by M. Woodruff
Nels opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it; he had no idea what to say. But he had to ask: “What do you mean ‘his Awakening’?”
“When he first realized there is more to life than just the physical. There is energy and power all around us, but it’s invisible. Most people have no idea it’s there, but some people do. They just know. And when they act on that knowing—well, it awakens them to all that is truly available to people, not just the physical.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Nels said, half believing it. He was somehow sitting in a completely strange place with a wonderfully strange woman, after all.
“Good. I think it’s best we go back home now that you’ve seen proof. It’ll be easier to talk there, in an environment you’re used to.”
Casandra stood up, nodded to Nels briskly, and started walking back to the fountain; Nels following obediently as seemed to be his wont.
“We’re not wet.”
Casandra turned around from the top of the pool. “What?”
“We’re not wet. We just walked out of water, but we’re not wet. Why?” Nels held his arms out and did a few turns to bring home the point of just how dry they were.
Casandra wrinkled her brow as if she’d never considered the matter before, and then said, “I don’t know. I don’t know a lot about all of this Nels…not the specifics, I mean, like how it all works, just that it does.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s getting dark; we should go back to the house. Mama will have a room ready for you and after a good night’s sleep we will talk tomorrow. I’m afraid I’ve given you quite a jolt and it’s probably best you have time to absorb the knowledge of who you are.”
“Who I am? I know who I am, it’s you who has me concerned.”
Casandra just shook her head and whispered, “Nels you wouldn’t have been able to travel to Sandrid if you weren’t Awakened, just like me.”
Nels lay in the too-small bed staring at the white plank-board ceiling someone had taken the time to paint. Most houses had just plain wooden boards, except maybe the wealthy ones that had tin or copper plates with ornamental designs. He wondered who had gone to the trouble of painting upside-down when there were only the three of them and they never had any overnight company, he was sure. Anything he could think of to keep himself from thinking about what he really didn’t want to be thinking about, but knew should be thinking about.
He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it.
Him, Awakened? Nels barked a quiet laugh; what did that even mean, Awakened?
Oh, he knew about the darkness. If that was what Casandra meant by invisible—spiritual—things. The whispers in the dark that could do far more than just whisper. And that certainly was no gift. But to travel to other worlds through Portals—that was just beyond his understanding. He’d never even heard tales of such nonsense.
All bards ever talked about, if lucky, or sung about, if not, were current events—gossip from other towns mostly. People gained their own kind of notoriety by—well, by just being themselves. Not the boring folk certainly, but those with a nose for any kind of calamitous activity were sure to have their story told. Case in point: everyone knew the story of Johnny Butcher, who had invented a device where he could single-handedly behead twenty chickens at once by strapping them down side by side, then dropping a long, heavily weighted sharpened metal plate from a rigged-up scaffold. He had been quite the popular butcher, until Ed Mason decided one wife and five kids were six too many, and used Johnny’s handy killing machine during the dark of night to lighten his load. Needless to say, no one would patronize Johnny’s shop anymore, so while he slipped away into obscurity, the Butcher-Mason legend, heedlessly lived on. Of course, now that The King employed his own bards, their tone had become a bit more serious, proclaiming various good deeds citizens could perform to help The Kingdom become a nation of progress. Most townsfolk weren’t sure what progress even meant and didn’t care even if they did; so they spent their time plying the bards with intoxicating distillations in hopes of hearing the names of loose women in neighboring towns.
Nels was surprised to find he was staring up at a ceiling now awash with a darkness that…moved. He watched as cunning swirls of blackness devoured lighter ones, creating the effect of slithering snakes slowly amalgamating into one large serpent with…eyes…that suddenly took a focus that seared right into his mind.
He felt the bed sheets begin to slowly tighten around him, wrapping around his damp, clammy flesh and even though he was cold to his core, he felt the heat and the gyrating rhythms straight from the hammer of the forge, beating against his very soul.
He heard the sound of molten fire being arrested by the touch of icy water as a voice hissed, “It’s time to go home, Nels.”
Nels was surprised to find he was staring up at a ceiling now awash with light from the morning sun. Reflexively, he wiggled his arms and legs, and let out a sigh of relief when they obeyed his command without hesitation. He felt rested, clear-headed with a new sense of purpose. He had to go home. He wasn’t going to be harassed wherever he went. Even traveling to somewhere—he still wasn’t sure exactly where—different within The Kingdom hadn’t gotten rid of his nightmare from the past. Whether the evil was actually following him, or it was just his own mind haunting him, he wasn’t sure, but either way: He refused to be hounded like this.
Somewhat surprised by his decision to face the situation head-on, instead of running, he decided he would just have to explain to Casandra that while visiting other worlds was nice, he first needed to go home, and then he would come back and see what in the worlds she was talking about.
After getting dressed, he headed to the kitchen to—hopefully—get some breakfast without too much grief, and maybe even some travel provisions. Hattie was there, stirring something in a pot hanging in the fireplace. She turned even before he spoke and grinned. “You’re leaving.”
“Yes, I have to be on my way today. I wanted to thank you for your hospitality and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for some breakfast and maybe a little food to take with me. Any old bread, cheese, hardtack, even some dried beans if you have any—whatever leftovers you have lying around would do nicely.” Nels grinned back overjoyed to see Hattie actually smile, when he realized she wasn’t smiling anymore.
“I got leftover biscuits,” she pointed to a basket on the table, “that’s your breakfast. You ain’t got no time for none of this gravy, so you just take the biscuits—I got some fresh baking for the family.”
“Uh…well yes, of course you’re right, Hattie, thank you once again,” Nels said as he was grabbing the basket of hard biscuits and finding his way out of the door. “Oh, and is Casandra up? I’d like to say good-bye.”
“She’s in the barn,” Hattie snarled. Sour was not the word for that woman.
Nels walked into the barn and found he was looking up right into the biggest stallion he’d ever seen. He had a brown coat with a black mane and tail, and deep black eyes that made Hattie seem to have the personality of a kitten. Nels involuntarily took a step back and said, “Uh, excuse me,” suddenly fearful for his life.
A black mare beside him looked up and whinnied, bemused.
“Nels, you’re up! Oh and you’ve met Nick and Nora!” Casandra said chirpily as she stepped into the barn.
“Nick and Nora?”
“Yes, he’s my horse. Papa traded for him a couple of years ago. I don’t know why exactly, he doesn’t do anything, except lord around the place. But we did have a barn and all.” Casandra smiled and shrugged. “Nora just strolled up here one day on her own shortly after we got Nick. We have no idea where she came from, but she made herself right at home. The two of them have become quite a pair, making eyes at each other, frolicking through the fields together.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Oh yes, in my professional opinion I’d say they were quite smitten with one another.”
“Well, I’ll be…” Nels said with a wicked gleam in his eye as he step
ped farther away from the two lovebirds. He liked horses, as long as he wasn’t standing too close to them.
Casandra frowned, looking closer again at Nels, seeing for the first time the basket of biscuits in his hand. “Nels, you aren’t planning on leaving are you?”
Nels sighed, looked down at the biscuits, shrugged, and said sheepishly, “You caught me.”
“And you weren’t even going to tell me? After all we’ve gone through,” Casandra said while managing to look thoroughly aggrieved.
“All we’ve gone through! I just met you yesterday! Okay, well…so, yeah, maybe we did go through a fountain together to some distant faraway land, but… I’ve…got…to…go…home. I have to Casandra. Black’s Hand is calling me.”
“Black’s Hand? Is that on Black Mountain where they forge the iron?”
“Yes, it’s where I grew up. I left there thirty-odd years ago, but now it’s time I went back. To settle things.”
“I see,” Casandra said. She didn’t look hurt anymore, only thoughtful. “First you have to listen to me, though.”
Nels started to voice his protest, but she continued, “You need to hear this Nels. I just have a feeling you shouldn’t go back to Black’s Hand until you’re better…prepared. It may not be as easy as you think.”
Nels found two buckets and upturned them so he and Casandra could have a seat. He had a feeling this was going to take a while, and suddenly he wasn’t in such a hurry to leave. “What do you mean ‘easy as I think’? You don’t even know why I’m going back. I could just be going back to visit my poor sick mother and doddering old father.”
“But you aren’t, are you?”
Nels said wearily, “No, no I’m not. I’m not really sure why I have to go back. It’s just that…well, something happened to me as a kid and it made me leave and now it wants me to come back.”
“It?”
“Yes, a thing, a shadow, a darkness…I don’t know what it is, just that it somehow can take forms that talk, and it can make incidents happen, and not very pleasant ones at that.”
Casandra leaned in close, so their noses were almost touching and whispered, “What did it do for you Nels?”
Nels was suddenly transported back to that day all those many years ago. He had been born in Black’s Hand, delivered up into the world of iron, by the same pair of greasy, soot-darkened hands that had brought numerous mountain-bred spawn, not into the light of day, but into the choking embrace of iron dust. He was the first-born son of his parents, Harran and Ema Black, but there was no rejoicing at his arrival. No one ever reacted with any emotion other than a slight twinge of pity, for such a poor unfortunate soul to have been born in such a murky, unforgiving landscape as this.
A younger sister, then brother, soon had joined him before Nels had reached five years old. So his days had been spent following his mother around with his siblings, hanging onto her skirts, getting scolded for minor offenses. Even though their skin was white as alabaster they generally went around looking like moldy pieces of bread, mottled with black and gray. No one ever bathed on the Black Mountain—there was no point, villagers had long since figured out. Instead they smeared the oils and fat leftover from roasted meat onto their flesh and wiped it off with thick cloths, to be reused again and again. Some residents had had the same cloth their whole lives as the fat congealed with iron dust preserved the threads from ever fraying. It was considered extremely unsanitary to ever share your sweat- sanctified bathing cloth.
Every inhabitant had black hair whether it was his or her natural color or not. The only chance to know your hair color was if a newborn was born with hair. After that, no matter girl or boy, inky strands emanated from heads. Men’s hair was regularly shaved once it began to cover eyes, so no need to have it washed. The women would generally let their hair grow long but kept it piled on top of their head under a tight-fitting skullcap; even then somehow the iron would seep in turning all locks raven.
Life in Black’s Hand consisted of dreary shacks made from the dilapidated broken remains of the lifeless trees that grew up from the heart of the mountain. As cold and ruthless as the iron itself the seedlings would emerge from the crannies with leaves and shoots as dark as the night sky. They would grow twisted and gnarled in wicked shapes formed by the mountain’s forbidding thoughts, as a testament to warn all but the Black’s own to stay away.
The villagers slogged around in perpetual mud that looked and felt like tar. They didn’t get an overabundance of rain, but the mountain produced it’s own tears, fed from the desperation of the miners kept locked in it’s bowels. They would spring up in small ponds to start and as life became harder—death walked, pain intensified—they would flow even greater still, until they coursed down the slopes eventually petering out as the agony that had sustained them receded. Then the dark pools would remain, silently waiting, until the deluge of grief could be released again.
Nels, Henry, and Fausta would play amidst the blackened tree trunks, hiding and seeking. They would dip their toes in the warm ponds and sometimes, if dared, and one could see the bottom, would slowly lower their whole body in, clothes and all. Often they would play with midnight blue lizards that lived on rocky banks, chasing them into hidden crags. At night, a faint blue shimmer could be seen decorating their scales, so often the children would sneak out to climb onto the cliffs and extend their game. Once Fausta had been quick enough to actually catch an aging lizard. She had carried it home cupped safely in her hands until she found a dusty glass jar for a dwelling. She had poked holes in the lid for air, but gave it no food since she didn’t know what they ate. She hid the jar under bed and spent the night watching the blue glow pulse rhythmically forming a spectral pattern before her eyes.
The next day the children went out playing again. Fausta carrying her pet lizard in its jar, while Henry was searching for insects or worms it might eat. Nels found a large alabaster snake curled around the base of a tree, staring at him with diamond-yellow eyes that shone out to him even in the gloom of the shade. In that frozen space of shock, Nels recoiled. He had seen plenty of snakes before, mostly black or gray, or a combination of patterns, but never a pure white serpent with sky blue, pale yellow, soft pink and inky black designs laced down its back. It almost looked like it was embroidered for some fine lady, maybe the snake had been her pet once and was now lost. But with such hungry eyes he couldn’t believe this snake had ever been anyone’s pet, no matter how handsome or curious its appearance.
Nels even knew most of the snakes weren’t venomous, and were actually helpful in ridding dwellings of the pestilent rats. But there was something about this one. He wasn’t afraid of bodily harm or even death, it was more of a primal fear that he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t call out to his brother or sister or even move, so sure that this wasn’t a chance encounter that this viper had been waiting for him, only him.
The snake, less than ten feet away from him, slowly stuck out its forked tongue, then gradually opened it’s mouth revealing midnight-black fangs, and yawned with such a masterful imitation of a bored human, that Nels screamed.
Nels had grown up surrounded by violence and the harshness of life; a dull ache of fear was part of everyday life. He had seen malice in men and women and even in kids his own age. But it was usually borne out of the depths of circumstance—a reaction to events as opposed to any deliberate manifestation within one’s own soul without any prior provocation.
But this…this snake, projected something far more sinister, far more cunning than an angry villager. The violence Nels would sometimes see pass across men’s countenances was but a ripple on the surface compared to the wellspring of depravity that the serpent showed with that one mocking gesture.
Nels screamed again…and again…and again.
Until Henry and Fausta had shown up, breathless from running, whereupon Nels fell silent as the two stood beside him and took in the amazing sight before them. So paralyzed by terror, Nels couldn’t speak to warn them of what h
e knew to be the true nature of the snake.
Fausta, still too young to be experienced with much beyond childhood wonder, exclaimed, “oooh…pretty snake!” Henry with a little more maturity took a cautious step back, as the little girl ran forward with her pet lizard, still in the jar, clasped in the crook of her arm. As the two boys watched, immobile as stone, she said, “aww, pretty snake hungry,” opened the lid, took out her lizard, dangling him by his tail and dropped him into the serpent’s gaping mouth.
The alabaster snake stuck out his tongue, looked straight at Nels, and smiled.
Life on the Black Mountain continued on as usual after that day. Nels and Henry began apprenticing at the smithy, helping master craftsman Scoggins Black by fetching water and sweeping dust outside. He was no actual close relation of theirs; all inhabitants of the mountain were cognomenated with “Black” and had been for so long no one knew if originally there were differentiated surnames. He was an old man with failing eyesight, so soon he would be replaced with the next mountaineer in line for ascension. Once Scoggins’ working time was done, he would be relegated back to do the same menial jobs that Nels and Henry currently occupied, until finally as his physical condition deteriorated to such an extent that he would be forced to help his wife with housework under her direction. But that would not be until the talent indicated by his master status had deserted him.
Such was the fate for all Black’s Hand men. Young boys began by performing the most basic of tasks in the aboveground smithy and later if they proved to be competent enough not to foolishly injure themselves or others, at the foundry. They would accompany their fathers before first light to be dropped off at the corral while their fathers went on to the underground tunnels where most of the men worked; the other bulk worked in the foundry heating and pouring the liquid metal into basic casings.