Fantasy Prose

Miles to the north and far away from both the sea and Athbridge, the other disciple of Loyalty was setting up camp for the night, poorly. This witch was named Niamh, and she was struggling to make a fire. Niamh was not used to living outside her village, which although small was never lacking in amenities. The locals liked to help her with most of the little tasks required for keeping up a small cottage, including making sure there was nearly always a fire waiting for her when she returned home at night after a long day meeting with other villagers. They didn’t have to do this for Niamh to help them, but it seemed to make them feel included and so she let them fuss over her cottage, although rarely did they let themselves be seen by her. The folk that tended to her cottage were strange like that. Nice, though. Still, it meant that, now that she had to make the climb through the mountains, she was woefully unprepared for each small task.

It did not help that the kindling she was using was still slightly damp. Although not in the Northern Marshes proper, the countryside immediately south of Niamh’s village was still damp underfoot and tended to have mist cling to its edges, with the effect of simulating consistent light rain without the droplets. Everything that she could see in the small clearing she was next to seemed to not mind, and in fact the knotted and twisting trees grasped towards to grey sky, drinking in the sodden air. Niamh was not against nature, in fact had a professional obligation to be beholden to the various whims of the forest. However, she preferred to take it in while inside, and warm. Niamh was outside against her better judgement because she was in charge of making sure that the graveyard next to the abandoned mountainside village was tended to. A long time ago, her ancestors mostly clung to the north face of the mountains, never going much further into the Marshes than the rolling foothills that Niamh was perched upon currently. But the lure of the fertile patches of farmland were enough to convince them to settle down on the plains, despite the reputation of the north. Ancient bones and burial stones remained embedded on the slopes, and with them came a small but pressing threat that necessitated Niamh to trek out here every once in a while.

Niamh gave up on the fire. It wouldn’t be long now until nightfall, and she was better off just waiting in the cold. Still, it would’ve been nice to feel productive. Although these trips were rarely eventful, they still required her to take a sizeable chunk of time away from the village, and with it she felt like she was wasting time. Niamh didn’t think of her services as being too impactful, but she knew everyone’s name and she knew the answers to most of their questions, and that sort of comfort was nowhere to be found out here.

The closer one got to the Arkins, the large mountain range that dominated the southern border of the region, the quicker the light sank behind its peaks, and so Niamh did not have to wait long for the valley to leach its colour and become quietly dark. She got to her feet, leaving her pack on the ground. It was better to be prepared, and besides, it wasn’t like she was at risk of losing it. No one but here was up here at this hour. Well, hopefully. She made the short walk up to the graveyard proper.

Calling it a graveyard was a little misleading. There were a few flat laying stones that marked some graves, but most headstones had been taken long ago for use in more recent construction. The ones that remained were either too small to be worth the effort or too large to be easily removed. The growth around this area was always splayed low to the ground. Niamh was confused by this but guessed that it was because it might be difficult to support larger structures in the soil. Something like that. Anyway, she had a job to do.

Niamh got out her torch and a small scrap of oil paper, upon which was a neat list of a dozen names. Luckily, she had more success with lighting her torch than with her campfire, and held it aloft, creating a small oasis of light. She went to the first ‘row’ of stones, noting beside each name if the grave was still there, and putting a small dot next to those that were undisturbed. This part of the trip didn’t take long. She was already thinking about maybe she should just make the walk back instead of staying the night as she was supposed to. Then she stopped. There, where she knew was supposed to be the grave of a Mr Riall Tarsk, was a hole. This was not a good sign. Niamh ran through the possible reasons for this. Someone could have come up here and taken the stone, although why just one and why from such a distant place meant this idea created more questions than answers. A relative, perhaps? She wasn’t sure why now, given that she had been coming here for the past few years and never seen any of the stones disturbed. The last, and most plausible reason was why Niamh had to come out here in the first place, and it made her tense up involuntarily.

A faint rustling made Niamh look up sharply to see a squat shape ambling towards her. It stopped just outside the ring of light cast by her torch and let out a high, pitiful moan. Niamh squinted, trying to make out the strange figure’s features. She swept her torch around to better see it, but the figure shrank back. It was about the size of a small child and was on all fours, with a squat, elongated body like that of a lizard, but was distinctly mammalian, like some sort of malformed, oversized weasel. Niamh could see long, straggly strands of hair sliver out of the light, cloaking the figure further. It continued to whine, and occasionally wheezing and shuffling about. Niamh focused on it completely. After a short stare-down, it said:

“Where…is…my…grave?”

Niamh continued to stare. The voice this creature had was ragged and painful, like it was using the last of its strength to communicate and even then it was a struggle to form the words. A pungent odour filled the air, like that of rotting flesh and something both sweet and putrid. She folded her list slowly back together and tucked it inside her cloak. She knew better than to allow this creature to see it. Instead of answering its question, she drew out her knife and took a step towards it.

Graveyards were a place that were often frequented by people at their most vulnerable, grieving for those they had lost. The creature that had made its way to this one, Niamh knew, was a Boggart. The product of a body lacking both a soul and a name, they would lurk around graveyards in an attempt to pass themselves off as one of the people who were buried there, and ask to be remembered. Once their mark had named them as their lost one, the boggart would spring away, reinvigorated by the name that was now coursing through their system. It was rare that a lowly boggart could trick themselves into becoming a barghest in this manner, but if they managed to do so the results could be catastrophic. As the resident witch of the area, Niamh took it upon herself to make sure the ancient graveyard was free of such scavenging beasts, even though nobody frequented it anymore. It was a tradition, and Niamh felt safe with traditions. Couldn’t go wrong with something that had been happening for centuries. What was less traditional was that Niamh’s preferred method of dealing with these pests.

The boggart, realising that its ruse had been seen through, coiled its body up and started circling Niamh. At the end of all four of its legs, glinting in the torchlight, were needle like claws, looking incredibly out of place on the otherwise very human hand-like paws. Niamh had been told how to deal with the regular type of boggart – although slow and weak from a distance, they had an impressively tight grip, which was used to cling onto its prey and twist them around until they caved and named it or died from the lacerations. Despite its now combative stance, the boggart continued to plead in its pathetic, high-pitched, and shallow voice. Its head was slung low to the ground, which Niamh could now see was grotesquely elongated and sported completely black eyes. Its neck sloped unnaturally towards her, and its mouth was downturned and jutting out, all the while crying the word “grave” over and over again. Niamh did pity it, in a sense, although not enough to unleash it on the world. It was a product of forces larger than it, a body craving desperately that which it had been denied. However, that did not mean that Niamh hesitated with what she was about to do. Niamh raised her hand and stuck out her tongue. With a swift, fluid motion, she jerked the knife over its surface, leaving the shallowest cut she could make across it. The pain was dull due to years of repetition. With the sharp taste of blood now coating her throat, the witch spoke a word:

“Burning.”

The boggart stopped speaking immediately. It coughed once, choking on the damp air. Its arched back drew itself upwards even more tightly, and as it continued to hack away loudly, a slim beam of light shot out of its mouth. Now illuminated, Niamh could see clearly the two rows of backwards facing teeth that line the creature’s mouth, and watched as the light grew in intensity. The creature howled in genuine misery for the first time, writhing about and clawing at its own face. The boggart’s eyes, once perfectly jet black, now began brightening up, cycling from grey to green until finally the surface started bubbling up, boiling from the light within. And then, withholding the heat and pressure no longer, the creatures face exploded as light poured from every orifice. The thick smell of dead flesh was replaced by burnt animal as the boggart howled for the final time and collapsed, still smouldering. As quickly as the light came, it disappeared, the border of darkness closing in until the perfect circle of light from Niamh’s torch was all that remained. Niamh put her knife away and thoughtfully prodded her tongue, inspecting her handiwork. She was getting good at cutting it the right amount, she surmised. Just deep enough, although the boggart really didn’t require her to use too much. It was just flesh, after all. What worried Niamh more was the reason why a boggart had come to the graveyard in the first place. After a few minutes of poking around the thickets surrounding the graves, Niamh managed to uncover where it had dragged the stone off to. Poor Riall, she thought to herself. Used as bait by a creature that was no more than claws and a voice. Boggarts liked to take stones and move them into a more secluded area, one that would force their victim into a tight corner that was then easier to be caught in. Niamh tried to pick one side of the stone up, although it really was too heavy. She could barely manage to push it up and over itself, and slowly had to flip it again and again to lay it back down where it was supposed to be. The stone left a little imprint each time she dropped it, sinking slightly into the earth. Several times along the way she stopped, taking a few moments to regain her breath. The things she did for tradition, Niamh thought bitterly to herself.

While she was checking the remaining graves against her list of names, she was thinking about why a boggart had returned to this secluded and mostly deserted site in search of prey. Although not very intelligent, boggarts had to at least understand how to pick their targets – places where there were enough people to pick off but not enough to overwhelm and attack it. This place mostly only saw the likes of travellers that stopped before continuing on up through the mountain pass, a few deeply proud people longing for the past, and Niamh. She briefly considered the possibility of another witch coming here. People who were similarly in tune with the other world liked to frequent spots where souls might be harvested, or saved, depending on the witch. That in turn might’ve attracted some scavenging boggarts, who were always on the hunt for any chance to snag a name for themselves and would follow cautiously in the wake of travelling witches in hope of spiritual carrion. There was a large problem with this theory: This graveyard was a ghost town, or rather, it wasn’t. The place must’ve been picked clean of souls decades ago. Whatever the reason, the situation had Niamh worried. She was expecting the usual routine of seeing nothing and doing very little, and this small physical disruption warranted a bigger mental one. Still, it wasn’t all bad. She would have a good story to tell the villagers when she returned home. They loved hearing about Niamh using her power, even though in truth she felt that was very lucky it had just turned out to be a single boggart. Anything more formidable that might prove tricky. Niamh hadn’t really been up against anything more than this level of threat. Who knows, she thought ruefully, maybe next time she could go up against a real challenge. One could only hope.

In the beginning, there was the great sea. It stretched out further than distance itself. It was distance itself. This was the way things were and it was everywhere and all things. Then, a voice spoke. And it said: “I am.” And thus, He was. He looked at the sea, and invented looking. He felt the sea, and invented touching. He moved the sea and created the winds, and with them the sky, and with the sky He had invented change. The sea was no longer all there was, and so He raised the lands up, and moulded the beasts, so that they could discover it. He scooped up part of the sea and placed it in the sky, and rain fell, creating the first plants, so that the beasts would not go hungry. This is how the world was forever and for no time, for time had not been invented. He realised this and knew what must be done. From the great sea, He moulded a pure spirit. He then spoke: “You will be called Lasmere, and you are the First. I have made you to discover all I have created.” And Lasmere replied:

“Oh God, you have given me my name, and thus spoken me into existence. My Lord, I will honour you forever, as you are the sole Unspoken.” Lasmere walked the earth and discovered every beast, naming them as God had done to him. He discovered every landmass, again giving them names as God had done to him. This pleased him greatly. But when he had run out of things to name, he began to grow restless. He wanted to invent something, like God had, and he grew resentful of His power. He returned to the land, and moulded a beast, but its body was empty, filled only with the jealousy of Lasmere himself. He gave his creation a name, but the creature took it hungrily, without grace, and fled. He then turned to the great sea, and from it moulded a spirit. But it filled itself with Lasmere’s sense of inadequacy, and it too fled. Finally, Lasmere became angry and tried once more to create a spirit from the sea, giving this final attempt a name. But the spirit filled itself up with Lasmere’s anger.

God saw what Lasmere had done and was furious. “Lasmere, I had commanded you to discover, not to create. Look what your arrogance has done.” Lasmere looked and grew ashamed, and begged God to forgive him. But God had to punish him for his sinfulness. He took Lasmere’s form away from him and forbade him from ever returning to the land. Then, God took Lasmere’s form and filled it with a soul made out of the earth instead of the sea. He called this new beast Man, and commanded it to give itself a name, “For all creation is stamped with its creator, so too are you, and so to prove you are not to yearn for creation that goes against my will, I give you the chance to create yourselves.”

Man looked upon the land, and saw that they were to discover it. They took God’s message to heart, and never again tried to create that which was in His domain, instead populating the earth with themselves. But the form of Lasmere was part of all of Man, and so his sins were present in them all. Jealousy, Hunger, Shame, Anger, and Arrogance were part of Man’s form, and each would have to work to overcome them. God had given the world to Man to discover and create themselves in, but if Man abandoned Him then they would meet the same fate as Lasmere.

Long ago, there was only water and air, but the two were not separate like they are now. They were in love, and were inseparable. The sea and sky were created, and out of their love came their seven children, who were beautiful and tall and spent their time floating around the world. Then, land formed in between the two, forcing them apart. Even in places where the sea and sky were still able to touch, their bond grew weaker, and a hard barrier formed. This was a place of much strife, and both the air and water became anxious and tried to reach out to their lover. This is when the wind and waves were first formed. The children of the sky and sea were forced to pick a place to stay, for they could no longer float freely between the air and water like they used to.

Gríannél became the Sun and the storms that concealed it.

Mísolsle became the Moon and the stars that competed for its light.

Talmusce became the ocean floor, and the plants and rocks that covered it.

Labarisce became the currents, and all that was carried by them.

The remaining three children could not decide which of their parents they wanted to be with, and so were stranded on the land.

Fiddaig became the forests and the fires that consumed them.

Gléoluch became the small creatures and the beasts that preyed upon them.

And Fíadafer became the first king and all those that served under him.

The first folk started to live on the land. They were spirits given names by Fíadafer, who came to love his people as they loved him. But Fíadafer never forgot his parents and longed to be with them once more. He would often spend time with his brother Labarisce by the shore, trying to find a way to reunite their parents, but due to both their transformations they found that they could no longer speak directly to their parents. This saddened both of the brothers, and especially Fíadafer, for although Labarisce was with the water always, Fíadafer could only watch from the shore. Labarisce decided he would make his own people in order to cheer up his brother, since Fíadafer loved his own people so much. However, Fíadafer refused to look upon their faces, for he could not bring himself to grow attached for fear of losing them like he had lost his parents.

Fíadafer began spending more and more time away from his people, who despaired at his absence. The first folk thought that the fault lay with themselves and that they had displeased their king in some way, and so gathered themselves together to decide what to do. They called upon the other six children to help in constructing a perfect world for Fíadafer, one in which he would never have to fear losing another in again. But the children were split on how to best help their brother. Gríannél, along with Talmusce and Gléoluch, decided that they should make a world of plenty, where their brother could spend his days feasting and enjoying himself with his loved ones. They founded the High Court, and Gríannél became the first Summer Prince. Mísolsle, along with Fiddaig and Labarisce, decided that their brother wanted a world of beauty, where everything could finally be in its right place and Fíadafer could spend his days tinkering and designing. They founded the Low Court, and Mísolsle became the first Winter Duchess. The first folk chose one or the other courts to work within and began creating their perfect world.

When the work was finished, they called for Fíadafer, but he did not answer them. Days passed, and the first folk searched the entire world, but they could not find their King. After a year of fruitless effort, they mourned for their lost leader, and vowed to live as he would’ve wanted them to live. They created the first Men out of souls, for they did not know how to create spirits as their king had done. But when the folk gave names to these souls, they found that the bond was fragile. They used earth from the land itself and formed bodies for their creations in order to protect their names. Then the folk retreated from their creation as Fíadafer had done to them, although there was much sadness. They went to their world which was perfect, but they were not happy, for they could not share it with their beloved leader. And so, the world as we know it was created, and man was left to discover it by himself.

The man screamed again as Hatred leapt on top of him, pinning his limbs down using his powerful frame. Thom stood rooted to the spot.

He noticed with dazed confusion that the blood spilling from the large dogs throat was not disappearing, as it usually did, when it landed on the man’s whimpering face, and instead was soaking into his high collar and pooling around the creases of his nose. Hatred’s upper snout was inches away from the man’s face when he began to convulse and retch, lifting his head up to the sky. After a few agonising moments of this process, he violently hacked once more, and Thom saw something perfectly white and jagged protrude from Hatred’s mouth. Thom realised what this object was: a jawbone, bleached and splintering at the ends, as if it had been torn off wild animal, which Thom knew was the truth.

What followed seemed to Thom as if it were happening in slow motion. With a sickening crunch, the jawbone clicked into place, and the dog lowered his snout back down towards the man. He now had a ghostly white face and was perfectly still, except for his lower lip which trembled uncontrollably. Hatred’s jawbone was now barely visible as it became swamped by the barghest’s thick blood, which was now flowing more than ever. When it did stick out through the cascade, it was piercing – a pure glint of light amidst the unctuous haze.

Slowly, Hatred lowered his mouth over the man’s skull until it was no longer visible. There was a second, louder, terrible crunch. Whereas before the blood had only collected on top of the man, a new pool seeped out across the ground, glassy and pure.

Hatred twisted his head to the side, and a third crack was heard, although much quieter than the other two. He pushed his head forward and down, and then up in an arc, swallowing his jawbone as he did so. The man’s head continued to be obscured, although this time it was only by copious amounts of blood. Thom didn’t look at it for long, although even in his brief glance he unfortunately managed to sear into his mind’s eye the way that the red liquid sat, as if in a crater lake, in the middle of what was the man’s face.

“I hate doing that,” said Hatred, apparently to himself, “But if I must, then I will look them in the eye.” Thom was unsure how this made what the dog had done any better.

Loyalty sat up, finally, and continued his speech as if nothing had happened.

“The Labariske are not trying to hurt you. They are trying to stop you from hurting the world. You don’t understand what you could unleash if you continue along the path you have set out for yourself.”

“But I didn’t choose this path!” Thom said angrily, aware that the room had now swung its attention onto him. He felt pressured to continue, pressured to ignore the ignoble murder that had just occurred. Even in defence, it was evening-shattering. Or would've been to him a month ago. He wondered how he was still standing.

“I mean, I’m not the one sending the boats out there, or, or fighting in the war, or killing anyone. I’m just stuck in the middle of it all.”

Loyalty smiled as best as the dog could manage. “Which is why we have every faith in you becoming part of the new future of Osmere.”

“Why do your bosses get to decide what I do?”

Loyalty’s smile grew thinner. “They aren’t our bosses, as you well know.”

“And they aren’t deciding for you,” interjected Hatred. “That is precisely why we are in this mess in the first place. They couldn’t bring themselves to make the right decision, so they went for a half-solution. Now we have to mop up.”

Loyalty sniffed. “It’s not like you didn’t know what you were choosing to do when you decided to come over here, Chivalry.”

Thom felt ready to burst. Why could these powerful creatures not understand that he didn’t get to choose. Thom followed the petty conversation between the two dogs as they sniped back and forth, but he had mentally checked out. It was too much. Too much. He waited until they had all but forgotten his presence again, and quietly slipped out of the room into the comforting blankness of the night. He felt an overwhelming urge to be surrounded by nothing except for the trees.

..

Hatred was sitting by the small cliff when Thom returned to the camp, looking at the clearing below. Thom went over to the dog and sat down next to him, unsure of how else to act. Neither acknowledged the other, but instead sat in silence for a few minutes as the night wind blew through them. After a long while, the barghest spoke:

“The name the others have given me. Do you know why they call me Hatred?”

“No, sir. I thought it best not to ask.”

“It is because they do not understand why I act the way I do.”

“Loyalty still calls you Chivalry at least, though you seem to hate that too.”

“He only does that to mock me, I am sure of it.”

Thom considered this for a second. “I don’t think Loyalty would do that”, he answered, although he felt like he knew so little of the two of them. Hatred continued to look straight out, and from this angle and distance Thom could see how truly misshapen the jagged hole of his mouth was. It must be painful, or there must be some sort of magic that stopped the pain from reaching him, but either way Thom was sure that Hatred never was unaware of it.

“I can’t blame you for wondering about my wound” said the dog, and yet again Thom was surprised at his ability to know what the human was thinking. “My face. Do you want to know how I came to lose my jawbone?”

“Yes sir.”

“I did it myself. If you can understand why I would do such a thing, and why I continue to live with it instead of healing myself, then you’ll understand why I am not fit to be known as Chivalry any further.”

Hatred turned and looked at Thom for the first time that night. “Loyalty and I are not like you, or the fairies. This is not because we think different. You are your soul, much in the way that fairies are their spirit, but we, we are our bodies. Without the names we have been given, we are no more than the boggarts and beasts that churn in the mud below.”

Hatred looked like he was about to say more but turned away again and fell silent. They sat in this spot for several more minutes. Thom felt that the moment had passed, and the night truly had set in now. He went back to the camp and settled in for the night, staring up at the sky as he thought of nothing.