by H A Tisdale
“Wind followers?” I inquired, not sure I had heard her right.
“Yeah, remember how I was telling you that most people laughed at Father Edd when he told them about his dream and how they decided to run after the wind instead?”
“Yeah, but you were speaking figuratively, right?”
“No, I meant it literally,” she responded contrary to my logical expectation, “and these are some of their descendants. They’re a nomadic people who go wherever their windcycles take them.”
I looked at Reina in complete disbelief. “You’re joking…”
“Nope, that’s really what they do. In fact, many of them believe that hidden creatures dwell within the wind, unseen to the natural eye. They call them the Ruakia, the controllers of the wind.”
“So they think invisible creatures make the wind blow?”
“That’s right,” she stated without batting an eyelash. “And my sons were telling me that the wind hasn’t blown for several weeks, so the wind followers have just been camping out, hoping the Ruakia will soon move the wind.”
“Well, what’s taking these Roo-uh-key-ahs so long?” I wondered out loud as if I believed in their existence.
Reina giggled at me struggling to pronounce the word. “Apparently, the Ruakia often get distracted by people’s faces. That’s why they’re putting on this event called the Festival of Masks tonight. If everyone’s wearing a mask, then the Ruakia won’t be distracted by their beauty.”
“That sounds awfully narcissistic to me,” I sneered.
“Perhaps,” Reina laughed, “but that’s what they believe. Oh, Benjamin, look!” Reina pointed downward. “Those are my kids playing frisbee with that group of people at the bottom of the hill. You can see my brunette triplets there on the left. Joey has a ruby birthstone like me. Jude’s is amber, and Gage’s is zircon. Next to them are my swoll sons, the brunette twins. Simon has the beryl birthstone, and Daniel’s is onyx. To the right of them are my blonde triplets. Ash’s is the emerald birthstone; Leo’s is sapphire; and Robin’s is spinel. And finally, actually wait, I don’t see my last set of twins. They must be off in their tents writing poetry.”
“Poetry?” I repeated, intrigued by a common interest.
“Yes, Zeke and Meina love poetry, poetry and gardening. All of my kids have their individual niches. Simon and Daniel love looking at clouds. Ash reads and paints all day, while Leo sits endlessly in thought. And Robin, Robin is my music enthusiast of course. Joey is obsessed with architecture. Jude loves the mountains, and Gage’s birthstone belongs to the sea,” Reina expounded with a twinkle in her ruby eyes.
Without a doubt, I was rocked by how someone could love so many children with such genuine affection for each one. “Two sets of triplets and two sets of twins…that’s a lot to keep up with,” I commented as we neared the people playing frisbee, and I then realized they were all wearing pajamas that matched the color of their eyes.
“It’s been quite overwhelming at times, but a mother’s love never dwindles. And praise the Alchemist none of them are identical,” she concluded with a chuckle before her sons acknowledged our arrival.
“Hey, Mom, is that Benjamin?” Robin entreated enthusiastically, hastening toward us with his pink eyes opened wide.
“Yes, this is Benjamin,” she answered with a soft smile.
“Hey, everybody,” I waved awkwardly as a small crowd stared at me with wonder.
“Hi, I’m Robin,” he continued with vigor as he took my hand to shake it. “Is it true you’ve seen the sun?”
“Uhh, yeah,” I replied reluctantly, hoping her sons wouldn’t read into that fact as much as Reina had, “but it’s probably not that big of a deal.”
“Not that big of a deal?” Robin cracked up. “You were right, Mom. He’s definitely not from this world.”
“Robin!” Reina scolded him with a light smack on the back of his head.
Meanwhile, I stood there like a deer in the headlights, unsure how to respond to the colorful circumstance.
“You’ll have to excuse my brother, Benjamin,” Ash interjected before he stepped forward and shook my hand. “Our delightful but careless mother here dropped Robin’s birthstone before he was born, and it appears he’s been cracked ever since.”
“Ash!” Reina snapped, trying not to laugh with everyone else. “That is not at all what happened.”
“Yeah, Ash,” Robin added while laughing along, “that story’s not really what it’s cracked up to be.”
Everyone laughed even more, including me this time, and I could see that Robin possessed a lighthearted personality. His triplet Leo stepped forward next.
“I’m Leo,” he introduced himself with a much more serious demeanor than his other two triplets. “I look forward to hearing your accounts of the sun.”
I realized there was no getting around this sun situation. “Well, I suppose I could share a thing or two about it.”
“What’s it like?” Gage asked as he drew near to me. His zircon eyes had opened even wider than Robin’s had.
“Yes, please do tell us, Benjamin,” Jude quickly doubled down on his triplet’s request. All eight brothers and their frisbee-playing companions were looking at me with longing eyes. Even Reina turned in my direction with hopeful anticipation.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, the sun is a great big ball of fire,” I started with the obvious, buying myself some time to collect my thoughts.
“What else?” Joey pleaded as everyone else nodded wanting more.
I took a deep breath as I attempted to recall the true glory of the sun. “The sun rises on the east horizon every single morning, bringing forth the purest of light. Its warm hues gently rouse the world’s inhabitants to wake from their dreams and rise from their beds, promising them that the day ahead will be good. So as the people rally to work, the stately sun strides regally in its set path across the sky, illuminating the entire land so that all of mankind can see by its charitable light. And as the curtain closes on each day, the sun slowly settles in the west. With its clement array of colors, the sunset provides a promise as well, bestowing on every man and woman the unfading conviction that the sun will return. With this unfailing assurance, they can enter the night courageously, knowing its unparalleled beauty will once more rise for them as it is daily destined to do.”
I thought back to that moment in my apartment when the sun hit my face, and a few tears streamed down my cheek. The small crowd gathered closer to my recounting of the sun, and though speaking so vulnerably with these strangers felt uneasy, a serene muse had overcome me, compelling me to continue my ode to the sun. “With its rising and setting, the sun evokes such awe and wonder that artists spend days attempting to recreate its unmatched radiance within their murals. Poets pace for hours trying to find the right words to do it justice, and musicians diligently search for the key notes to properly express its many mysteries: the way it hides behind a mountain range; the way it peeks through a cloud; the way it reflects off the sea; the way leaves of the garden seek out its face in humble reception of its life-giving rays. Indeed, nothing compares to the majesty of the sun. Its light is sweet, pleasant to the sight, though curiously the eyes cannot bear to behold its full glory. So I guess I really shouldn’t doubt the sun’s power, for as I reflect on it now, my birthstone burns with an unrelenting desire to once again see it reign in the sky.”
I finished my solemn speech, witnessing the kindred tears in the gems of these strangers. For a moment, no one said a word until an unexpected response came from a white-haired man dressed in torn, flapped clothing.
“That’s a load of dirt,” the lanky, white-haired man croaked. “How can anyone take this guy seriously?” Everyone turned to the brash man with shocked expressions. I too looked at him but with horror as I noticed the man lacked color in his eyes. Instead of a birthstone iris, the man possessed blank, white eyes that appeared even creepier with his menacing countenance.
Robin quickly came to my defense
. “Leave him alone, Wick. Just because you and your brother cut out your birthstones for the Ruakia, doesn’t mean you have to be so cold.”
“Don’t you dare speak of that which you know nothing about, you insolent ComePlatian,” Wick scolded, advancing towards Robin with his fists clenched.
“Enough, brother,” a bulkier, white-haired man with white eyes intervened, holding Wick back from striking Robin. “Now is not the time. We have much to do before tonight’s festivities.”
“You’re right, Devon,” Wick conceded to his subdued brother. “These ComePlatians don’t even deserve to be acknowledged, especially not before our sacred festival. Let’s leave them to their silly dreams.”
The creepy white-eyed brothers departed, leaving the small crowd with a tainted moment. I felt rather uncomfortable but mainly offended as I tried to figure out what had just occurred.
“Who were those guys?” Reina asked, sounding much more offended than I did in my mind.
“Wick and Devon are the Windcatcher’s servants,” Leo explained. “Devon really isn’t that bad, but Wick is as unpleasant as they come.”
“You can say that again,” Robin opined.
“What do you mean the Windcatcher?” I asked, feeling I would never find my way through all the mysteries of the Pit.
“You know about the wind followers, right?” Leo clarified before answering my question. I nodded. “So when the wind blows, they all race each other to catch it, and whoever is in the front of the pack when the wind dissipates is declared the Windcatcher, the honorary leader chosen by the Chief Ruakia himself.”
“Note that he said ‘honorary,’ Benjamin, and not ‘honorable,’” Robin attested, “because the Windcatcher Hive is anything but honorable.”
“Alright, Robin, knock it off,” Joey urged him quite annoyed in his tone. “Hive was nice enough to let us camp here ever since we escaped Come Play City. And he’s willing to let us travel with them when the wind starts blowing again, so you really shouldn’t do or say anything to sabotage that.”
“But that’s just it, Joey,” Robin objected with more seriousness in his voice. “We’re not wind followers, so we shouldn’t follow the wind.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times now,” Joey barked back. “Of course we’re not wind followers. We are merely using the wind to cover more ground so we can find the Glorious King faster, and now that we have Benjamin who’s seen the sun, we are bound to spot the Glorious King no matter where the wind takes us.”
“Well, I don’t like that plan,” Robin resisted.
“Well, I’m in charge, so that’s too bad,” Joey jabbed.
“Since when?” Robin complained.
“Since the Master of Games plunged a sword through our father’s birthstone,” Joey seethed.
Immediately, I saw the tears swell up in Reina’s ruby eyes. She subsequently turned from the group and hurried away through the tent array, unable to bear the reminder of her husband’s demise.
“Look what you’ve down now, Robin,” Joey blamed his brother as he made his way after his mother. Jude and Gage followed after Joey while exchanging complicated looks with the rest of their brothers.
“Me?” Robin fumed at Joey in the distance. “You’re the one who said it!”
Ash shook his head. “Why do you and Joey always have to scrape stones?”
“He started it,” Robin defended himself.
“Of course he did,” Leo remarked, “and you certainly ended it.”
“I’ve had enough of this drama,” Robin grumbled. “I need a drink.” He stormed off in a huff, leaving me with Leo, Ash, Simon, and Daniel.
“As I said before, you’ll have to excuse my brother,” Ash apologized on Robin’s behalf. “We love him to death, but he can be a handful sometimes. Having said that, you’re welcome to come cheer him up with us. That usually entails a good bit of alcohol.”
Assuming Reina would be taken care of by her concerned brunette triplets, I was definitely feeling the urge to splurge within that windless valley. “Yeah, why not,” I adamantly agreed, looking ahead to my erotic arrangement with my foreign friend from the forest. “I could use a drink right about now.”
Chapter 7
A Windy Path
As the four brothers and I walked through the myriad of tents, I closely examined the medley of people we passed throughout the crowded campsite. The majority of them were clothed in torn, flapped clothing like Wick, Devon, and Kecelia had been, but a significant number wore bright pajamas, which matched their individual eye color just like Reina’s children and their frisbee-playing companions.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” I directed my inquiry to Leo who seemed the most informative, “why are some of you wearing such colorful pajamas?”
“We have the Master of Games to thank for our polychromatic PJs, or as Robin likes to call them, our jazzy jammies. And all the people you see wearing them are those who have escaped Come Play City,” Leo answered triumphantly.
“Why did the Master of Games make you wear pajamas?” I asked a little confused. “Other than me, I don’t remember anyone else in Come Play City wearing them.”
“Let me put it this way,” Leo introduced his explanation. “There were two types of people in Come Play City. Those who enjoyed, and those who were enjoined. Thus, the respected reaped their enjoyment from the enjoinment of the rejected.”
“In other words,” Ash thankfully interposed for my clarification, “those of us who clung to Father Edd’s dream were forced to serve the Master of Games and his fellow gamers. They had all the fun while we got all the work done.”
“That’s terrible,” I inserted, wondering how much worse the Master of Games could get.
“Yes,” Leo agreed at once, “and he prescribed these pajamas as a way to humiliate us, often referring to us as the dreamers. But now we wear our jazzy jammies proudly to remind ourselves that we can escape any nightmare as long as we work together.”
“So how did you escape Come Play City?” I questioned, realizing Reina hadn’t given me the full picture.
“Well, even though we wore pajamas, we could not be kept asleep forever,” Leo affirmed. “Eventually, Father Edd’s dream woke us up to the fact that we needed to leave Come Play City and search the Pit for the Glorious King. Most of the dreamers wanted to leave secretly without giving the Master of Games any notice, but our father thought we should make an appeal to him with the hope that he would join in on the sacred mission. Reluctantly, we all agreed to our father’s proposed meeting with the Master of Games, at that point having no grasp on the extent of his tyranny.” A grave expression fell over Leo and his three brothers. “So we invited the Master of Games to our bungalow one evening and attempted to reveal the great merit of Father Edd’s dream to our ruler. But our oppressive overlord viewed our peaceful reasoning as the beginning of an insurrection, and he quickly silenced our father’s goodwill with the thrust of his blade.”
“And we would have killed him then and there,” Ash uttered in rage, “but we were unarmed and caught off guard. Plus, he had his guards with him, so we didn’t stand much of a chance.”
“We could have stopped him if you hadn’t held us back,” Simon spoke for the first time since I had been around him. His twin Daniel nodded in agreement.
“There was nothing we could do,” Leo expressed heavily. “That’s why we had to lead our fellow dreamers out of Come Play City in secret after that. We couldn’t risk the Master of Games taking anyone else from us.”
At this juncture in the conversation, we reached the blonde triplets’ tent where we found Robin already three shots deep. “Ayyyyyy, my brothers! And Benjamin too!” Robin proclaimed pleasantly surprised. “Come in, come in, and make yourselves comfortable. Just like our friends Wick and Devon, we have much to do before tonight’s festivities.”
Gaining much cheer from Robin’s radiant reception, we gladly entered into the lighthearted atmosphere, relieved to leave our burdens at the door
, and there in the blonde triplets’ tent, I quickly learned something about Reina’s children, at least about half of them anyway. Simon, Daniel, Ash, Leo, and Robin all shared a common interest with me. All of them enjoyed strong drink, and I soon found myself pounding back shot after shot in preparation for the evening’s event. With our spirits lifting and our heads spinning, the band of brothers and I connected as comrades in the fellowship of the cup.
“I can feel it deep in my birthstone,” Robin mused in a poetic and humorous fashion, “that our ancestors used to live it up with the Alchemist when they lived above in their sweet, sweet Haven.”
“You certainly have a way with words, Robin,” Ash mocked. “I’m starting to wonder why you don’t join Zeke and Meina in their poetry circles.”
“Ahh, yes poetry is good, but I prefer its more evolved form, music, just as I prefer being drunk more than being sober,” Robin maintained before taking another shot.
We all cackled and filled up our own shot glasses to keep up with him.
“You know, Joey will go metamorphic on us if he finds out how drunk we are for the sacred wind festival,” Leo pointed out while he chuckled.
“I’m sure he would have quite the eruption cause we ‘bout to get full on volcanic,” Robin jested, making everyone erupt with laughter. “But Joey won’t find out. For one, we’ll be wearing these nifty masks on our faces. For two, I’ve talked to loads of wind followers, and all of them have confirmed that this Festival of Masks is just an excuse to get hammered. Trust me, brothers, this festival is going to rock, and not even Joey can erode it.”
As the brothers and I later stumbled out of the tent wearing masks that covered our eyes and noses, we entered the night with the low glow of the cavernous ceiling lighting our way, and in the fresh evening air, the aroma of bread, cheese, and meat mingled with the beat of drums and the sound of strings.
“Mmm, what is that smell?” I inquired with a starved look in my eye.