by Chris Ward
The elder then thanked the sad rider who turned and left before any could speak with him, for he was quickly gone, riding again back to the east and to his own sadness and lost world.
Rema sat and listened to the distress all around him in the crowd as the town elder held up the list and he thought once more. Why? What is happening to our land? He caught sight of Andes sitting with his Fryn and they exchanged a look which held a thousand questions and many sorrows.
That night Rema reached beneath his bed and took out the strange bundle he had carried to safety on the night The Safeness was lost. It had remained unopened. Rema knew that in some manner it represented a crossroad in his life. To open it would mean no going back, and despite his great dreams of things beyond his own small world, he had lacked the courage to take those last few steps which needed to be taken.
‘Now is the time,’ he whispered as he stood and gazed upon the strange bundle lying on his bed. ‘I can no longer delay in this. I can no longer just ask the questions. I must find answers.’
And with that he cut the cords which bound the bundle and laid out upon his bed the five items which it held.
There was a strange and recurved bow, a quiver with three featherless arrows, a cloak of great beauty, a marvellous smooth black marble rock with three small protrusions, and a book which had never been read, for it was sealed with wax which fastened a small note upon it.
Rema stood and marvelled at what lay before him for each was beautiful in its own manner and he took them up and felt and held them in turn, running his hands upon them and in the doing, experienced a feeling of great awakening such as he had never felt before.
He then gently eased the note from the wax and unfolded it. In awe he read the beautiful words.
To dear Rema, I knew of you before you were born. It was told to me by one of great wisdom. You are of my blood and you bear my name. These things before you are yours and with them go mighty gifts to use them. The questions you ask have answers which you must seek. The bow I made long ago and it saved Revelyn when it was needed, but the evil returns and you must play your part as I once did in standing firm against it. Read the book and learn, and go forth to great things. Be amazed, and you will not be disappointed. We will meet one day you and I. Do not disappoint me Rema Bowman. R.B.
Rema stood for a long time reading the note over and over again, and knowing now that he had taken that final step. A door had been flung wide open; there was now no going back. A strange new peace entered his heart and he breathed into the air.
‘I will not disappoint you Rema Bowman, on that you have my word.’
The three candles which lit his small room suddenly flickered in their holder as a shiver ran down his spine, and then Rema turned to the book.
It was small enough to travel well and was strongly leather-bound. Upon the cover was a simple title;
The Last Arrow
written in a neat and purposeful manner, with small flourishes here and there as though the author took a great pride in what he was offering.
Rema cleared the bed, placing the new items in his life carefully upon a safe shelf, and then he pulled the heavy quilt around him and opened the book and began to read the story of Rema Bowman, and Revelyn, and much that had gone before, and what might come to pass and other things of deep mystery and adventure. He read enthralled all that night and into the morning before finally he fell asleep exhausted; and then he dreamt as he had never dreamt before.
Rema took the strange bow and the quiver of three even stranger arrows into the forest and found a pleasant open glade which allowed a clear sighting for some distance. Amongst other things, he carried a small target, no bigger than a flat plate and made of the timber of the soft elder. It would hold an arrow without splitting and was of a grain which allowed for an easy removal. He fixed it with two iron nails to a straight-trunked oak of considerable girth, and then paced back thirty steps. He made a mark in the ground and went to collect the bow and other things which he had brought along.
When he removed his upper tunic it revealed his strong body, well used to the rigours of hunting; of climbing and running fast, and stalking patiently; in reading the ground, and shooting long and with great accuracy. Rema knew he had a strength and skill unmatched by all but his great friend Andes. The giant had a strength and agility for which there was no equal, but Rema had prided himself on one skill above all others, the use of the bow, teaching himself to shoot an arrow from both sides with equal success and great accuracy. He knew with this skill he could better any.
He stretched and thought about his task. He was mightily curious about the bow. By all accounts it was more powerful and accurate than any ever made, at least in the hands of the one who had made it. At least if what he had read was true. The arrows he was suspicious of. He was sure they needed feathers, and he had brought along several of his own arrows, well feathered and of the type with which he had dropped the biggest Orax on the mountains above The Safeness.
‘And now we shall see what we shall see,’ he said aloud to none, for he was alone; and he had told no one, not even Andes of his strange acquisitions, desiring to discover what was truth in his own manner, in his own time.
He took the bow and held it firmly in his left hand, to draw the string with the right, in the manner he preferred.
If it took a full year for Rema Bowman to learn to bend this bow then I am not going to be much use right now, he thought.
He notched one of his own feathered arrows and stood left shoulder to the target and drew on the string. He was amazed at the effort required to bend the bow and found with all his considerable strength he could only pull the fletching but a handspan from the resting. He loosed the arrow in frustration and it flew half way to the target, falling in a gentle arc with not even enough energy to pierce the ground.
Rema burst out laughing for he could see the ridiculousness of what he had just done. ‘Well I am off to save Revelyn having mastered this fine weapon,’ he cried aloud in mirth and then thought more seriously.
I am glad I am alone for I would be a laughing stock if this was ever reported.
It crossed his mind that he would never have the strength to bend such a bow and he wondered how his namesake could ever have done it.
Rema took a deep breath and selected one of the strange featherless arrows. He examined the three grooves which entwined the shaft. I mistook these for adornment he thought but perhaps they are not. If they catch the wind they might turn the arrow well enough.
He sighted along the shaft and saw that the grooves were perfectly formed and held a sharpness to one side which might possibly bite the air. The tip impressed him greatly. It was made of depletium, and he knew, sharp and hard enough to cut light armour. He nodded in deep thought.
‘Perhaps,’ he whispered quietly, ‘perhaps I have been mistaken.’
Rema notched the strange but beautiful arrow to the bow and stood once more before his target. Holding the bow at arm’s length he unconsciously grated his teeth in anticipation of the horrible effort he would need to bend the weapon, and then exhaled in wonder for the bow bent easily under his pull. The arrow came back to his cheek and he found it sighted beautifully. He held it for a moment before he tired and then loosed it at the target.
So fast was the arrow through the air that it seemed to disappear, and suddenly he saw it quivering in the target, just off-centre to the left and a fraction high, but nonetheless a fair shot even if the distance was far closer than he would normally allow. Rema whistled softly in awe.
‘The bow is matched to the arrow, they work together. This is amazing.’
Rema received another shock when he went to retrieve the arrow, for he could not. It had passed through the target with ease and embedded itself so far into the trunk of the oak that even after two spans of frustrated work it would not budge.
‘I have three arrows and on my first shot I lose one,’ he cursed mildly, but all the time his mind was working quickly on
what in one shot had come to pass. ‘This is a weapon beyond anything in the land. I must master it. It is truly extraordinary,’ he said aloud no longer caring if anyone was watching, or listening.
Not wishing to lose another arrow Rema did not experiment further with the bow. Instead he returned to the village and spent the afternoon in his kindpa’s new workshop making a larger and thicker softwood target from which he could safely retrieve his arrows. It was with great expectation that he returned to the forest the next day and stood fifty paces from the same oak which now held the new target.
His first shot was no different to the one the day before. On release it seem to disappear for an instant only to be sighted quivering in the target. Rema shook his head. It was no further off-centre than the arrow he had previously lost although it took a span to retrieve for it had gone right through the new target and once again embedded itself in the oak.
Alright he thought, this oak is only going to frustrate me. He removed the target and fastened it to a soft wooded elder. It was a much narrower tree and Rema knew if he missed altogether the arrow would be lost forever, but he was quietly confident now and did not think this was of great concern.
He fired his next shot from eighty paces and once more the speed of the arrow was undiminished throughout the flight although Rema thought he caught a sight of it as it travelled. This time the arrow hit the centre of the target and whilst it penetrated the tree as well it did not take much effort to remove. At one hundred paces Rema actually saw the arrow fly for the first time throughout its flight and marvelled. Two heartbeats for a hundred paces! he thought.
‘Never would I have imagined such a weapon,’ he whispered, ‘and I have only fired four arrows. I cannot wait to show Andes.’
But he did. He waited.
He returned alone to the glade many times; practicing until he had mastered the bow and the arrow’s flight, so that he could release and see the travel of it as he had read Rema before him had done. And he learnt the trick of bending the flight. This amazed him so much he could not sleep the first time it worked. He now truly believed that the gifts came with the bow. How else could he have the strength to draw such a thing when it had taken its creator a full year to learn? And bending the flight; it was magic true enough, but Rema embraced the gift and worked until he was able to make the arrow do his bidding.
Once, he ventured on the slopes high up above the town where he took down a large Orax from a far mountainside over a league distant, shooting the arrow high and bending it towards its target where it pierced the heart, dropping the animal dead and unable to be retrieved for there was a great chasm between the two; so it lay there for the eagles to feed upon.
Then he knew he was ready. And all the while many questions remained to excite his mind as he practiced and planned and finally spoke with great difficulty to Refr and Salli his parents, who argued long against him. But he was steadfast in his resolve. He purchased what he needed with gold his kindpa offered, for in the end Refr knew his son must be allowed to choose his own path. When all was ready...
...only then did he tell Andes.
Andes had by now settled into a simple life. He saw Fryn each day and they managed often enough to find time alone together. He enjoyed the work in the forge and took on more and more as Smyg was increasingly to be found in the Alehouse. He had put the death of his parents behind him after a fashion, although it was not something he could speak of, even with Fryn, without becoming sad and angry in turn. But there was something missing. He had realised that life was all too easy, and even somewhat boring. He too had questions and had found himself muttering at times,
‘I am of the Edenwhood. Is this my life’s destiny?’
But his love for Fryn was deep and wonderful and when he looked upon her he was happy beyond measure. It was just when he was alone that he wondered about other possibilities and it caused him no end of bother, and Rema had seen this confusion in his friend but he kept the knowledge to himself.
Rema walked into the forge one morning soon after he had learnt the trick of bending the arrows.
‘Why are you smiling?’ asked Andes as he hammered and shaped a new scythe.
Rema did not answer but stood and watched the blade take shape as the great man bent it to his will. Andes looked across at him and frowned. He wants to talk he thought, and I have a mountain of work to complete. He finished the blade and cooled it with a mighty hiss in the water tub, then threw it expertly onto a pile of similar implements before wiping his huge hands on the dirty apron he always wore. He turned to his friend trying hard to be only half interested, when in truth he was quite the opposite, and so to mask his curiosity he spoke brusquely.
‘Speak your mind Rema for I cannot give you all day.’
‘You’ll give me a lot more than that,’ said Rema still smiling confidently.
“I will, will I?’ replied Andes doing his best to sound irritated.
Rema nodded. ‘You will. Andes we need to talk and it’s important. It’s more than important. You are the only one I can discuss certain things with. You will not like it but you must hear me out.’
Andes was intrigued but continued with his small deceit. He nodded slowly.
‘Well I was seeing Fryn after work...’ Rema interrupted him impatiently.
‘Come straight to my house after work, you can talk to Fryn after we have spoken. It can’t be the other way around.’ He walked to the door and stood in the bright sunlight. ‘I’ll be waiting Andes.’ He paused and then added quietly. ‘We can’t go on like this, not after all we’ve been through. I can’t, and I see in you a restlessness which perhaps matches mine.’
The two friends looked hard at each other, sensing the importance of the moment and then Rema was gone, leaving Andes unsettled and to curse in the manner of all blacksmiths as he returned to his work muttering dark things which did not calm his mind in the least.
Andes sat crumpled in the small room which now held all that Rema owned. His great body seemed to take up most of the space and he frowned as his friend spoke. Rema was talking about a strange bundle which had appeared the night The Safeness was lost and what it held and a book which told of amazing events from long ago, but Andes did not understand near half of all that Rema spoke, for a great fear rose up in his heart. He knew that Rema was going to leave and worse still, he would be asked to go with him, and that meant leaving Fyn and he couldn’t, not now his parents were dead; he’d just lost them, he could not bear to leave Fryn, now, so soon, just when everything seemed to be laid out neatly before them.
And so the two friends shared the same space but each was consumed by different things.
It dawned upon Rema that it was not going as he had planned and Andes was preoccupied and not listening closely. He paused and sat quietly, not sure what next to say.
Andes looked at his friend, grateful that the flood of words had ceased and then asked the question which had disturbed him all day since Rema had come to see him.
‘What do you want to achieve Rema, why do you want to leave?’
Rema did not reply immediately, knowing he had failed to convince Andes of anything, and had in fact distressed him with his words. He waited, allowing Andes to continue.
‘You speak of such strange things, this magical bow which looks to me nothing more than a toy. You say that book reveals things about the past. It makes no sense. What has this to do with me? All this talk of evil in the land and finding answers to questions?’ He paused. ‘Rema I don’t think I have any questions, or at least the ones I have are not the same as yours.’
They sat then and looked at each other, feeling the gulf which separated them. Finally Andes spoke again.
‘Rema what do you want of me?’
And so Rema took a deep breath and tried again, and this time he sensed that he carried Andes with him.
‘Andes there is something wrong in Revelyn. What happened to The Safeness and then to Farview. It is as though the land is ill. We ha
d stories from the Lowlands even before these recent sad events, stories of the land being eaten by the sea, and whole communities displaced. We almost died you and I. We should have died, but we did not and now I cannot live like I once did. I want to find out why. I know what I have said about these new things in my life is hard for you to understand, but I have read and learnt much over recent times and I am sure I have a destiny beyond this place. I have read that in Ramos, there are wise people, the Wisden who might know some answers to these things which trouble me; these things which fight the land and cause so much death and sadness. If there is sorcery or evil at its heart then I have to go and find out. I must travel to Ramos and I want you come with me, for I do not wish to do it alone.’
Andes heard every word and was moved by the emotion with which they were delivered. He sat and thought; he scratched his head, but still could not yet see his role in this.
‘I cannot leave Fryn,’ he said.
Rema smiled. ‘Yes you can Andes. She has seen but seventeen summers and you only five more. She will wait. I have watched you Andes. You are more than master of a small forge in Highton. Smyg is using you and the work here is what it will always be. Is this all you want? You are of the Edenwhood Andes. Surely you feel some desire to do more than this?’ Rema knew that Andes was greatly troubled now, but he pressed on.
‘Perhaps there comes a time when we have more to give than that which we find we are giving. Come with me Andes. We will return and Fryn will never stop loving you. She has eyes for no other, despite my teasing you. I need you Andes, but I am going, whatever you decide.’
Andes sighed and sat in silence, his mind racing with all that was before him. He took a deep breath, and spoke.