a moment that should
have lasted forever
has come and gone
(note: this is not totally original but a line from a T’ang Dynasty poem rephrased as a senryu)
time turned upside down
the hours spilling on the floor
who will sweep them up?
Stephen Brooke ©2024
Blossoms
If you wish, I’ll say
I loved you, some long-past spring.
My memory is no better
than yours but I can imagine
us hand-in-hand beneath
the flowering trees of then.
I might even have kissed you,
or maybe it was the other
way around. You can decide
and I’ll remember only
the blossoms drifting like snow.
Stephen Brooke ©2024
maybe just a bit of a T'ang feel to this one?
All fiction can be said to fall into three categories, which I choose to call Super-Genres.* These are Realistic Fiction, Surrealistic Fiction, and Speculative Fiction. This idea is neither new nor original to me, but it makes a great deal of sense (although, as all such ideas, it must by nature be a bit arbitrary).**
Realism—Realistic Fiction—is self-explanatory. It tells of the ‘real world,’ or, more accurately, our experience of the real world. It strives to tell of things as they are. Historical fiction, contemporary realism, crime stories, and so on fit into this category.
The Surrealist then takes that realistic world and twists it. There are no rules involved in what happens. Strange events are intended to jar rather than to make sense. This is not the same as genre Fantasy, with its internal logic and world-building.
This leaves Speculative Fiction, which covers a wide swath from ‘hard’ Science Fiction to ‘high’ Fantasy. This category differs from Surrealism in that it creates an entirely separate world with its own rules. Everything that happens is according to those rules; this is why Magic Realism is not Speculative Fiction (i.e genre Fantasy) but, rather, a subcategory of Surrealism.
‘Mainstream’ novels are, of course, Realistic Fiction. It is what is likely to be taught in most college writing courses. Some even consider it the only valid form of fiction, the only serious form, and feel the need to circle the wagons to protect it from those frivolous popular entertainments that lurk outside academia. But the Surrealist and the Speculative have coexisted with the Realist from the beginning of story-telling. They are every bit as much a part of our legacy.
Bits of surrealism do occasionally slip into the other two categories, bits of absurdity. That has always been true; it might be argued that a dash of the Surreal is a necessary component of humor. We have to look at the overall work to assign it to one of these three categories and even then it is not always completely clear-cut. Still, most will fall into a Super-Genre pretty readily; one can not find a more basic division of fiction. All genres and categories grow from these roots.
Stephen Brooke ©2024
*It seems as good a name as any.
**I’ve written (more than once) of this concept before, but could find my essays neither online nor in my own notes. So this is a complete rewrite ‘from scratch’ on the subject.
A couple pieces of light (to say the least) verse:
Argue
I never argue,
I never fight;
what’s the point
when I’m always right?
I’ll ignore you,
if you persist;
block you, if
you won’t desist.
But then again,
please feel quite free
to nod your head
and thoroughly agree!
Stephen Brooke ©2024
Drop
One can not drown in a drop of water
nor cross so tiny a sea;
yet that mote holds in liquid promise
all the oceans that be.
Yes, all the waves and all the storms
wait to be set free;
but, alas, I drank that drop
and now they surge in me!
Stephen Brooke ©2024
This one started out with the intent of being a serious poem (as serious as I get, anyway) but wandered off in its own direction.
Sea-Wine
I’ve drunken deeply of sea-wine
in taverns where old salts
would spin their tales of breeze and brine
and heaven’s boundless vaults
where unfamiliar stars fill night
above the ebon deep,
of harbors bathed in golden light,
of jeweled ports that sleep,
kissed by the ardent tropic sun.
Ah, but once more to stand
upon remembered shores ere done,
to once more touch their sand,
to watch the stars’ eternal dance,
to name new constellations,
and chart a course of hope and chance
to my heart’s destinations.
I’ll see such sights no more, it seems,
nor ever voyage away,
for once tomorrow filled the dreams
that now hold yesterday.
I’ve drunken deeply of a cup
of mists and memories;
among old mates I’ve tipped it up
and drained it to the leas.
Stephen Brooke ©2024
It can be inaccurate—and sometimes a bit of an anachronism—to have everyone up until recent times writing with quill pens. Quills have been around a long time, to be sure, but their era of greatest popularity and usage was relatively recent. So what did writers use in the Middle Ages and Antiquity?
Reed pens were common, and the ‘thrifty’ choice. Yes, a piece of stiff reed, pointed with a knife and resharpened as needed. The Romans used them. The ancient Egyptians used them (and maybe even invented them). Being more-or-less flat, they create a very different sort of line than a quill, something much more like a broad-nib pen.
This is not to say quills weren’t used all through man’s history. Any pointed object is likely to have been dipped and used. And, of course, brushes were invented too, very far back. Metal-nibbed pens were created and used, and were the popular choice of those who could afford them. More than a few medieval manuscripts were written with them. The uncial and black-letter forms, and those of the early cast type from the Renaissance, reflect the shapes such pens create.
The quill makes a quite different sort of impression on paper. One does not achieve wider and narrower strokes from the angle at which pen meets paper but from how firmly one pushes down. The tip is more flexible than in those other pens. This led to noticeable differences in handwriting in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries when the quill became more popular. Those differences were reflected in the typefaces created (but that’s another subject).
So, certainly, give your scribes quill pens if you wish, but remember they were not the universal choice, and relatively rare in some places and periods. Details such as dipping a reed into an ink-pot provide a certain authenticity and a different flavor to the worlds we create on our own paper—perhaps even with a pen.
This will be a bit of an experiment, posting a longish short story (actually, it edges over the border into novelette territory with 7800 words) in something close to finished form (will see a tad more polishing). It could be considered an 'origin story' for Qala, the future Pirate Queen. It's the earliest story I'll ever write about her anyway. Qala has appeared as Main Character in two of my novels and has popped up in some others. The title is no more than tentative.
NOTE about a month later: There has been, of course, more editing of this story. Nothing major, just shaping it up some. The title has been changed to 'Beneath the Doomed City.' And I am working on more stories to follow it, probably enough to have a book (not exactly a novel but close enough).
The Road to Tesra
Stephen Brooke ©2024
From the battered ramparts of Famod, Lelanva watched another ship burst into flame.
“Is that one of ours, Lellie?” asked her wide-eyed companion.
“It is.” Her heart sank even as did the vessel burning in the harbor. The relief fleet was defeated, scattered, and the city was doomed. Its low, gray stone walls would not hold against the next assault.
She had heard tales of what happened in the sack of a city. At the best, she and Nib and everyone left alive would be taken away as slaves, perhaps across the Great Sea. At worst—Lelanva shivered and put that from her mind. Action was needed now. “We must escape,” she informed the boy.
He only nodded. Nib trusted her. Trusted her too much, she feared! As Lelanva, he had lost all his family to plague during the siege. Nib was a slender, dark lad, maybe a couple years younger than she was. Lelanva was pretty sure she was twelve.
All around, soldiers prepared for what must surely come. If some seemed unenthusiastic, it was hardly surprising. Perhaps more than a few of them were also thinking of escaping the city. How, when the forces of the Empire surrounded it?
“We need food,” the girl decided. “Any we can find. Anything else we can find, for that matter.” She leaned close and whispered. “I know a place we can hide.”
“Hide? Can’t we leave?”
“Later, maybe, when it’s all over. We couldn’t get out now.”
Nib accepted this. “I dreamed of fire,” he murmured. “And people screaming.”
“Only nightmares,” Lelanva assured him. “We’re going to be all right.” They were. She was going to see to it. She would shield them both from the real nightmare that was coming. “We need to prepare.”
“To hide.” The boy didn’t sound overly confident in stating this.
“Not yet. When the attack comes. Come along and we’ll forage.”
The wait was not long. Siege machines began hammering on the walls as night fell, continuing through the darkness. Lelanva knew their thud by now, and suspected it would not cease this time. Not until the fortifications were breached.
It would be best to find their refuge before dawn, Lelanva decided. Not that the city wasn’t already bright with torches and braziers, lighting the way for defenders scurrying here and there. The citizens mostly remained off the streets, awaiting what would come in their homes, be they high houses or lowly hovels. There was little noise other than that incessant thud.
She should have a torch herself, or a lamp. Lelanva rooted among the meager belongings that remained in this house, her house, now and for just a little longer. I won’t ever come here again, will I? she asked herself. There was no need to answer. Candles. As many as she could find. That would do. And an oil lamp, the one of carved stone with the flue, like those used on ships. The one her father had left before sailing away again. Lelanva had no idea whether he yet lived. It was unlikely she would see him again, either.
“Let’s go.” Nib shouldered the load she had packed for him and followed her into the night. “Stick close to the walls,” she warned. “We don’t want to attract attention.” There was an outcry, somewhere toward the harbor, and the crashing of stone on stone. The walls had been breached. Lelanva was a little surprised; she had expected that to happen on the landward side.
It still could. Best to hurry on—hurry toward the center of Famod. Trusting Nib followed until she came to a halt by a low, round stone edifice. “Good, no guards,” she said. It had seemed unlikely there would be.
Nib hesitated as she started toward the arched entry. “Are—are we going down?”
“Yes, Nib. It’s not scary and I’ll be with you. We’ve done it before.”
“Uh-huh.”
But not as she had on her own. Lelanva had thoroughly explored the system of cisterns that lay below Famod. She thought maybe she knew them better than anyone else in the city. A great bucket lay on its side, next to a wide, dark pit. The team of oxen that drew water from the depths in that bucket were gone, slaughtered and eaten weeks earlier. Unlike other necessities, water had remained in good supply through the siege and the cisterns had not been tapped. She hopped across the dry channel that would carry water out to the city and led the way to a smaller opening in the floor, the beginning of a stone staircase that wound down into the dark.
Lelanva had only used this way down at night, when no one was around to stay her. Or no one noticed her, anyway. There were other ways into the depths of the cisterns. She needn’t concern herself with those tonight. Or today. It was already growing light out, wasn’t it?
No, that ruddy light spilling into the room came from fire. “Down we go. Careful!” It was not wise to hurry on these stairs. As soon as they were below the floor level and out of sight, they should be safe. Sooner or later, she suspected, soldiers would look in every building. By then she and Nib should be far down, in tunnels she knew and they didn’t.
“Stay close. Hmm, hang onto my belt. We don’t want to get separated and I’m not ready to risk a light.” She didn’t need one. She knew this stairway well enough. In the blackness below lay the water, deep, still, one of three basin carved into the solid rock below the city. Each of those cisterns was connected. Lelanva knew where the tunnels lay, and other passages where water drained into the reservoirs.
“All this was built centuries ago,” she informed her companion, just to have something to say, something to break the uncanny silence of this place. The words, though barely whispered, echoed through the great chamber. “When Famod was a great port of the Tesran Empire.”
“The Unem,” replied the boy. “They called it the Unem.”
She didn’t know what an unem was and decided not to ask Nib. He surprised her now and again with bits of knowledge like that. His family had known things, too. Nib’s father had been a scribe and had helped Lelanva learn her letters. “You’re partly Tesran, aren’t you?” she asked, feeling her way down, right hand brushing the rough stone wall. There should be a turn soon.
“I guess.”
Everyone was partly something in Famod. Lelanva herself was about as close to being purely Muram as anyone in the city. “Maybe Tesra would be a good place to head for,” she said. They would have to go somewhere, wouldn’t they? She could think about that later. Ah, there was the way. “Right now, we’re turning down this corridor. I think we can have a light.”
If the coal she had carefully packed in sand would light one. She attempted a candle. “Come on, come on.” The candle sputtered and dripped and, at last, a flame appeared on its wick. “We should keep two lights going from now on. I don’t think I’ll be able to use the coal again.” None the less, Lelanva carefully packed it back into its bag of sand.
She lit the little oil lamp from her candle and handed it to Nib. He stared at the flickering light for a moment. “I thought I could see a flame,” he said, waving an arm toward the darkness. “Somewhere—else. I almost felt like I could reach out and bring it to me.”
Things the boy said at times baffled Lelanva. This was one of those times. “Just take care of that one,” she ordered. “We could go up one of the drains and catch a glimpse of what’s going on. It would be safe enough.” The upper ends of those drains were far too small to allow passage of a human body and it wouldn’t be worth anyone’s while to try to break through them. But they would be trapped there if someone followed behind them.
“I don’t want to know,” Nib responded.
She shrugged. “I guess I don’t either.” It really would be better not to indulge her curiosity. Yet she did feel drawn to take a look at what was going on above their heads. Excitement and fear mingled in her heart. Would that she could wield a sword and join the battle!
No, you’re being silly, Lelanva told herself. There is only horror to see up there. Slaughter and rape. “We’d best find a good spot to sit things out,” she said. They crept forward, casting two little pools of light in a great darkness. The girl sniffed the air. “Not down that way,” she said, nodding toward a passage opening on their left. “Basilisk.”
“It stinks,” observed Nib.
“Yeah, but it eats the rats. And it won’t bother us unless we trip over it in the dark.” She had discovered the small—small being about four feet in length—predator in previous explorations.
“A basilisk is a kind of dragon,” Nib went on.
Lelanva knew that. Someone had told her sometime. Oh, she’d heard it from a storyteller in the market. Would the attackers harm an old blind man like him? Maybe no one was safe. Those not suitable to be sold as slaves might be struck down with the sword.
She thought she might use a sword on herself before becoming a slave. Escape into another sort of darkness. But she would rather fight if she had a sword in her hand.
“Here’s the second cistern.” It was smaller than the one through which they had descended. Some said it was the oldest of the three. Another lay closer to the western walls. That was the direction they should probably go to escape the city, away from the waterfront.
Distant, muffled sounds reached them here, rising and falling like the sound of surf on a shore. It was impossible to make out what they were. Though no light reached them, the sun must be high by now. “Not a safe place for us to stay,” she decided, and moved on.
The tunnel they entered was dry. Lelanva had been told water once flowed through it, carried from the hills by the great aqueduct. That had fallen into ruin long before she was born. Now the cisterns collected only rain water that fell on the city, intended as a reserve to the wells and springs that served Famod’s population.
“Can we stop soon, Lellie?”
“Tired?”
“Uh-huh.”
Me too, she thought. “A little further. There’s a good place to eat and rest a while.”
“Are we going up?”
The rock beneath their feet had been gradually rising, barely noticeable but tiring one all the more quickly. “We are. A little. Here we are. Watch for the steps.”
Lelanva could only guess why this narrow stone stairway existed. Maybe it had provided workers access at some time in the past. Now the way was choked by a cave-in, a dozen steps up. It provided a convenient nook for Nib and her to rest a while, hidden from eyes even if someone did venture into the tunnels.
The pair listlessly nibbled at some of their bread, too tired to have much of an appetite. Neither had slept last night and had kept going now half way into the day. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Nib at once reminded her, “One of us should stay on guard.” He frowned and added. “And make sure our lights don’t go out.”
“That’s sensible,” she agreed. “You sleep first. I need to think a while.”
The exhausted boy took no time in falling into slumber. Lelanva watched him for a couple minutes. It would have been easier had she left him behind, left him to whatever fate the gods ordained. They would not treat Nib well, would they? The gods of her people were not kind gods. Best not trust them with her own fate.
She found herself blinking. Don’t fall asleep! The girl rose and walked up and down the stairs a couple times. “Is it my turn to watch?” came a small, sleepy voice.
“Not yet. I’ll watch for a bit more.” Watch over Nib. There wasn’t really a choice, was there? Maybe that was her fate! Lelanva giggled at the thought.
She could pray, she supposed, not that she’d ever heard of it doing much good. Not to great Orgum, the Sky Father. He wouldn’t hear a little girl, buried beneath a doomed city. It was the soldiers above who would be giving him thanks now for their victory. Or cursing him for their defeat. Instead, Lelanva spoke a few words to Old Grandmother Moon, who ruled the night. By night they would have to make their attempt to escape.
How soon? As soon as tonight, though it would be possible to hide here for weeks, even months. She’d have to go up and forage for food sometime, wouldn’t she? Not for a couple days. It might be safer then. Oh, she didn’t know. Lelanva held back a sob. But another followed and would not be held back, nor that after it. She bowed her head and cried, a little girl in the dark with far too much responsibility and far too many decisions to make.
Nib got up and wrapped his arms around her. “You sleep now, Lellie. I’ll watch.”
“All right.” She settled down on one of the steps, her body barely fitting its width. Lelanva was not only young, but rather small. At least she was warm; she had made certain both of them had dressed in more layers than one might think necessary. She had no way of telling how long she slept. She knew only that she opened her eyes and Nib was still sitting there, with a faraway look in his eyes. She wouldn’t have blamed him at all had he fallen asleep, nor would it have been likely to matter. Both lights still burned.
She’d need to find more oil or candles too, wouldn’t she? Not a concern at the moment. She sat up, saying, “I wonder if it’s night yet.” Not that it mattered much. She’d just like to know, to orient herself a bit.
“How can we find out?”
“The bats. I know where they roost and we can see if they’ve flown out.” She paused a moment to think. “We should be going that direction, anyway. But let’s eat first! I’m starving!”
But Lelanva ate sparingly and her young comrade followed her lead. Both knew their food might have to last. There wasn’t much down here to eat. Rats, maybe, but not bats! “I wonder if fish get into the cisterns,” she said, mostly to herself. She’d never heard of any being in the water dipped from their depths.
“Crocodiles,” stated Nib, completely straight-faced. Crocodiles in the cisterns was an old tale, told to frighten children who might feel the urge to explore. It had not made Lelanva pause for even a second. She’d wanted to see one.
“Of course,” she agreed. “So there must be fish for them to eat.”
“Or kids who get too close to the water.” Both had to snicker at that. But Lelanva wasn’t sure she’d be willing to swim in one of the cisterns. Too dark, too deep!
They set off toward the western cistern. There was no particular reason to go there, Lelanva knew, but it beat sitting. “Watch your feet,” she warned, a few minutes later.
Nib looked down. “What is it?” he asked. “It smells almost as bad as the basilisk.”
“Bat droppings.” She raised her candle and peered toward the roof. “All gone. It’s nighttime.”
“Do they go out through the cistern?”
“Yeah. We’re close to it.” This third reservoir was partly a natural cave, or so Lelanva had been told. It certainly didn’t have the circular shape of the other two cisterns. It was both wider and shallower. Again, so she had been told. She wasn’t about to jump in and test the depth.
She held her candle high as they entered the chamber. It did little to illuminate the space.
“I’m thirsty,” whispered Nib. “Could we go down and get some water?”
They certainly could. There was no difficulty in reaching the reservoir. “It’s best to boil the water that comes from the cistern,” she reminded him.
“But we can’t.”
“True.” Lelanva thought on that only a moment. “We’ll have to chance it. This cistern is supposed to have the cleanest water.” The furthest upstream, so to speak. Best not to think about bats pooping in it. She stared down into the basin’s depths. A dim, nebulous circle of light floated on the water, barely to be noticed. Lelanva looked toward the skylight in the center of the dome above. A few stars floated in the darkness there.
Nib broke into her reverie. “I hear someone.”
She suspected the boy’s imagination was working again. “Ghosts?” she asked.
“No such thing. Listen!”
Yes, there were voices. Where? They were impossible to locate with the echoes here. She backed toward the way they had entered, pushing Nib along with one arm.
Torch light appeared on the far side of the enclosure, as someone descended the stairway from the level above, the ground floor. Three men. They jabbered at each other in what most called Imperial Muram, which melded many dialects into one language. It had become the common trade tongue on both sides of the Great Sea. Lelanva could understand it. Understand it well enough.
Sent down to inspect the place, maybe, or wandered in on their own initiative. That didn’t matter at all. What did matter was that Nib and she would be in danger if they were spied. Should they put out their lights? They had no way of relighting unless one of them ventured into the city above.
Shouting. They’d been seen or the lights had. There was no sense in dousing them now. “Run,” she told Nib. “Follow me.”
A straight tunnel lay ahead of them, with no side ways diverging for some distance. They’d be easy to follow. Were the soldier after them? Yes, their cries suddenly rang louder as they entered the way behind the fleeing children. Nib was tired and would never be able to outrun them. Maybe she couldn’t either.
The first side tunnel yawned to their right. Lelanva almost ran past, seeking better refuge than it offered, when a whiff of stench drifted from the opening. A plan popped into the girl’s head at once. Perhaps not a well thought out plan, but a plan none the less. “This way!” Nib wrinkled his nose but followed without complaint.
“Don’t stop, no matter what,” she yelled to him. “And jump when I tell you to!”
Oops, her candle had gone out as she rushed along. Nib’s lamp still cast light behind her. The stink was growing stronger. This might work!
Suddenly, a sinuous form appeared in their path, like a great weasel with vestigial wings, blinking and uncertain what was going on. It would not remain that way very long!
“Jump! Jump!” She and Nib both sailed over the confused creature and disappeared into the dark beyond.
Behind them rose howls of dismay. “It sprayed them,” commented Nib. Both laughed and ran on.
Sprayed. That was how all dragons shot their fire, discharging a burning, noxious liquid from their rears. Lelanva wished she could have stayed and watched.
They slowed down a bit. “Are we safe now?” Nib asked.
“Only for a while. They know someone’s down here now.” They would surely come looking again. Eventually. There must be other things going on to keep the soldiers busy. More important things, she hoped. “We’ll have to find a good place to hide.”
“Near the basilisk,” suggested Nib.
“But not too near!” Hmm, how did the basilisk get in? Certainly not through the city! There must be an opening somewhere else. An opening outside the walls. She turned into another side tunnel, a curved way that led back again toward the west. Coming to a halt after a few minutes, she announced, “This is as good a place to hide as any, for a little while. Not too long. Hey, let me light my candle from your lamp.” She noted the oil was low when she did so. That would be the last of it. “Maybe you should use a candle too. And don’t burn yourself with it.”
“Yes, Lellie. I’ll be careful.”
He would try to be. Nib was terribly absent-minded. “I’m thinking,” the girl said, “that there might be a way that leads outside the city. We should look for it.” That’s what they should do, yes, for at least a day or two. If they couldn’t find a way, she would have to risk going into the city for supplies. Best not to think about that until there was no other choice.
“Maybe bats go in and out there, too,” suggested Nib.
“Maybe. We’ll watch for them.” Lelanva recognized it as a good suggestion, but she only knew of the one colony. “I’ve never been in these tunnels much. They don’t seem to go much of anywhere.”
The boy held up his candle and surveyed the low, uneven roof. “I think it’s a cave.”
Yeah, he was probably right. No one had chiseled a way through here. Maybe they added to it, though, for some reason she’d never know. “There are lots of blind tunnels and dead ends and cave-ins. That’s why I avoided them.” They actually scared her a little, where they grew narrow or low. She didn’t like those walls so close around her.
This, she would never admit to Nib. Nor anyone else!
“We won’t get lost, will we?”
“We can just follow our noses back to the basilisk,” she assured him. Lelanva did know these passages well enough, she thought, to avoid getting confused. But here she was searching for an unknown way. Where could it be?
They were closest to the west walls here than any other. Beyond them lay the hills. They could give cover for all sorts of animals! Lelanva had rarely ventured out of the city but she had heard tales of wild and dangerous beasts lurking beyond its safety. Maybe no more real the crocodiles in the cisterns, she told herself.
She might find out soon! “Let’s move on. I know a way that runs beyond the western cistern.” The pair trudged forward. It might have been for hours. It was probably day by now, the girl thought. Their tunnel opened onto the one she sought, the one she guessed had once carried water from the aqueduct to the cistern. The way was blocked, further up. That might have been done on purpose sometime, or it could have simply caved in. Either way, Lelanva thought she should give it a thorough look.
But she didn’t like this narrow passage. She felt closed in, trapped, like—like a prisoner. Better than being in the city and being a real prisoner. Here she could escape. She was escaping.
What was that soft, murmuring sound? It was growing louder. The soldiers weren’t following again, were they? “Do you hear that?” she asked Nib.
“Uh-huh. The basilisk?”
“Nah, we’d smell it. Something else.”
‘Something else’ revealed itself a few seconds later when a rat scurried by. More followed. Nib shrank away from them but Lelanva was used to rats. They wouldn’t bother them, even in these numbers. And they were running from something. That, too, was revealed when the first snake slithered into their lights.
“Run!” She didn’t know if the snakes were any more of a danger than the rats but didn’t intend to stay and find out. For at least a while, the two children could outpace the animals. Lelanva gasped on suddenly remembering there was no exit ahead in this tunnel. Not for someone her size, or Nib’s.
“Maybe we should turn and run back the other way,” she choked out. That could be the only way to escape. If the snakes weren’t venomous.
“Look!” cried Nib, pointing to ceiling. Bats were rustling about up there, disturbed by the turmoil below. Then one, another, an entire cloud of little winged bodies took to the air, rushing to escape. There, just above their heads, a hole in the rock wall. The bats disappeared into it.
Lelanva reacted without thought. “I’ll boost you up,” she told Nib, and pushed him toward the opening. He wriggled in and turned around to reach a hand down for her to grasp. Could she find a foothold? A rat ran across her foot, with a shrill little scream of terror. She felt like emitting one herself. All right, she had a hand on the edge of the tunnel now, was kicking her way up. Hissing below. She could see one of the snakes striking toward her leg, by the light of Nib’s candle. Her own, she had dropped.
The boy had hold of her jacket now and helped her scramble the rest of the way up. “I don’t think they can climb,” he said.
“Or have no reason to,” she responded. “No rats up here.”
“Just two really big ones, hiding in their hole.”
“We’ll have to see where the hole leads. Let me catch my breath first.”
This was even more like being imprisoned than before. There was no room to stand, only to crawl forward. And upward; they were definitely moving upward. Like the bats, of course, rising toward the world outside.
“We’ll have to be quiet,” she warned. “There’s no telling where we’re going to come out.” Or if the passage would remain wide enough for them to come out at all.
The way was growing steeper. That could keep them from getting out too. Nib anyway. Lelanva knew she could work her way up a vertical flue and had on occasion. “There’s light ahead,” she whispered. “Daylight.”
A very wan sort of daylight, but any daylight was dangerous. She should be cautious, maybe wait until dark to go the rest of the way. It would be a terribly uncomfortable wait, wedged in this hole. Maybe a peek. Lelanva pushed herself up just far enough to get a look, maybe figure out where they were.
That proved to be inside a small room, walled with great, gray stone blocks. She glimpsed a bit of red sky through a gap high in the wall. Sunset. That explained why none of the bats had flitted back in. What part of the city was this? Carefully, she went to the broken place and peered out. Why, they weren’t in the city at all. They were outside the walls!
She couldn’t see those walls from this angle. “Come on up,” she whispered to Nib. “It’s safe.” For now. They could always bolt back into their hole if there seemed to be any danger.
Nib looked around. “I think we’re in the aqueduct.”
Lelanva thought he could be right. “But what is this room?”
The boy shrugged. “Maybe it was a secret hideout.”
She thought that could well be right, too. “And a secret passage, which we found.”
“The bats found it and showed us,” he corrected her. Then the boy frowned. “But wouldn’t that tunnel we were in have been full of water in the old days?”
“Not deep, I think, and maybe not all the time. A man could probably wade if need be. It would do for emergencies.” She wasn’t really at all sure of this but it sounded plausible. And it didn’t matter much now, after all. She looked around the room. “How do we get out of here?” There was no obvious door. Maybe they could squeeze through that hole in the wall, but it was awfully narrow. Bat sized, only. They certainly couldn’t shift any of those big stone blocks!
It had grown noticeably darker out. Nib held up his candle and peered toward the ceiling. “The way out must be up there.”
Any wooden ladder would have rotted away long ago. Surely whoever built this cell had provided something better. Oh, she was too tired for more puzzles! Every time one was solved, another came along.
“Here it is!” crowed Nib. He seemed to be walking right up the wall. No, there was a exceedingly narrow stairway of the same gray stone as the walls. One could hardly make it out until one set foot on it, and not much better then. Even less so when it was this dark.
Lelanva definitely wouldn’t attempt to come back down it without light. “Let’s see what’s up there. And you be really, really careful, boy. We didn’t get this far so you can fall and crack your head.”
Up they went, sidling with their hands against the wall, Nib in the lead. “There’s a narrow place to go through here,” he said as they reached the top. “Ooh, full of cobwebs.”
“Maybe snakes, too,” she told him. “Slide on through.”
“It’s hard to hold onto my candle. Now it goes back the other way. So no one can see it, huh?”
It was supposed to be secret, after all. Lelanva didn’t bother to remind him of that. A minute later they sat on a ledge on the side of aqueduct, feet dangling, looking toward Famod.
“There are still fires,” she said. “Mostly burnt out, I think.”
Not much light at all came from the city. Torches could be glimpsed along the ramparts. They were really far too close to those to dawdle. “I don’t think we should use the road,” said Lelanva.
Nib looked up. “We can use the channel as our road.”
“Is there water in it?”
“Broken in too many places for that. My dad showed me when we came up here. We used to—used to come out from the city whenever we could.” The boy stifled a sob.
“Then you’ll have to be our guide from here out. I don’t know about anything outside Famod.”
They clambered over the edge of the aqueduct without much difficulty and hiked up its channel. Quite dry it might be, but much litter and dirt had accumulated in it, and some surprisingly large trees had taken root. Moreover, it was broken here and there, though no gaps proved too wide for them to jump across.
Grandmother Moon rose to light their way, in time. Lelanva said a little prayer of thanks for that, though she felt a bit silly doing so. Through the night they walked, resting only now and then, and into the dawn. Famod looked far away now. “There used to be villas up here,” said Nib, pointing to ruins barely recognizable as once having been dwellings. “Rich Tesrans lived in them. They were the first places looted when the Mur took over.”
Like me, thought Lelanva. Her ancestors were barbarians. She wasn’t too far removed from being one herself. “I don’t suppose it would be safe to take shelter in one.” A roof over their head would be nice but most didn’t appear to still have roofs. And the weather was good, as fine a day of early summer as one might wish.
Would that summer had never come. It had brought the fleet of the Muram Empire with it. True, some ships would cross the Great Sea even in the middle of winter, but the Empire had not been willing to risk its fleet before spring. These facts she had heard from soldiers on the walls, from sailors on the docks, from her own father.
“How far does this aqueduct go?” she asked. “I know we can’t follow it all the way to Tesra!”
“There is supposed to be a lake. I’ve never been that far.”
“We’ll go find it later. Right now we need to find a good spot to hide and rest a while.” A thicket of bushes provided concealment, to rest and to eat. Lelanva could spot a grove of hutnee trees below them. Their beans wouldn’t be ripe yet. The girl knew them well as common fare for cattle and impoverished humans. She didn’t know if she would recognize anything else growing wild. The last of their own food would soon be gone.
Both slept soundly and started off again in the mid afternoon. The aqueduct varied greatly in height now as it passed over the rolling hills, sometimes on high arches, sometimes with its channel set into the ground, even cutting through the top of a rise, here and there. Lelanva felt vulnerable when they were down low, though they had spied not one person so far.
She hoped none had spied them! By sunset they could spy the lake glimmering ahead. Soon, water began to appear in the channel. The aqueduct was again nearly level with the ground here. When reeds sprouted from a sheet of water spreading from one wall to the other, it was time to abandon their erstwhile roadway.
“Ooh, what is this?” Lelanva asked, as she hopped down and sank into the soggy ground.
Nib knew. “It’s a marsh.”
She knew the word. The reality was not quite what she expected. She did not like its smell at all, and she had experienced more than a few unpleasant smells in Famod. “Well, we can’t stay in it. That way.” The lake was not large, not that Lelanva knew of any other lakes with which to compare it. Nor did Nib, for that matter; he knew only a little more of life outside the city walls than his friend. It was much smaller that Famod harbor, to be sure.
Some might have named it a pond. Shortly, they were on higher ground and halfway to its other side. “I bet there are fish in there,” said Lelanva. “We can try catching them.” That, she did know something about. She had fished from the wharves of Famod.
They crossed a barely perceptible, overgrown road. “That’s not the way to Tesra, is it?” the girl ask. She much doubted it but was sure of nothing, right now.
“Huh-uh. The road over the hills is paved with stone.”
“Just like when it leaves the gates of Famod?”
“Yep. All the way.” She was willing to believe it. If it were not true, they would find out eventually. They were going to Tesra. She could come up with no other plan.
A sizable compound of stone buildings, falling into ruin, rose ahead. They’d best be careful approaching them. She squatted and motioned for Nib to do the same. “We’ll wait until it’s darker,” she told him. The sun was near sinking behind the hills already. It wouldn’t be long.
Nib whispered, “My dad told me there was a shrine here, to one of the Tesran gods.”
Lelanva knew the names of some of those deities. They had tended to become mixed up with the Muram gods in the minds of many. She wondered if they minded. Or if they even paid any attention.
She could imagine them joking about it. “Dark enough. Let’s go.”
The duo crept toward the buildings. None of those rose particularly high—even without their roofs—save one tall structure in the middle. Lelanva at once guessed that was the shrine, proper, and the others were workshops and dormitories and the like. “I’ll bet there is a big kitchen somewhere,” she whispered to Nib. “Was a big kitchen.”
“The one with the chimney,” he responded, pointing.
Sensible boy. It was indeed a larger chimney than those on any of the other buildings, even if it had crumbled some. It also made as good a landmark as any for them to head toward. A kitchen might be attached to a dining hall. They wouldn’t want to blunder into a large space with nowhere to conceal themselves. She led her friend around to what was probably the rear of the kitchen. Any doors that had once hung in the openings there had long disappeared. One would be as good to try as another. Up a few stone steps and inside they went.
A storeroom, maybe, once. The slight lingering bit of daylight filtering in from outside showed little, and they no longer carried any lights. Those had been doused when they took to traveling in the open along the aqueduct, and they had no way to relight one of the remaining candles.
Lelanva stepped cautiously into the next room, one even darker. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, to realize there was a man inside, huddled on a stool beside a shrouded lamp. He spied them at once and rose, one hand on his sword, the other lifting his light, then relaxing when he took in who his visitors were. The fellow looked thoroughly Muram—copper-complected, dark of hair, sparse of beard. His outfit was that of soldier, tunic and trousers, with a short sword at his side, but any insignia had been discarded.
“You kids by yourselves?” he asked, peering into the darkness behind them. “All right, then, come on into my home.” He barked a laugh. “I guess it’s mine now! Someone had already been squatting here but they’ve taken off. Maybe the troubles in Famod scared them away.” He looked the pair over. “You’ve come from Famod?”
Lelanva gave him a cautious nod.
“How went things there? Has the city fallen?”
“Taken and sacked.”
“We snuck out,” Nib added.
“Smart of you,” the soldier told them, settling back onto his stool. “I be Sogid. No reason I shouldn’t tell you that.”
“But maybe not others?” hazarded Lelanva.
“Ha, maybe not. Want some grub?”
That they did. “I am Lelanva and this is Nib,” she told him, as they took places on the floor. It was not a clean floor, as most would define such, but the dirt was dry and old and not at all nasty. And there was an intact roof above them.
Sogid gave them each a millet cake. Typical fodder for a soldier. “I was with the Esan troops sent to defend the city,” he said. “I could see it was a lost cause, you know? So I took off.”
Lelanva couldn’t bring herself to judge him for that. She’d taken off herself. Not that she ever had any duty to stay. “Are you making your way back to the Esan army?
There was an emphatic shake of his head. “I’d be crucified as a deserter.”
“We’re going to Tesra,” volunteered Nib. Lelanva shot him an annoyed expression but he seemed to miss it.
“Hmm, a week’s journey, at least, afoot,” said the soldier. “It might be the place for me, too. Aye, it just might.” He surveyed the pair for a few seconds. “And I might just accompany you if you don’t mind.”
Lelanva’s first instinct was to mind it very much. She’d done a pretty good job of taking care of herself and Nib, so far, hadn’t she? But she could see no real reason to object. She could even grudgingly admit they might need his protection.
“Do we travel by night or day?” she asked. “We’re ready to move on right now if you are.”
Sogid gave that more thought than it probably needed, giving the youngsters a lingering, thoughtful look before speaking. “It would be best to go by night, wouldn’t it? Until we’re further from Famod. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Imperials decided to send some patrols up this way, when they think about it.”
Within the hour, the three were on their way. “The main road’s over that way,” said Sogid, waving an arm southward. “I reckon we could angle to it ’stead of taking that cow-path I came in by.”
Across unknown hills in the darkness? Lelanva wasn’t so sure of that. Oh, but once the moon came up it should be all right. Even the starlight on this clear night helped.
It also helped that the hills were largely barren of aught but grass. There were supposed to be forests further on, but that was yet another thing of which she knew only by hearsay. Around Famod, the harsh winds off the sea didn’t allow for much in the way of trees, much less big trees pressing close to one another.
They walked the stones of the road to Tesra by the time the moon rose. Weary they were when dawn came and all too willing to hole up for the day. The soldier meted out a couple more cakes, and Nib and Lelanva shared what was left of their own store. “It might be hard going in a couple days,” felt Sogid, reclining on his ragged cloak, “unless we find some food somewhere. Haven’t seen any farmhouses or the like, so far.”
“Would they feed us?” wondered Nib.
The man shrugged. “If they don’t, we can take what we need. One way or another.” He gave Lelanva another long look before rolling over and snoring.
So they rose at dusk and walked through part of another night. “I say we stop here and rest a bit,” spoke Somig, a few hours before dawn. “We could start walking by daylight then. Should be safe enough.”
Lelanva might have chosen to go all the way to Tesra by night, but could see there was no reason now. Maybe they’d run into other travelers by day. It would be nice to know there were still other people in the world!
Not very many of them it seemed, when they were again on the road, at least in this part of the world. A ragged man hurried by once, not looking at them and keeping his distance. A shepherd surveyed them from the safety of a nearby hill. At least his dog barked at them. Ruined buildings arose here and there along the way but no one seemed to live beside the road now. “That’s one of the old caravansaries,” Sogid informed them as they approached a tumbled-down place. “The Tesrans put them all along the roads. There’s ones like ’em on the road from Robon.”
“You’re from Robon?” asked Lelanva.
“Lived there,” was all the soldier was willing to say. “Good a place as any to camp.” Without further word he turned from the road.
Lelanva was just about ready to walk on without him. This Sogid wasn’t going to make decisions for her! They didn’t need him anyway. But Nib followed the soldier. The boy looked tired. She was pretty tired herself. The caravansary—what was left of it—once had sheds lining the inside of its walls. Those were largely gone but the stone walls were intact. For the most part.
“It’s safe to have a fire now,” Sogid decided. “You two see if you can find some wood.”
Orders, again. But it would be nice to have a fire. She and Nib gathered armfuls of what they thought might burn, though they knew little of such things. Sogid made no comment when they dumped them, but busied himself with a fire-bow, igniting a small flame. A fitful fire soon burned. That evening they shared the last of the food they carried. Lelanva still felt empty as she fell into sleep.
To be awakened with a start. It wasn’t morning yet. What was going on? Sogid was straddling her, tying her hands together with a leather thong. “Don’t struggle, girl. There, that should do. Now behave,” he growled. He got off her, kneeling now by her side.
“What—?” She didn’t know what question to ask.
“I reckon I can sell you to a brothel when we reach Tesra. Maybe the boy too..” He reached out a calloused hand, slid it up her leg. “No reason I shouldn’t enjoy myself some first though, is there? No reason at all.” His hand strayed further under her skirt.
“Stop!” Nib was suddenly there, fists striking again and again at him.
Sogid casually backhanded the boy, sending him sprawling. “Maybe I’ll have some of you, too, when I’ve finished with the girl.” He returned his attention to Lelanva. She could glimpse Nib lying stunned beyond Sogid. Then he was atop her and she could see nothing but his leering face.
His hands tore at her blouse. “Ha, nothing to see there,” he snickered, pressing his wiry whiskers against her nipples. What was he doing? Oh, trying to slide his trousers down. She couldn’t fight him. He was too big, too heavy, and had her pinned down. And tied! How could she let that happen?
Sogid’s breath came fast, ragged. Then came a sudden deep gasp and he rolled off her. Surely that wasn’t all, was it? That wasn’t at all what she had heard about sex. No, there was blood running down the man’s torso and Nib standing there with a sword in his hand. Where had he found that?
The soldier rose and fumbled for his own weapon, his trousers about his ankles, his erection visibly deflating. Lelanva at once rolled over, throwing herself against his legs. He stumbled, fell, his sword clattering on the ground. “Get him again!” she yelled at Nib, even as she reached for Sogid’s wayward weapon. Then both were thrusting their blades into the soldier’s body, over and over, and far more than was necessary.
“Did he hurt you, Lellie?” asked the boy when both stepped away. He was visibly shaking. Lelanva was a little surprised by how calm she felt herself. There was no time to think about that now.
“No. Never got the chance, thanks to you. Where did you get that sword?”
“I—I needed it and I, uh, saw it and reached out and grabbed it.” He held the weapon out to her. It was longer than the military blade Sogid had carried, and much nicer in workmanship. It could bring a good price anywhere.
As she held it, the sword faded and evaporated. “Oh, well, we have the other sword,” said Lelanva. “Reached out and grabbed it, eh? From another world, maybe?” She had heard of such things, in the tales told in the marketplace.
“I guess, Lellie. I don’t know. I—I don’t know anything.” The boy began to bawl.
She finished sawing through the thongs on her wrists and went to embrace him. “I know you’re the bravest companion I could ever have.” Holding him then at arms’ length, she said, “You must have wizard blood. That means you definitely belong in Tesra. They called it the city of wizards, didn’t they?
“City of wizardry.”
“I was close. Let’s gather what we need and be on our way.”
Before dawn, two companions were on the road to Tesra.
right may well be right
and wrong is certainly wrong
who says which is which?
success and failure
are but stops along the road
the journey goes on
to believe in good
is no more logical than
to believe in god
Stephen Brooke ©2024
zappai is a catch-all name for poems written in the form of haiku and senryu
