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The guardians of the world disappear, and only one forgotten girl can get them back. |
I - Thunder A rip opened into the unknown on a strangely quiet night. The Zaramol plains seethed, yellow and brown grasses under the hooves of charging stallions. It was early fall. There were no trees to dry up in the harvest season. If they had been there—tall thin pines, gnarly rowans—the rains of Zaramol would have drowned them many weeks before. The rip became a gap, and stayed that way for eighteen minutes. Only the horses were around to feel peculiar about the opening that led away from their world. They ran formidably in herds, illuminated here and there by the bouts of silent lightning overhead. Some of the stragglers trotted toward the portal, sniffed around it, stepped inside and never came back. It finally closed with the suddenness of a mouse trap. Fifty meters east, another gap opened. This one had a smaller diameter but a significantly longer lifespan. And so the oddities continued two and a half feet above a forgotten girl’s head. She lay stretched out in a hole hollowed perfectly for her size. Her left arm clutched fabric from her woolen gown, and her right was buried within a mass of blonde hair. She lay facing the cloud-capped sky, her skin stained grey, fragile, pallid with past raindrops. She lay there for three days. During this time, her eyelids fluttered but she was not awake. “Hey lady! What’s the problem?” a passing farmer called down on her. He reined in his salivating sheepdog. When she didn’t move, he knelt to touch her face. It was firm as if frozen. “Heaven to Lir!” She was light and not hard to lift. The farmer man wrapped her in his shirt of blue flannel, though it lent little warmth, and set her down a minute while he filled in the hole. “S’ungodly, the things you find about these parts,” he muttered into the sprays of dirt. His boot nudged clod after clod until the land was smoothed over as if nothing had ever been amiss. Miles in the distance, a mountainous toe stirred on a rock outcropping. It made thunder. The sparrows perching there flapped up like a stream of gas, then settled once more like warm mist. “Thunder,” said the farmer. “I’d better get us all home, yea?” II - Farmhouse “Her skin is wet, but it breathes,” declared the farmer’s wife. “I think she’s alive.” “How will we get her heart going again?” “It will start beating on its own if we nourish her,” she told her husband. “Leave her in our bed for a few days. We can sleep in the guest room.” She shielded her eyes from the morning. No bright ball of sun could be seen through the window, but the stormclouds were suffused with brightness. Flickers of grey sky slid behind dark veils of fog. Bats flew great distances above the farm, like ink blots crawling across a bedsheet. They were blind this early in the day, drifting too high for their health. It was time to feed the fowl, milk the goats and attend to the newborn kid. He was only a week old, starved for attention. The couple left the house and girl with a cup of water and a bowl of broth. Perhaps she would wake up during the day. They hoped they would not return at sundown to a dead body. On the outer ridge of the plains, a man was driving a buggy with a steam engine. He was dressed in common clothes but wore the telltale pendant of the Castle beneath his shirt. Riding seaward in the hours of dawn was one of his many indulgent pleasures. As it happened, his buggy drew close enough that he could hear the thunder of the Magister as it shifted its great foot, tumbling shack-sized boulders in every direction, whose falls echoed eerily across Zara. He furrowed his brow. Did he really hear that or was it merely a trick of paranoia? The thunder escalated and became massive, slowpaced booms. The Prince’s face paled. He steered to a halt. “They’re active,” he muttered to himself. It was important to keep calm or he would attract unwanted attention. But why would the Magisters rouse themselves so early this year? There had to have been an incident. He drove back toward the Castle in earnest, dodging the occasional bat that fluttered hysterically in his path. Now he could see the distant mounds rising out of stone, three of them that guarded the opposite end of the plains. The Magisters would set their sights immediately on his home. A modest farmhouse came into his view, squatting amid straight rows of turnips and greens. There was a dog, a blur of shaggy white, loping in the buggy’s direction. As the Prince passed by a strange odor overwhelmed him. It smelled warmly bitter, like fresh blood. Yet it also smelled like something he didn’t understand. The sensation almost wrenched him out of his seat. Whatever was in that house, it was upsetting the Magisters. And nothing but the portals could upset the Magisters—and the things that came through the portals. III - Lovely The farmer’s wife came in from the fields at noon to bring lunch to her husband. She checked on the girl, who still slumbered. Attempts to make her drink water or soup failed; her lips were clasped tightly together as if protecting against poison. She lay in the bed motionless, the organs inside her cool and dormant. Once more she was left alone. Hours passed, bringing forth the later part of the day. The grey clouds were taking on bruises of night. Ripe fruits were harvested for a pie, chickens were fed, and the goats huddled drowsily in the center of their pen. There was no one in the bed of the farmer and his wife when they returned. Muddy bootprints scuffed their wooden floor, but the sheets were neatly turned. The cup of water was untouched, the broth drained clean from the bowl. The girl hadn’t up and left; she’d been taken. The farmer comforted his wife, who wept into his shoulder. Years ago they had lost a young daughter. Though they’d only kept this girl a few hours, it was as if they’d lost another. She wept freely until his blue flannel shirt soaked up the last of her tears. Outside, the sheepdog sat on his haunches and peered through the open window. He barked once. “People from the Castle took her,” the dog said, but his masters only shushed him. Yes, they knew he was hungry and would feed him soon. Evening brought on the opening of clouds, and rain dampened the land of Zara. The farmhouse was spared from more than a few sprinkles, but it poured hard to the south where a caravan of three steam-buggies clattered over a long wooden bridge. The thick and murky river Lirch marked the northern boundary of the Castle’s dominion. In the second buggy, her body arranged on a pallet of down, the girl began to stir. A man was leaning close to her. His long black forelock swept the tip of her nose, though the rest of his hair was close-shaved. He had burnt-orange eyes that wandered up and down her body. “Lovely,” he whispered, lowering a hand to her face. “Get off me!” He stumbled back, knocking his head against one of the seats. The driver twisted around and inquired after the Prince’s well being; he received a string of tight curses in reply. “Who are you people?” the girl interrupted. She rose to a sitting position and was promptly buffeted by a strong wind. “Why are we in a wagon?” “It’s a steam-buggy, not a wagon,” the Prince spat at her. “See? There’s a roof over your head.” She looked up at the canvas covering. It didn’t keep out much rain, since the wind galed through the open sides and threw droplets in her hair. Instinctively, she shivered. The sight of her discomfort melted the Prince’s incense, and he bid her lay down once more. “We’ll be at the Castle not long after passing this bridge,” he said, gently pushing her onto her back. As if obeying his command, the bridge ended, and the buggy rolled over smooth flagstones. The girl didn’t want to be prostrate in front of this man. However, she found herself nodding off against her will. “That’s right,” crooned the Prince with a sugary smile. “You need your beauty sleep.” What a buffoon, was her final conscious thought. --- ...a mountainous toe stirred on a rock outcropping. It made thunder. The sparrows perching there flapped up like a stream of gas, then settled once more like warm mist... --Forbidden Ansidia, Part I |
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