Fearless Genre Warriors

by Steve Lockley

  ‘Oh, I do,’ said Therin. ‘Gilrain doesn’t, though. I’m going to sell it and with the proceeds, I’m going to employ a top quality bard and get him the ballad he’s been searching for.’ Therin patted the boy fondly.

  ‘I think he’s earned it.’

  The Ballad of Gilrain

  lyrics Sarah Cawkwell, music Adam Broadhurst

  Oh come ye now from far and near to hear this tale I tell

  A song of courage, dragons, knights and... other things as well

  A story of a hero, of a warrior made for greatness

  (And even better would he be were he not prone to lateness).

  Gilrain, our hero, was a bright young hero to the core

  He’d killed such things as unicorns (and saw a minotaur).

  But like the best of warriors, our hero had a dream...

  A dragon he would slay to be his bestiary’s cream.

  So with his faithful friend our hero trod the forest’s floor

  In search of dragons he could kill and how the rain did pour!

  It positively threw it down and everything was soaking

  And Gilrain’s patience wore quite fine... it did! D’you think I’m

  joking?

  Therin and Gilrain did take up shelter in the trees

  When suddenly they heard a roar that brought them to their knees

  An angry dragon flew near by, and wanted them for dinner

  Therin, he began to pray... although he was no sinner.

  But Gilrain... well, he knew no fear and soon he was a-fightin’

  The dragon roared and fought and scratched and even tried a-bitin’

  Our hero though... he stood his ground and just when things got hairy

  He stuck his sword right through its eye – the sight it was quite scary!

  The dragon slain, our hero stooped to fetch once more his sword

  Imagine then his horror when the gods of thunder roared!

  A bolt of lightning struck the weapon he had used to fight

  And Gilrain’s monster dragon rose again! A horrid sight!

  Can you imagine such a thing? A slaughtered dragon rising?

  Gilrain and Therin stood there for it was quite mesmerising.

  Then coming to their senses did the best they’d done all day...

  Our heroes turned their backs and from the dragon... ran away.

  They made it to the ‘Nun and Dragon’ tavern where they rested

  And told their story to the people there whilst they were guest...ed.

  The hero managed to procure a dragon’s tooth for gold,

  And so they hired me to write this ballad (which I’ve told).

  So come ye now from far and near to hear this tale I tell

  A song of courage, dragons, knights and... other things as well.

  A ballad for our young Gilrain and Therin – aye, him too...

  A hero for our times in all the things that he will do.

  (MP3 available at www.foxspirit.co.uk)

  Art is War

  Alasdair Stuart

  From: The Pseudopod Tapes, Volume 1

  (Originally appeared on episode 273, March 16th 2012, The Crucifixion of the Outcast by William Butler Yeats)

  Creation is war. Art is war. Artists are erratic, undisciplined people and the ones who aren’t have just put a saddle on the tiger which is not the same as riding it. We joke about the artistic temperament and a lot of the time those jokes are tinged with something halfway between anger and fear but the simple truth is that creation hurts. Having stuff in your head hurts.

  Getting it out hurts. Getting it in front of people hurts. When you do? When it succeeds? When it’s complete? All you can see are the holes, the bodges, the patches. All you can see is where you weren’t good enough, where it hurt to make, where you bled, where you were weak. It’s a war and you’re always, on the bad days, losing, always retreating. Always letting the uncaring or aggressively hostile voices of your peers or your audience or worst of all yourself get in too close, under your guard, behind your armour, a thousand tiny knives of doubt and criticism all aimed straight at your weakest, wounded, points.

  Art is war. Creation is war. The artist’s enemy is themselves and the war never, ever ends until you’re done, until you have nothing left or your audience turns on you, or even worse, turns away from you.

  Alone on the beach as the tide comes in. Or working to a deadline as most of us know it. So what do you do? Do you give in? Do you go be someone or something else? Do you stop telling your stories, taking your pictures, singing your songs? Does it matter that no one else is hearing or caring or understanding? Yes, a lot of the time, it matters desperately, but if you’re really invested you pull through, if you’re really, truly devoted you will weather every blow, face down every attack and in the end, whether crucified or lauded your story, your pictures, your music will be done. Then? Well, Dave Grohl has that one covered. Done. Done. On to the next one.

  Part Two

  BEFORE DAWN

  ‘People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.’ Ursula K. Le Guin

  ‘Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.’ Neil Gaiman (after GK Chesterton)

  The Alternative La Belle Dame Sans Merci

  Jan Siegal

  From: Multiverse

  I was born where a dark star fell,

  where the wave sucked at the land,

  where the old god spilled his seed like foam

  I sprang on the silver sand.

  I grew up wild as a leopard cat

  and fair as I was wild,

  and my heart’s blood beat with earth’s first heat

  and my soul was earth’s first child.

  I wandered among mortal men

  and pale they grew and wan,

  and by the lake’s edge in the withered sedge

  they mourned when I had gone.

  I saw their starved lips in the gloam

  but never a kiss I gave,

  and whining verse and hopeless curse

  they babbled to their grave.

  I left the king to his empty throne,

  the warrior to his spear,

  and then I met a peasant lad

  and took him for my dear.

  His hair was black as the raven’s wing

  and his arms were strong as the sea,

  his kisses sharp as an iron thorn

  and he thrust them deep in me.

  A season we lay in the green spring grass,

  a season in summer sheaves,

  and his tongue caressed where he bit my breast

  in the red of the autumn leaves.

  When the year was grey I went away

  to flee the winter’s chill,

  ‘I’ll return once more,’ to my love I swore

  as I sought the hollow hill.

  But spring – and spring – came round again

  and I found my love no more,

  and the hearts of kings and such hollow things

  were all I had to gnaw.

  On a night of storm I found his cott

  and pressed my face to the pane,

  and saw him kiss his mortal wife

  with kisses soft as rain.

  He came and stood in the doorway

  as if he sensed me there

  and he saw the loam on my bare feet

  and the wet leaves in my hair,

  And was that the gleam of a tear

  or was it a star in his eye?

  And was that the breath of the wind

  or was it the breath of a sigh?

  But he turned back to the hearthside

  to all that was safe and warm,

  and the cradle’s rock and the click of th
e lock

  shut me out in the storm.

  The years went by, but never a line

  would mar the face of the fae,

  and once in a while I would pass the cott

  and watch his hair grow grey.

  And some day soon the whisper will come

  to tell me: He has died,

  and he’s buried beneath the new-laid turf

  with his mortal wife at his side.

  I will not go when the church bells toll

  to ward the pagan sprite,

  but when the bells rust and pollen dust

  blows golden o’er the site,

  when the wild rose weaves its iron thorn

  above his sleeping head,

  then I will gather up my dreams

  and hie me to his bed.

  And I’ll dig up her green green bones

  and scatter them over the plain,

  and she must pick them up each one

  ere her soul return again.

  I’ll take the vessel of her skull

  where grub and beetle hatch

  and toss it away like a ball at play

  for goblin hands to catch.

  Then I’ll sink down through the warm dark earth

  into his arms of bone,

  and there I’ll sleep forever deep

  and nevermore alone.

  Thandiwe’s Tokoloshe

  Nick Wood

  From: African Monsters

  Thandiwe knew it was her Rainbow the minute she saw it, through the window of their sleeping room—just the other side of their neighbour’s shiny corrugated roof, where kind Mrs Motlala lived.

  But it was the rainbow Thandiwe was watching.

  The rainbow was huge, bright and fresh in the early morning sun, hovering against dark clouds and dropping with a splash of colour into the nearby field. Not far, just the other side of the wire fences. Mamma had told her it was homework time, especially as she was due to start a new school next year—a bigger, older and smarter school.

  But it was a Saturday after all.

  She wiggled her bum to get a better position on their lumpy bed, her science book sliding off her lap.

  It was quiet, so she listened hard.

  Mamma’s snores could be heard through the open door into the main room. Thandiwe smiled—Mamma was thin from a long strange illness, but was getting better, so it was good to hear her sleeping. She had always found that old brown couch very comfy; so much so, she seemed to be using it more and more.

  Thandiwe had started to miss Mamma’s presence in their bed though—although it was also guiltily good not to have Mandla screaming so nearby at night.

  Come to think of it, there were no baby cries either. Thandiwe peeked through the door. Mandla lay check-blanket swaddled, sleeping soundly too on Mamma’s lap, his rapidly lengthening legs hanging off onto the sagging couch; he was going to be a big boy in time.

  Time—and homework. Seven colours, her science book said; that’s how many colours in a rainbow.

  Thandiwe looked closely through the window; seven didn’t look right, it could be more, it could be less. And what was the difference between indigo and violet anyway?

  And what, too, was that other story—Miss Mabuso had told them it only the other day, Monday, reading day—a Rainbow drops into a pot of gold at the end; with a funny creature guardian it called a leprechaun? She wished they’d been shown a picture, because she couldn’t imagine it from Miss’s description, but the teachers were all trying hard to move them away from pictures.

  She sighed sadly, remembering her grandmother’s colourful tales, embellished with rich descriptions that had burnt into her brain. She missed her Gogo, she’d always cooked them the best mielie pap—and she’d had a hacking laugh that tore happy holes into the world.

  Thandiwe had shared just one of her Gogo’s stories at school—Wednesday, oral story day—and remembered the biting comment that had come back from Miss Mabuso: ‘Old people’s tales; not fit for today’s world.’

  But then, Miss Mabuso never laughed.

  It’s all going to be letters and numbers from now and into high school; where bigger bullying children may also be waiting. She shivered, despite the sun outside.

  Thandiwe thought of the pot of gold instead. It would be like a potjie; a large black cooking pot.

  And she’d seen pictures of gold before; bright, yellow-shiny and very expensive. Now that would be worth more than any amount of homework—she had always been acutely aware of her mother’s pain when shopping, as she’d scratched frantically in her bag, Mandla crying on her back at Pick ‘N Pay check-outs.

  The story of gold at the end of the Rainbow might just be a childish story, perhaps—but, being a White story, there was a chance it might even be true.

  If she was quick, she could be back, before either Mamma or Mandla woke.

  The scramble over the sagging fence was a messy one; she would need to come back in time to clean her skirt too.

  She stood up in the field littered with bags, bottles and Pick ’N Pay trollies.

  Her stupid Rainbow had moved!

  There was a tall line of blue-gum trees she hadn’t noticed from the window and the Rainbow dropped with a blur into green branches. With a sigh, she walked briskly towards the trees.

  At least she was a good climber—if the pot was hanging from a branch, she’d be up there quicker than Mamma responding to Mandla’s cries for milk.

  By the time she reached the trees, Thandiwe could see through them, just a thin barrier to yellow grasslands stretching far beyond. The Rainbow seemed to have danced away into the distance.

  Thandiwe sighed again, more heavily this time. How on Earth was she going to get there now?

  There was a swift movement out of the corner of her eye and she turned to see a large yellow-brown animal bounding out of the long grass towards her.

  She almost fainted with fear.

  It was a lion, thundering to a halt in front of her. Large and smelling like wet sacking with a huge shocking black mane, it stood stiffly, pawing at the ground. But weren’t the Cape Lions extinct? Cape Town itself wasn’t so far off either. Still, even though her science book said they were extinct—here, one definitely was—a stinky male Cape Lion.

  The lion crooked his left front paw and bent his back, as if offering her a place to ride. Thandiwe braced herself and looked into his bright yellow eyes. Despite her trembling knees, she held the lion’s freakishly steady gaze.

  A part of her knew she shouldn’t, but how else would she be able to get to her Rainbow? Tentatively, she took a fistful of musty mane and swung her legs over onto his back, grateful she was wearing track-suit pants. She had a strange, dizzying sense that she was not the first girl to ride a lion.

  His back was rippling with muscles and she clutched hard onto his mane. Up close he didn’t smell too bad, she thought, perhaps a little like her stale school socks before Gogo— and now Mamma—had washed them.

  The lion galloped off and Thandiwe buried her head into his mane, grassland whipping past her. She was sore and bruised by the time he eventually slowed, heading down a bumpy slope where riverine trees stood, eclipsed by a massive, shimmering rainbow dropping down, down, down…

  And the Rainbow did indeed pour into a huge glistening black pot—up so close, she realised there were maybe more than a million possible colours, if only she had a label for them all.

  Were the books wrong, then?

  Thandiwe climbed off: ‘Thank you.’

  The lion turned his head and looked at her. She stepped back nervously, realising some distance was safest, however helpful a lion might seem.

  But she wasn’t quick enough. He struck, a quick slash of his right paw snaking across her shins. She screamed and clutched at her legs.

  But the lion just turned and, with a breath of wind, was gon
e.

  Thandiwe pulled her torn trouser-legs up and wiped a few drops of blood from her shins. There was a thin shallow scratch scouring the surface of both her shins, perhaps just a warning? She pulled her track-suit pants back down and looked up.

  Mangalisayo!

  She could almost hear her Rainbow humming above her, pouring its multitude of colours into that big black nearby pot, with a surging hiss. It was all finally in her reach.

  No—who was this? A small ochre-furred creature with wide body, large eyes and long tail, thick moustache and monkey hands and feet stepped from behind the pot. He was not wearing any clothes apart from a leather pouch on his left hip, so she could see it was a he.

  Most definitely.

  With a sudden chill through her body, she recognised it from her Gogo’s old kitchen stories.

  It couldn’t be a leprechaun; surely it had to be a tokoloshe?

  ‘I’ll let you have a look into the pot, little girl.’ He stepped aside to let her pass, grinning.

  Thandiwe looked at the tokoloshe and smiled, despite the terror surging within her. She couldn’t let him know she recognised him; it would only alert him that she knew he couldn’t be trusted.

  She kept smiling as she moved forward as carelessly as she could, trying not to look at his daggered teeth and bracing her burning legs beneath her pants.

  Without warning, he leaped forward to grab at her with his lightning quick monkey hands.

  But he wasn’t quite quick enough.

  Thandiwe ducked underneath his grasp and snapped the pouch from his waist. Two quick steps back and she had the stone from the pouch into her palm and then her mouth.

  The stone burnt on her tongue but the tokoloshe flailed wildly at thin air, lurching away: ‘I’ll get you, little girl.’

  She smiled, knowing she was invisible. Her Gogo was right, though, the tokoloshe was not too clever—just as long as you kept your wits about you.

  She was glad she’d enjoyed Gogo’s stories so much.