"Dance with the Wind" by Heather L. Brock

Dance with the Wind

Through the forests and up in through the mists and into the mountains lay a small village. The village had lied there long abandoned, and the moss and trees had retaken their land in the earth. It had become a place of legend, a place where the ghosts of the fallen were said to still walk the earth. Scorched stone that even the passing of time could not erase easily still lie where it had fallen. And here and there among the rubble and the moss lay a human hand, its skin and muscle long eaten away. Broken and rusted swords and spear heads lay also among the dead bodies, a great battle indeed... or so they say.

Who can tell what time has wrought to this place? Who could say what had fallen before, why did the battle commence and most importantly did any live and survive? But no one knew the answers for no one had who could sing the stories of old, of legends long past and make new legends. For the greatest loss in this war was the loss of music, of the written word, of art in all its forms. A farmer now eked out his existence without benefit of new techniques that would make his job an easier one because he could not read, nor hear the stories told by the bard because art had been stolen from him and his people.

So the world was desolate and fewer births occurred and more deaths resulted because people gave up on their lives, and on hope. Many came and many went but none were born with a gift for the magics of old. Born into this world, her family's last child and last hope, in a home made of dark gray colors. They were poor as the dirt in which they made their lives. From the time she was little she remembered much of what occurred in her life. So clearly through her life did she remember her mother's face, careworn and saddened with long lines worked into them and eyes a hazy brown color. Her father, tall and imposing but also gaunt in his way, hands covered in a crisscross of scars and calluses.

As a young child she picked casabo root with her mother and sisters while her father and brothers toiled endlessly in the fields that surrounded the small hovel they lived in. And time passed as it was wont to do and the child grew older as she should and her life allowed small time for play but there was never much enjoyment out of play in its time anyway.

Suddenly as though from a burst of budding a young woman emerged from the cocoon of a small child. Hair the color of a flaming ember and eyes the most true of blue, a tall child, not overly so but more so than most of her family. Only her father stood taller than she and it brought her pride to see the reflection that mirrored her own in the wavering image of the water basin.

The cold fingers of dawn crept across the pale gray blanket that Kaekie had pulled over herself during the night. As the sun's first rays hit her face she awoke and stretched, another day began, and another until there was nothing left but the eternal sleep of the dead, so Kaekie thought. Out of bed without one misstep back towards it her feet carried her lightly to put on her dirt colored garb, a short sharakie shirt and a overly large scarf to make a skirt out of. Small feet found place inside thick woolen stockings also of dirt color and grass knitted shoes.

A quick slide of the curtain and she was in the breakfast room where her mother prepared the meals of the day and had already prepared the one for this day. Kaekie sat down as her mother poured a generous portion of thin oat paste into a shallow bowl and set it before her. Already she could see her brothers and sisters digging hungrily into their own paste. Kaekie wasted no time in joining them, filled bellies meant a hard day of work for her family. A quick splash of warm goat milk completed her meal and she was off a woven grass basket in hand, for today they would be gathering more grass, bushels of it to create the simple and allowed baskets to carry food and casabo root in.

This was allowed of course by the dictates of the stolen art, the baskets were simple and useful, not coveted pieces of goods that were cherished and admired. Footsteps behind her told Kaekie that her sisters were right behind also ready to work the day away. Only her mother had stayed behind to clean up the dishes from the first meal and prepare some casabo root cake for the high sun hour when it was to hot to work. Quickly, cleanly, and efficiently they started to tug at the tall grass that blew in the hot breeze. When the baskets were all full they took them back to the hut and sat before it, weaving the allowed baskets out of the tall grasses.

Not for the first time Kaekie felt something stir in her breast, something that she had suppressed all her life. A small sight escaped her lips as she could find no words for the way she felt, but an urge to go and do had come over her, but something held her back, something that did not wish her to give in to the temptation. A frown marred her usually smooth features and Kaekie wondered, also not for the first time what held her back.

As was custom long ago when magic helped rule the lands soldiers trained in war could ride through one's fields and trample the crop to get where they needed to be. On this occasion it seemed that the hut was their destination. The fat ugly ponies the soldier's rode upon stopped before the hut and snorted, stamping their hooves on the hard packed earth. Kaekie watched them though she faced the sun and could not see their features properly. Likewise Kaekie's mother came herself to the strangers and asked them what they wished with the small family. One man, the only one on a proper war stallion, told the hopeless woman that they had come for all the girl children in the house.

A wail rose up from her and Kaekie and her sisters clung to each other in fright. This could not be happening Kaekie thought wildly there must be some mistake. The only reason the army took girls was to have them used as camp followers, to desecrate them and make them unclean for regular men, in a sense to 'ruin' them. But all the girls in the house? It just could not be so.

Sensing her mother's distress the soldier hastened to add that the girls would not become followers, that they were collecting girls from all farms in all villages to be taken the shrine at Topla and if the right girl could be found, she would wed the king of Mountain Rock and the gift of art be returned to the people. Everyone knew from proven fact that those of Mountain Rock treated outsiders harshly, any girl who would go there would surely die by their hand. It was said that while the arts had not been stolen by the people of Mountain Rock, it had merely been held by them, they could not turn it over without the right bride. So in effect they were as much stuck as everyone else.

Kaekie and her sisters were herded into the backs of wagons with many other crying young girls, the only one not having to go was the babe that Kaekie's mother had just borne a few weeks before. It was to young to survive the journey, and would be left with its mother. Kaekie felt sorrow as the wagons lumbered by and her home grew smaller and smaller. She knew her home was close to the Mountain Rock kingdom but she had never thought that they were that close. In less that a day's time Kaekie found herself forced to walk up the mountainside, her hands tied to that of the girl in front of her to keep her from getting away.

High above lay the shrine of Topla, majestic with its black marble shined everyday by the hands of chaste priests. Encamped around it were hundreds upon hundreds of girls, all of them dirty and tired looking. It appeared as though there were two camps one on the right side of the shrine and one on the left. The right side was full of those girls found unworthy and awaiting transportation home and the left of those who had not yet been tested. This is where they took Kaekie and those she had traveled with.

To tired to go any further Kaekie collapsed in the dust near her eldest sister Rusha's feet. Rusha shoved Kaekie aside and stepped by her imperiously. A beautiful sight to behold Rusha was, her hair was thick and a rich chocolate brown, her eyes seemed like two living sapphires and her complexion was that of a milkmaid. A tall, lush body and such features made Rusha almost a work of art herself. To Kaekie it seemed as though they were as different as night and day, Rusha was beautiful while Kaekie was not, Rusha was able to marry while Kaekie was to young her father said.

For two days they waited in the camp as more girls were brought up and other girls taken down, the camp populations varied from morning to evening with more on the left in the morning and more on the right come nightfall. Here they served watery oats, not the hot paste her mother made. The hot sun beat down on the heads of all present except Rusha. She had taken refuge in the shadows of others making them stand for hours at a time in one spot so she could rest behind them and be out of the sunlight. None could escape from the camp because of magical barriers that had been placed at the edges of each allowing none but the soldiers through them.

Finally the time of Kaekie and her sisters had come, they were brought into the shrine all together, for they wished not to be apart from one another. 7 priests and a very handsome looking man stood inside the coolness of the shrine. Each priest had a black orb in his left hand and a red orb in his right hand. The orbs were as big as oranges and very smooth, just from looking at them one could tell that they were instruments of magic. Each girl got a priest standing in front of her, first each priest placed the black orb on the girl's forehead and one would have expected it to fall off when he removed his hand but this was not so. Each orb stayed exactly in place.

The priests moved as one man everything at the exact same moment in time as each other. Kaekie found that she could not move, her eyes were fixed on that of the handsome man in the center of the room. But suddenly her eyes were diverted to a man standing behind him and off to the left. This man was just as handsome though not as richly dressed, his garb showed that he was a man of means but not however that he was a gaudy king. In his eyes she saw kindness, the type of kindness that had ever been denied her in a house with sisters and brothers like Rusha.

One of the priests spoke and the sound of his voice reverberated through the shrine over and over by magical means till it sounded like the sound of twenty men shouting at the top of their voices. He spoke and his words though simple were full of meaning and determination. He saw in these girls nothing of note, nothing that separated them from the other young women he and his brother priests had seen over the course of the past few weeks.

In his larger than life voice he told the young women that they now had the ability to use the arts, but only for one purpose, to do something very creative and if it was considered by the King of Mountain Rock then she would become is wife, but that it must be quite original or the stones of red would glow like the fire from the mountains of flame and they would then be sent home in their shame.

As with many things eldest went first and as being eldest Rusha went first. Silently she began to dance for him, performing for him in a graceful way, a small smile was brought to the lips of the King but he said nothing more, he would delay his judgment until such time as all the sisters had performed for him. Rusha, when finished with her voluptuous dance looked decidedly pouty and went back to stand with her sisters.

And so it proceeded from one sister unto the next with a variety of dances, drawings, tricks and charms. And the king but nodded for each of them until none was left but that of Kaekie. Kaekie became worried, more worried than she had ever been before this time. However the feeling that Kaekie had had many times before, the feeling that was always suppressed could no longer be so contained. She went before the King and made a courtly curtsy but did not regain her feet.

Kaekie kneeled at the feet of the King her skirt around her touching the floor of the shrine. The voice of Kaekie poured out of her mouth in liquid song a tale of old, and a tale that was once again new. Her voice was light and beautiful, the story she sang came alive as she spoke and legends once again walked the land. She sang of a time before the arts were stolen when beauty and grace fell upon all like leaves on the trees. And as her voice died away she noticed that the man behind the King had tears pouring out of his eyes and down both his cheeks.

But the King of Mountain Rock said nothing because while this girl had talent, she was of course, quite young and he was an older man himself. He much preferred her eldest relation Rusha. The woman brought a smile to his face and a twinkle of mischief to his eye. And so he chose her, despite the fact that she had not the best talent and so it was told throughout the land that they would be wed and the arts returned to the world at last. But the man behind the King came to Kaekie as she prepared to leave with her sisters that remained to tell her family of the joyous news and fell down on his knees before her with all the soldiers and women watching.

He begged her to be his princess, for he was the King's younger brother and would never find another woman like Kaekie. At first poor Kaekie was taken aback, that a man of such kindness and stature would want to spend the rest of his life with one so plain as herself... she could not imagine it. And so she told him that deserved someone more worthy of his love.

The Prince of Mountain Rock cried out to the heavens above that there was and would never be another woman for him like Kaekie. She was song and air and breath to him, and he refused to live without her. Her beauty he said, was inside as well as out for the fire in her hair and the cool water of her eyes made her a paradox, his paradox he declared to them. And Kaekie began to believe, and with that belief came love.

On a hot day of the summer, with a Prince of Mountain Rock on bended knee, Kaekie, the maiden daughter of a poor farmer let fall one silvery tear out her eye and down her cheek. As the tear touched the dry, hard packed earth a rumble was heard from the sea to the mountains beyond the mountains of Mountain Rock. As sure as there were leaves on the tree, art came back to the people, birds let out beautiful melodies and people broke into song and dance across the lands of the world. And Kaekie, beautiful Kaekie fell down to the earth to embrace her Prince. However this was only the first of many adventures that young Kaekie would face, and while art was returned to the world the art of magic was still lost. Lost in the city on the mountains and would not be regained until the evil was stopped.

And the moss and trees continue to grow and the rain to beat until there is nothing left of the once proud city, nothing more except the nature from which it came.