SciFi and Fantasy Stories: Golden fire, healthy hope

Golden fire, healthy hope

The harvest was going to burn! Mazat didn’t allowed himself to dwell on the thought. With each swing of the scythe the long straws fell limp to the ground before him. The smell from the cut straw was fresh and sweet, and the stubble he left behind scratched his ankles bloody. Death shouldn’t smell pleasant. It seemed wrong, somehow. He shook his head to chase away the bizarre thoughts. Harvest always put him in a strange mood.

            A sudden scream tore through the crisp air, but he didn’t look up. He knew what was coming and the effort would just delay him. Gritting his teeth he managed to raise the pace another notch, trusting that those following behind would keep up. They would finish this patch. Whatever happened next, they would finish this patch. The sweat trickling down his brow seeped into his eyes and made him blink furiously, but he didn’t take the time to wipe it. The sting from the salty drops mingled with the burning sensation in his back. He figured he could endure a little longer. He would. 

“Dad!”

The shout from behind jolted him. It was Ardnon, his oldest. The plea in the voice was clear, but Mazat couldn’t stop or slow down.

“What is it?” Mazat made his voice curt and uninviting. There was no time.

            “Can we rest a little? Please?”

            “Keep going!”

            “Da!” It was Ethel this time. Her outcry was close to a sob.

            “Keep going, child. Think of your little brother. We shall need every ounce of grain for the winter.” He made his voice milder for the girl. She was younger, yet so conscientious.

            “I know.” The sob was still in the voice, but also resolve.

            “Are you catching it all?” The harvest was too valuable to let even a single grain get lost.

            “Yes.” That was Ardnon again. “The cart is getting very full.”

            Mazat paused in his mind, not permitting his limbs to do the same. They would have to empty the cart then. They wanted to salvage the harvest, not merely to cut it. He cursed the fact that his wife was ill. Now he couldn’t spare anyone to drive the grain off the fields. Not now, with the screams heralding the approaching menace. Yet, it had to be salvaged. He made a decision. At the top of the hill in front of them was an old cairn hiding a long since plundered burial site.

            “When we reach the Willow Cairn we’ll take a break. Let’s move there as swiftly as we can.”

            There was no more sound from behind his back, none had the surplus energy to complain or comment.

            Another heart wrenching scream. It sounded nearer this time. How near was it? It came from high above the ground, the height made it hard to judge the distance. He wouldn’t get anxious until he heard the riders, so they might empty the cart, get a short break, and still get started on the next before they had to flee. If their limbs would obey. Weariness must be banished. They could not take another winter like the one before, not with a small babe and an ill mother who had starved herself to the point of near death for the sake of her children.

            The land was gradually sloping up now. He had to adjust the angle of his scythe so not to lodge the blade in the ground. The steady rhythm faltered. His arms had been going on their own accord for a long time, following the pattern his mind had set out for them. The mind was a little slow now, to adjust the instructions, but as soon he had the right swing back his arms obeyed their new directives. His mind strayed off once more, as it was apt to do during the slow monotonous work.

            How was the nature of these things, really? Did the wheat actually die when the straws were cut? Or, if it was allowed, would it re-emerge next spring to continue its growth? The question seemed important to him in his trancelike state. Was he the instrument of a death cycle or a life cycle? Bitterly he reflected that they knew all about death cycles in Derebru. It was the life cycles that were hard.

            “The Cairn!”

The cry from behind cut him abruptly off in his musings and made him look up,. The cairn was indeed only a very short way ahead.

            “Almost there, children,” he cried out in reply. “Almost there. We shall have a break shortly.”

            Then he heard it. No, felt it. The sound was of such a quality that it was more like a rumble in his bones, beating up to his skull from the soles of his bare feet. The riders!

            “Grab the cart!” he cried out in consternation, dropping his scythe were he stood. Turning to see if the children were far behind, his heart skipped a beat. They were farther behind than he had thought. He ran for them. They just now raised their backs from their work to see him come racing across the rough stubble. His feet were hardened from years of walking without shoes, but right now he wouldn’t slowed if he had trampled on glowing coals.

            “The cart! Grab the cart,” he yelled, then he was there, pulling the handle right out of Ardnons hands and threw his weight on it. The children helped to push it into motion, and as soon as they had it rolling they supported the sides and protected the grain with their hands. Even now the harvest was all-important. He threw quick glances to their sides, but saw no trace of any riders pursuing the screams above. Yet, the beat through the ground grew more distinct, they had to be close.

            “Faster!” He urged them on, equally fearful of getting run over by horses as he was of getting caught in burning grain.

The cairn loomed up before them, seemingly growing out of the ground like a different sort of crop. This particular crop yielded security, not grain, but that was what they desperately needed right now. Great slabs of rock jutted up like fingers, supporting a conical rock wall made of smaller stones lodged together in a seeming chaos, but which had preserved for centuries. He looked for the opening. On the other side. He heaved again, pushing the cart in front of him, then he threw a glance downhill in the direction of the yet untouched flowing field bristling with heavy spikes of grain.

The riders! They had been hidden by the crest of the slope. They cantered through the oh so valuable gold, disregarding its worth with the indifference of soldiers on a mission.

Which they were.

Behind them another line of black riders loomed on the horizon. They trotted abreast, leaving a flattened gate in the gold.

Mazat nearly threw the cart around the cairn. Now he could see the riders in time to avoid them, but the being in the skies was still unaccounted for. This was no time for dawdling.

The children followed suit, and he merely had to point to the rectangular hole close to the ground for them to understand. The cart was to big to be fitted in, so they started to throw armful after armful of wheat into the dark. At one point Ethel squeezed in and started to push the straws further into the half buried chamber to make room for more. Finally, after the last straw was secure, Mazat pushed Ardnon in and waited to follow.

Another scream tore the air. The soldiers shouted, and the dark line on the horizon surged forward. Had they sighted the beast? Mazat didn’t wait to look, he merely dived for the opening, and half crawled, half rolled into safety. At least he hoped it was safe.

When his eyes adjusted to the dark he saw Ardnon and Ethel sit against the opposite wall, eyes wide open. He took a closer look at the chamber. He hadn’t been there since he was a little boy playing in the fields during harvest. The straw was heaped into the middle of the room, filling the darkness with its scent.

“Children, help me to move the straw to the wall opposite of the opening!” They couldn’t have their precious harvest catch fire when they had gotten it this far. Not to mention what would happen to them if a fire trapped them inside this small room. Mazat frowned. It would be bad enough to be caught in here if the field were ablaze around them. It might not come to that, but still…

When they had moved every ounce of straw and grain as far from the opening as they could, they all sat quietly down. The children seemed exhausted.

“Dad?” It was Ardnon. “Won’t we be trapped in here if the field catches fire?”

That line of thought was too close to Mazat’s own, for comfort. He shook his head, trying to inspire some sense of security in them.

“We will be all right.” He tried to assure himself as much as the children. “Just take your rest.”

Ethel rubbed her hands down her apron, a habit he knew well. She always did when she worried. Some time passed in silence, and they all tried to relax their knotted muscles and sore backs.

“I’m afraid,” Ethel blurted at last. “Dad, what will happen?”

“I don’t know, child,” he replied as gently as he could. “We shall wait till the riders are gone, then we shall take what we have salvaged back home. If we are lucky they might ride on, and nothing happens.” He didn’t believe it, even as he spoke. He thought for a second. “We might as well eat our food here. This may be a while.”

They both nodded and fetched a small packet each from their aprons. Mazat opened his own with barely a glance at its content. Dried bread, no spread, and water from the canteen was all they had. It was what they made do with for months on end, and now, at the end of the season, the bread was made on part rye and part bark flour. If only they had something decent to give Mara… He stopped that chain of thought. If they salvaged the grain inside the cairn with them, they would at least have something. Too little… Again, he refused to let his mind to wander in that direction.

“Let me tell you a story!” He needed to occupy his mind with something different, and judging from their nervous movements the children did too.

They looked up. The light from the opening fell on them from the left, leaving their faces half in shadow. It was an eerie effect.

“What story?” Ethel asked. “A glint of interest in her eyes told of youthful resilience.

“I’ll tell you of… I’ll tell you of how the phoenix came to be part of Derebru’s coat of arms!”

They both looked interested now, and he plunged into the half forgotten tale, relayed to him once by his grandmother, in days long gone.

“Once there were many Lords of Derebru,” he started. “In those days there were much unrest, and the lords were warring among themselves all the time. Then it so happened that the young Lord Saliasar returned from abroad with a great treasure. It was an egg. A very big egg. He claimed that he had won it in a tournament in a foreign country, and that it was a phoenix egg. He built a huge fire in his courtyard and hatched it there, and when the glowing bird rose from the ashes it was the beginning of the Saliasar dynasty. From that day Saliasar had the phoenix added to his family crest, and he proclaimed it to be a holy bird. Only the High Lord is allowed to own a live bird or a phoenix egg.”

The children were listening intently, paying a rare attention.

“I thought it was a wild beast,” Ardnon commented.

Mazat nodded. “It is. But Lord Saliasar didn’t know he couldn’t tame it. He tried to train it, to use it as a weapon in his battles, and that was what killed him at last. I dare say the lords since have learned more about the birds than what Saliasar knew. Or maybe it is the same bird. I don’t know for certain, but I know it never mates. It just dies in a blast of fire, and when the fire dies down, there is another egg. 

 “Lord Saliasar the first died when the bird spat fire on him, a mere few hours before it turned into a fireball and consumed itself. It always does that. It starts to spit fire at people, at buildings, at anything in its vicinity a few hours before it dies. If die it does.”

Mazat paused. It occurred to him that this cyclic nature of things seemed to be a repeating pattern for high lords and peasants alike. The thought put a wry smile on his lips. Or, he added to himself, at least for their means of sustenance,. Lords lived by power, peasants lived by grain. When you have the power, you don’t need to grow your own food. When you don’t have power, you are lucky to keep the little food you’ve got. Mazat checked his thoughts again, and forced them back to the story.

“I’ve only heard of the phoenix dying once before. It was before you were born, and it happened in another part of the kingdom.” That part of the land had been ruined for years after. He didn’t add that bit, but went on.

“Lord Saliasar kept the bird at his hunting castle then. When it started to spit fire it was released from its chains and let free to take flight to die where it chose. He sent his soldiers after it to gather the egg from the ashes.” His mind wandered back to the black riders outside, trampling the harvest, making sure to ruin what little the beast would leave unscorched.

“They hunted for days, I remember. The bird was very swift. The soldiers said they had to turn over every patch of scorched earth to make sure the egg wasn’t there. One minute the bird was in their sight, the next it was gone, then it was back.”

His tale was interrupted by the scream again. This time it sounded further to the west, toward the hills, and it kindled a spark of hope in Mazat’s chest. Maybe the harvest could be salvaged after all. Perhaps the taxes could be met…

He could see the same thoughts racing through his children’s minds. Their faces turned to the opening, and they checked their breath to catch what was happening outside. Somebody shouted not far away. Then the steady beat of horses at a canter came closer, closer, then passed the cairn and faded to the west. Was it over?

Mazat stretched his legs, wishing with all his might that they had seen the last of it, that the high lords’ bird had left the billowing farmland for the forested hills. The silence stretched and stretched, and Mazat’s patience with it. The boy and the girl fretted, then yawned, and fretted again. At long last Mazat decided he needed to have a look outside. He left Ardnon and Ethel lying in a heap, sleeping, and crawled quietly out from the hole.

Outside he rose, searching the sky and the horizon for signs of life. The hills rose to the west like a green wave washing over a golden beach of ripe fields. Fields marred with scorch marks. The shock hit him like a fist when he saw the evidence of the legends with his own eyes. Even if he knew what to expect, it was one thing to have heard the tale, to know what was going to happen, another matter entirely to see it for himself.   

He assessed the damage. It could have been worse, he told himself. At least half of the fields looked to be unharmed. The greatest part of the damage done was in fact not the scorch marks, but the trampling from the soldiers who followed the bird. He sighed. He would gather the family to say their prayers of gratitude tonight. If they could meet the taxes, they would have enough to make it through the winter. He didn’t dare thinking of the baby. Its fate would depend on its mother and how well she fared on their meagre supplies.

He turned to call for the children. It was getting late, but they could salvage a little more, just in case the bird came back. The sun was low over the hills behind him, already casting a golden glow on the cairn. A golden glow… He stopped dead.

Fearful he lifted his eyes to the top of the cairn a few meagre feet above his head. The air seemed to shimmer and wave around the feathered bird perching on it. The phoenix cocked his head, surprisingly hen-like, and met his eyes. Palpable rays of heat beat against his face. Stretching its wings, out and up, the phoenix cast another wave of warmth at him. The wing span had to be a good ten feet! Opening its beak, it started to screech, then coughed, sending a cataract of liquid fire streaming down the rocks at its feet. It cocked its head again, shifted its weight from foot to foot, looked back to Mazat and opened its beak.

Mazat hadn’t known he could move so quick. He threw himself at the hole at the base of the cairn, and in the very moment he rolled into safety, the chamber was lit as by a small reddish sun. It lasted merely a second. The rocks withstood the assault, and the blaze outside was so intense that the fire didn’t catch hold. The grass and the grain in the immediate vicinity was completely incinerated. It all happened without a sound. The children didn’t even wake up.

Then, something plonked on the rocks. Was the phoenix still there? Did it move around to peek into the hole and burn them alive? Mazat panicked. The cairn was a trap! He had killed them all!

A split second later, something white dropped from the ledge above the opening and came to rest in the ashes right in front of his wild, staring eyes.

 Their salvation.

With a gasp, Mazat crawled over to the opening, taking in the sight. Right in front of him was a large egg, five times as large as an ordinary hen egg. It was golden with red spots, and it seemed completely unharmed from the drop down the cairn.

            Hesitating slightly, he stretched out his hand, touching the egg in wonder. It was warm, almost uncomfortably so, but seemed to be cooling as he watched. His hand shook slightly as he caressed the warm, smooth surface. All sort of thoughts raced through his mind. What should he do? Nobody knew the egg was here. The soldiers was probably still chasing westward. He wasn’t allowed to possess a phoenix egg. He couldn’t hatch it. He couldn’t keep a phoenix. He couldn’t let the menace loose again. What should he DO?

            The children stirred inside. The idea that had nudged his mind since the egg dropped to the ground before him, now hit him with full force. Quickly, he scooped up the egg and slipped it into his apron. There wouldn’t be more harvesting today after all. They had to get away before the soldiers returned.

In a daze he mustered Ardnon and Ethel, told them that the danger was over and had them put the grain back on the cart. Then they turned home.

All the way back Mazat kept his hand in his apron, protecting the egg, letting his fingers pat it, over and over. It held promise and strength. Promise for his family, his wife, his baby son. Promise for the country… He would turn the death cycle of fire and ashes into a life cycle.

With a little luck this would be just what Mara needed to regain her strength. A slow smile spread on Mazat’s face. Tonight his wife would have a dish worthy of a queen.