the Illiad or Oddessy, and older then the civilizations that made them), dedicated to the maintaining or binding of an agent of Chaos from the world. I would say the waking world, rather than the world of Dreams, as that way will allow some menace to the agents of darkness. Our pharaohs are perched then at the peripice, on the boundary line between reality and the land of dreams.

Now, to spin the eternal battle into a single narration requires an outsider. I’d posit an outside observer, rather than a change in the battle. Partially because a change in the battle requires an overlapping amount of work (explaining the significance of the battle, the battle itself, and presumbably an outside observer finding it) while adding more than can be expected in our word count (the after effects of the battle, finding the site of the battle, and an ending that hinges on undoing the chaos or merely witnessing a victory). An outsider then may descend into the land of Egypt, perhaps persuing some local legend of the steps of immortality, perhaps even pursing the great hall of immortals that is beyond the Silver Key.

The story would then be a report of a terrible mystery or seires of mysteries (what is the purpose of this place, what do these pharaohs protect from, whence comes their power, etc). Our reporters endeavors to find it would make it resemble one of our earliest (and my favorite) stories, who’s character I think we should revive as well.

To continue this, the primary difficulty of the story will perhaps be getting to the place. We could include signs of the chaos nearly breaking through. A peasants revolt, a plague, a famine (the three very often are found together), any of these could provide difficulties to cross into the path of interpid investigator. We know such works existed in the past (such as Ibn Battuta, who wrote a number of journals from his travels abroad), and the difficulties those explorers faced in their works could certainly serve as reference for our current character.

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By the Lake

This Week’s Prompt: 44. Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly.

The Research:Out Of the Lake

Robert, Seamus, and Logan observed the smoldering remains of castle Lochancath. From the tall tower, the only stone structure left. The men below were rifling through the crumbled buildings for anything that could be carried home. The proper treasury was already under guard, trusted men at arms of the three lords holding fast with spears to defend newly one gold.

“I wonder if it will all be as leaves.” Robert wondered at the ash whipping into the air. “That’s what they say about faerie gold, isn’t it? Ash and leaves when you leave with it.”

“I doubt the coffers of the lord were leaves. If they were, someone would have beaten us to killing all this lot years ago.” Logan said. “Ys title or no, you don’t pay men with leaves and not get a pummeling from’em. Antsy men aren’t trustworthy ones either.”

“Men of magic have their way of doing things. I’d not put it past them, to value leaves as gold. Given Their style, who can say? That knight, with the blade made of mirrors was rather dreadfully skilled, despite his size. You’d think a giant would be less swift.” Seamus said. “And who knows? I suspect their magic fades with them, but well, would you look at that.”

Seamus gestured over the opposite end of the tower, looking over the castle’s namesake lake. There, in the still waters, the castle and town were reflected as they had been summers ago. Not a single sign of seige or famine, every building intact and gleaming gloriously from the waves. Only a small ripple disrupted the image, something bobbing along the shore.

“Is that–” Robert said squinting. “By God, it is. Would you look at that, a little Moses.”

“Go, get the babe from the river reeds.” Seamus said, turning to one of the standing soliders, “Bring it here.”

“Bring it here? No, no kill it before we suffer whatever magics it has.” Logan said, turning ot Seamus. The solider waited in confusion.

“Kill it? Can you not see the value in a sorcerous squire?” Seamus replied.

“Yes, but can’t you see the danger? One boy was spared by Herod, one by pharaoh, one by every tyrant. And they will grow and avenge themselves on their parents.”

“Only because their parents were fools, and headed prophecy. If we are fated to die at the hands of one of Lochancath’s heirs, tell me, will killing this babe forestall our destiny?” Seamus said, shrugging. “There is much to gain, and little to lose. Stories are not history, and the scholar is quick to see the doom as foertold. How many did Herod massacre with no savior? How about Caesar?”

As soon as Seamus was done, his footman returned with the babe, wrapped in red cloth. It was pale green, and quiet despite staring out with ever curious eyes.

“Do not bring that thing up in your own house at least,” Logan said, shaking his head. “Send it somewhere where it will never learn what we’ve done nor have ambitions to thrones our sons have been promised.”

“Very well, he’ll live with a squire of mine. I know just the one.”

It would be almost two decades before the child was seen by Seamus or Logan. It was on Saint Jude’s day, and Logan had almost forgotten the boy in the years since. He was thus at also for words when the old squire, now a knight in his own right, presented the boy to the court as Anloch, here to become squire of one of Lord Seamus.

“My son Anloch has done well in my household, serving with distinction and grace. I humbly submit him to be a squire of your majesty,” the old knight said, gesturing at the youth beside him. He was still pale, almost luminescent. Long curling red hair hung from his head, and his hands and feet seemed made for a larger man. Logan, frowned, his mind worrying about some forgotten dream. Frankly, as the youth was presented, bowing humbly to the king, Logan suspected the weight of the feast landed heavily on him.

“Ah, we’ve heard a little of this lad,” Seamus said with a smile, “Except that he is fond of the hunt and does not lack skill at it.”

“Many a mangy hind have I hunted, four fierce boars I’ve speared as well.” Anloch replied, standing unblinking before Seamus. His voice reminded Seamus of a flute, high and airy. “And many more than these have I found with hand and knife.”

Seamus smiled and laughed.

“Boars, you say? For someone so slight, that is quite the feat. Well, you are welcome in my court then. Come, sit at my side.” Seamus said, gesturing beside him, and sighing low some. He seemed tired to Logan’s eyes. Perhaps he had been up late, examining plans and books. Or perhaps memories of the wars abroad, of battles near and far, had kept him up with their clamor. Logan shrugged it off.

The youth tilted his head as he sat beside the sons of his new lord. They engaged in some lengthy conversation, but neither Seamus nor Logan could hear it. As he spoke, he gestured with his hands, spinning invisible circles round and round in front of the boys eyes, as if Anloch was trying to weave a net out of the air.

“He’s come along well, hasn’t he?” Seamus said after to Logan. “And hunting so much at his age. He’ll be a grand fighter, even if he never does practice. Imagine him honed in iron.”

“He winces at the sight of a mirror,” Logan said, frowning. “Even his reflection in a plate of iron gives him pause. It worries me, that he’s grown so.”

“Are you talking of Anloch papa?” Seamus son, Scath, said. The boy was barely into his eleventh year, but already walked about with a knife at his side.

“Yes, was he fine entertainment?” Seamus said, kneeling down to his son’s level.

“Yeah! He’s done so much work out in the woods! I think Rachel has gotten smitten for him!” Scath said.

“Scandalous. Well, we’ll see how she feels when she’s of more marriagable age.”

“You’d consult your daughter?” Logan asked with a raised eyebrow.

“If I didn’t, tragedy would most certainly follow. You are slow on your hearing of old stories, friend. A bitter bride is poison in the house.” Seamus said, waving a corrective finger.

“Papa, where’s Anloch from?” Scath asked. Seamus turned cold for a moment, before smiling at his son.

“Well, Sir Bedeve is from the western part of the county, so that should–”

“But he doesn’t look like Sir Bedeve! He’s got no beard, and red hair, and his eyes aren’t as blood shot and he walks like a bird,” Scath asked, crossing his arms.

“Well, you have the curiosity of a crow and belly of a pig.” Seamus said, poking his nose and belly. “Anloch’s from Sir Bedeve’s house, and that’s all that matters.”

“But he talks funny–”

“That is all that matters, little one. For you and anyone else.” Seamus said, ending the discussion as much with his tone as with his words. Logan saw Rachel looking from behind a column, darting back at the end. He ought to have considered things to come.

Years again passed, and Anloch remained something of a fixture at court. Logan watched his youth and found his own age weighing stronger and stronger. He seemed, when he looked in the mirror, to be a caricature of the elderly, each day growing feebler and feebler. The more time he had to ponder the change, the slower his mind’s gears seemed to turn.

Logan assumed the same was true of Seamus.He hadn’t seen Seamus in two years, with his boy Scath returning missives, not infrequently with that Anloch boy attending to him. Like a flame, he drew people round him wherever he went. Ladies and squires and even knights at courts, Logan had seen. Tripping over themselves to talk to the strange lad, who never seemed to blink properly. It bothered Logan to know end. Anlochs blinks, they rolled between his eyes instead of closing and opening at the same time.

He needed not to assume with Robert. The two rode and visited frequently. Each time Robert seemed to speak in more hushed tones and in more irregular patterns. Pauses would give way to hurried or slurred words, and he’ stare lazily into space for hours. Something had become of him, Logan knew it.

Logan thought over this as he rode under moonlight, a dog helping him on the trail. He knew the boy was related to this nonsense. His daughter had vanished into the night, along with half the guards and footmen. And as tired as he was with the world, he had reserves yet to go and find her.

Logan’s hounds followed her scent down the old roads at night, back to the ruins of Lochancath. He saw two more horses, Robert and Seamus’s riding to the same outcropping, and the same placid lake. There along the shore, in the rubble and remains, Logan saw a sight unimaginable. A host of men and women dressed in the finest clothes, men at amrs with shields painted white with a single red stripe, children in baptismal apparel. His daughter among them, and Seamus’s son as well, and at the head of the host stood Anloch.

How tall he was! He towered a head and shoulder above every knight and walked still as softly as a cat. He directed the host with a single finger down into the lake, and each walked into the reflection of the castle, still perfectly maintained in the rippling water. Anloch turned wordlessly to see the three lords who he had beggared of household and lives. On his brow was a third, crimson eye. He did not smile knowingly, he did not smirk with malice. There was a calm of completion that he spread, as he with a few steps, descended into the depths.

---

 

So, there are a few things I wouldn’t do if I were to rewrite this. Logan and Robert could be fused, and the center of action is clearly in the two middle acts, during Anloch’s ‘seduction’ of the various courtiers. As it is, this is a piece that suffers a lot, as I feared it would, from my attempts to say at 1500 words. I have some ideas for expanding it into a bigger story later, but those will have to be done outside the Society.

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