by R.N. Decker
The Fairies Tales:
Kharon
R.N. Decker
Copyright 2016 R.N. Decker
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Part 1 Hitcha
Part 2 The Square
Part 3 Gold Exchange
Part 4 The River
Chapter 2
Part 1 Foundling
Part 2 Pax
Part 3 King’s Questions
Part 4 The Message
Part 5 King’s Decision
Chapter 3
Part 1 House of Thieves
Part 2 Ajatar
Part 3 Thieves
Part 4 Pity on an Innocent Boy
Part 5 The Real Message
Chapter 4
Part 1 Pax and the Princess
Part 2 Another Message
Part 3 The King’s Outrage
Part 4 The Three Hairs
Part 5 The Journey
Chapter 5
Part 1 Hitcha Again
Part 2 Why
Part 3 Direction
Chapter 6
Part 1 The Three Roses
Part 2 Asine
Part 3 Miletus
Part 4 To Cross the Styx
Part 5 The Styx
Part 6 Devil’s Grandmother
Part 7 Ajattar
Chapter 7
Part 1 Devil’s Disguise
Part 2 Questions
Part 3 Split-Foot
Part 4 Hunger
Part 5 Answer
Part 6 Answers
Part 7 Journey Again
Chapter 8
Part 1 Homeward Bound
Part 2 Ferryman’s Answer
Part 3 Miletus Again
Part 4 Asine Again
Chapter 9
Part 1 Home
Part 2 Greed
Epilogue
Part 1 The Ferry
Part 2 The Curse
Part 3 Kharon
The Fairies Tales:
Kharon
By
R.N. Decker
Kharon
Prologue
The silent craft slipped onto the waiting shore of the river with eerie ease and long practice.
Waiting were three souls clustered together as if trying to gather warmth; one a nobleman by birth, one the owner of a by-gone fleet of barges, and the third a woman of royal heritage.
Immediately upon landing, the ferryman slowly held out a skeletal hand.
Payment to cross was due.
Each put a coin in the palm of the Reaper.
Chapter 1
Part 1
Hitcha
The woman screamed.
“You must push!” yelled the woman who was bent over the bed. “If you do not, the babe will not come. Try! You have to push!”
As far as Hitcha was concerned, the woman on the bed was just another peasant. Her husband, a sometime wood-smith by the name of Malt, couldn’t hold a steady job if his life depended on it, and he surely wasn’t equipped to handle feeding another mouth. He could barely feed the two of them. He began begging in the common square not six months after putting up their shack on the outskirts of Gartha. Word had come to the old crone the wife of Malta was expecting and would need a midwife. She knew they wouldn’t pay, but her conscience got the better of her, she knew not why, and decided to be the attendant at the birth. Approaching the woman just before the due time, Hitcha convinced the dirty ragamuffin they would need help. Also reassuring them they would not have to pay for her services.
I don’t know why I always do this. I give my services away far more times than I charge. But I can’t abide another life coming into this dirty world and not give it the chance to live. And I know this babe would surely die without my help.
“Push, Letty! Push!” screamed Hitcha to the prone woman. “I can see its head. Just one more time.”
Letty wailed, scrunching her body almost into a sitting position, pushing with all her guts. She felt as if a boulder was being pushed out instead of a baby. The pain excruciating. “Take it! Get it out!”
Hitcha reached between Letty’s legs and caught the babe as he emerged from his mother. Blood and body fluids coated Hitcha’s hands as she pulled on the child, the cord coming with him. And also one other thing the old crone saw, something very unexpected, a ‘hood’ was attached to the babies head; a caul.
Hitcha crowed as she fully exposed the baby to his mother. “This is why I was drawn to be here. I knew not why, until now.”
Letty didn’t understand what was being said to her. She had just given birth, the strain putting her into a stupor. Her head swam and her eyes didn’t focus properly. Flopping back on the pillows piled behind her head, sweaty and exhausted, Letty took a deep breath and sighed. Finally looking down between her legs, she saw her son come into her arms as the midwife - some said a witch, Letty not caring - crowed with delight.
Looking on the babe she saw what the midwife had seen; a slim piece of flesh clinging to the back of her sons head, attached to his ears and covering most of the back of his skull. A caul. A ‘hood’ of good fortune. Letty looked at the woman standing with her hands on her hips at the foot of her bed and smiled. “My son. Oh, by the Gods, he is born with luck.”
“We must clean him,” said Hitcha, “and take the hood for good fortune.”
Letty smiled and wiped her sons face clean with a cloth she had at the edge of her bed. This wasn’t the first time she’d been with child, so she knew some of the nasty parts of the process of giving birth. Her first, a small but perfectly formed girl child had died while coming out. And although she hadn’t thought she’d ever go through it again, the Gods had blessed her with another chance at being a mother. And she was rewarded beyond her wildest dreams, maybe because the Gods felt they owed her for taking her first child.
Hitcha fetched a dry piece of parchment and slowly ran it over the child’s head, loosening the caul, and delicately laid the fine membranous skin in its folds. Putting it to the side, on a small wooden table by the bed, Hitcha said, “I must do a reading. A caul is the sign of good luck from the Gods. We must see what’s in store for him.
“How do you do that?” asked Letty, holding her son tightly to her breasts, slowly stroking his head.
“Ah, I see fear in your eyes,” said Hitcha. “Don’t worry, this will not hurt the babe. It is done with the bones. A roll of the bones for the fortune and fate of the child. All born with the hood need a reading to foretell their future.”
Hitcha crowed again with delight. No more than a handful of times in the past twenty years had she seen a child born with a hood. And this was only the second she was to do a reading on. The first, some ten years gone was a girl child from a nobleman and his wife. She had been fated to outlive everyone in her family, which she did. Both of her parents succumbing to a plague not three years after the reading. She had been placed with a duke uncle in the next township over, where she would be well taken care of and provided for all her days. And now, this child. Reaching into her satchel hanging from her rope belt, Hitcha pulled out he
r ‘bones of fortune’. The bones were supposedly knuckle bones of a dragon, which had been passed from generation to generation.
Pulling over a three legged rickety chair, Hitcha spread a cloth, cupped her hands around the bones, shaking them mildly, then rolled them effortlessly out onto the chair.
The sound the bones made was that of dice, not what Letty would have thought bones made.
Hitcha peered at the assembly of bones with a frown on her face. Letty didn’t understand a thing that was happening, to her they looked like a jumble of old dried sticks, nothing to see. But Hitcha, after a moment, smiled a radiant smile at Letty, and said triumphantly, “the child is indeed blessed with good fortune. He will be married to a princess when his fifteenth birthday comes. And with the wedding will come great fortune and long life, blessed with three children in his coming years.”
Letty was shocked and delighted. Good fortune indeed. But after a moment of thought, her mood changed. She was no longer happy about her sons birth and fortune, but worried about how her husband and she were to keep the child fed and alive until his fifteenth naming day.
Hitcha saw all this in the mothers eyes, watching as she slowly stroked his head and kissed his brows. To try and ease poor Letty’s mind, Hitcha made another prediction without the use of the bones. Letty didn’t seem to notice, or care. Her only thoughts were of the near future, not the coming years. Hitcha said, “also, the child will be well taken care of. He will not die before this comes to pass. Fortune will come to you in your needs.”
Letty smiled a slow smile for Hitcha, telling her without words she was grateful. But Hitcha saw the woman didn’t truly believe. Oh well, I can only do so much. Before leaving the small run-down shack, Hitcha watched the new mother lift her son to her breast for his first meal.
“My son, you will grow tall and strong,” Letty cooed to the child at her breast.
Hitcha walked to the door and wearily opened it. Looking out she saw it would be another bright cheery day in Gartha. Smiling, exhausted but satisfied, she praised the one true God for his divine help. She knew there were no other Gods in the universe, only the one, but she had to keep up appearances for her reputations sake. Looking back one last time she prayed the child with the ‘hood’ would truly make it to his fifteenth naming day.
Part 2
The Square
In the village of Gartha, as in all villages around the world being small, word of the child born with the hood traveled quickly. It was good luck for any child to be born with a caul, and the family who had the child was said to be just as lucky. The Gods had surely blessed them.
Hitcha scoffed at the rumors of good luck from the Gods, but kept those opinions to herself. Her reputation as a midwife and a witch depended on it. If no one believed in what she could do, she’d no longer be able to make a living. What living she had. So, when she’d left the shack after the delivery of the child she spread the news of the baby among the villagers and peddlers in the common area, for she knew news of such an occurrence would spread quickly. Smiling to herself afterwards, she went on to her own dwelling on the outer fringes of the dark forest, knowing her reputation as a good luck bringer and a fortune teller was well confirmed in the minds of the simple people of the area.
Gatherings of beggars and shop keepers in the common square, where a statue of the kingdom’s Knight Champion stood took place every week day, and on this day, not two days after the birth of the fated child, a stranger came from afar to mingle with the people. Riding a dusty horse, carrying nothing but a rucksack and wearing a cloak to ward off the northern wind, he listened to the villagers and the tale of the prophesied infant – Hitcha had been right in her assessment of the villagers, word spread throughout the village and beyond of the child born with the caul and because of it came a stranger into the village – and his heart fumed with rage with the telling.
Part 3
Gold Exchange
Malt came home to his ramshackle house and wife. He hated it. He knew in his heart he was worth more than this miserable place. His wife, Letty, had just borne their first son, and he couldn’t take care of either of them in the way in which he wanted. Most of the people in this dirty ramshackle place thought him lazy and worthless, but he knew they were wrong. He’d worked all his life trying to make something of himself, being apprenticed with a wood smith when he was young, having a reputation of being a hard worker, and having plenty of work to keep himself busy while still having the time and means to find a wife. The only set-back in his life had been when his wife had lost their first child, a girl. He was forced to watch as the woman he loved fell apart. In the end they were forced to move because of the shortages of jobs. And coming here had been one of the worst decisions he’d ever made. Work was shorter here than anywhere else in the kingdom. His meager woodworking jobs he’d found hadn’t lasted long. And now, to make matters worse, and get townspeople’s tongues wagging, he was forced to beg in the commons to bring meager scraps of food home. All the wagging tongues, all the hopes of his wife, weren’t going to bring him any closer to the necessities he needed so they wouldn’t starve or freeze in the winter. Looking at the front door of the shack, sighing deeply, Malta made a brave face, so not to frighten his wife, and entered his ‘castle’.
Letty met Malt with their son in her arms as he walked into the door. “How did it go today?”
Malt frowned. “Same. No work yet.”
Letty didn’t let the response get her down. Rocking their son and walking toward the back where she kept the changing cloths, she said, “No worries, Malt. Our son will bring us the luck we need.” She cooed at the baby and smiled at him, making the little tot giggle.
Malt couldn’t make himself answer. He watched Letty take the baby back to a crude shelf he’d built from scrap lumber he’d found behind the livery sles in town and frowned. Luck. What luck? We haven’t had any luck since getting here.
And then a knock sounded at their door.
Malt froze. Looking at the door, he didn’t move. He’d never had anyone come there before. His shack he called home would have left any other beggar worried it would fall in on itself. No one came there. Except him and his wife.
Letty heard the knock and turned to gaze at her husband. “Were you expecting someone?”
“No,” Malt said, still not moving towards the door.
The knock came again.
Letty moved passed Malt toward the door, still holding their baby. Malt stopped her with a hand on her arm. “No, I’ll do it. You stay back. I’ll find out who it is.”
Malt cautiously headed to the door and opened it a crack. Outside, standing with a walking staff and a cloak wrapped around him was a man he’d never seen before.
“Yes?” said Malt.
The stranger waited a moment, sizing Malt up, just as he knew Malt was doing to him. Then he said, quite graciously, “May I have a word with you?”
“About what?” asked Malt suspiciously. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
The man nodded. “I know. I was in the square this afternoon and I heard there was a wood-smith here. I have need of one.”
Malt became quite excited about the prospect of work. He needed it badly. Looking behind to his wife and child, thinking Letty had been right after all about their child bringing them luck, he slowly opened the door to let the stranger in.
Letty backed away a few steps, not understanding why.
The stranger, dressed from head to toe in a flowing cloak and carrying a walking staff slowly came in the door. Upon entering he removed the hood from the cloak and exposed his face. A well chiseled handsome man of about thirty with blond hair and bright blue eyes. He didn’t look like a man who would need any kind of help or succor. And especially didn’t look like a beggar or wanderer.
Letty looked uneasy, but Malt welcomed the man with almost open arms. “Come, come. Sit. I may not have much in the way of comfort, but we make do.”
The stranger looked about him and groaned in
wardly. The only real place to sit was a three legged stool in one corner of the small cramped space. Off to one side, a door led into what he assumed was a bedroom. In one corner was a wood fireplace, used for heating and cooking, and hanging over the rock mantle was a shelf of cloths and wooden dishes. This place is a dump. I may be able to do what I have to do without much hassle from these peasants. Smiling pleasantly he said, “I won’t be here long. I came to see what you’d charge for building a horse stall in my sle. I need it done right away.”
Malt smiled himself, wondering what he should charge. A picture of gold coins jangling in his purse kept him interested in what the man was saying to him. If it wasn’t too big a price he could possibly get another job from the stranger afterward.
Letty was beginning to warm to the man, with him talking of a job with malt, that meant they wouldn’t have to beg for food. At least not for a while.
The stranger looked around him and focused his eyes on the baby in Letty’s arms. He knew he had to get this done and over with. Taking a shallow breath, so as not to garner any attention on himself, he started to put his plan into motion. “I see you have a babe. He doesn’t look very old.”
Letty looked on her son and smiled. “No, he was born just a few days ago.”
The man looked crestfallen for a moment before saying quietly, “My wife and I couldn’t have children. The Gods apparently wouldn’t allow it. You are lucky.”
“Yes, we are. When he was born, he had a hood. A good luck charm from the Gods.”
“A hood? Truly?” asked the man, surprise written on his face.
“Yes,” said Malt. “He is supposed to bring us luck.”
“Luck? Maybe he has.” The stranger smiled and then bowed his head as if in prayer for his own good fortune. Then he looked about him again, slowly this time, acting as if he were really seeing the place for the first time, and said to Letty and Malt, “I have a proposition for you.”
Letty instantly became suspicious. Taking another step away from the stranger, she held tight to her baby.