somber. “I did. No kidding… although there’s more to her story, my friend…
“But see for yourself — she’s an open book. The truth is written on her skin.”
John Cap did not understand until the woman was upon him.
That’s when he noticed the scar on her forehead, the band of thorns across her brow. A tangled crown or sign of torture. Red, raw brand of a molten ire.
It read like a symbol of something unspeakable, drawn in blood, etched down to the bone.
John Cap was dumbstruck. He watched her glide by. The woman slowed only to catch his eye and whisper seven words of warning.
“Beware the garden. Leave while you can.”
Then she was gone like a leaf on the wind, fallen and yet airborne again.
The foreigner turned to see her go and thought he caught a glimpse of something… a shapely ankle or slender shin… coiled in vine… unexpectedly green…
Ho-man anticipated his questions.
“Her name is Aylynn Lyll. Even when we were kids, a little devil. Always rebelling against the rules and scrubbing scroll boards after school. Yet, in those innocent sun-filled days with Treasuror Ayryx keeping peace, no one would have guessed she was destined for this…”
The clerk took a long almost wistful breath.
“Ten years passed and Aylynn turned woman, just as the house of Ayryx fell. But the brutal brand of the brother’s rule rekindled the girl on fire in her. A rebel reborn… And marked for hell.
“She joined a secret band of others, sisters and brothers, the Wilder-Ones — a clandestine few who fanned the flames and stoked the folk to spark dissent. Yet in that foment, their moment of sun, the groundswell they stirred had assured their end…
“For the ironwood fist of Treasuror Fyryx crushed the exodus that they’d led and laid down the law on her traitor friends. Their season of treason was suddenly over. The harvest of flesh had just begun.”
John Cap found his voice again, although subdued by the tale he’d heard. “So that’s how she got to be disfigured,” he said with a swipe across his brow. “The handiwork of your guards, no doubt…”
Ho-man arched his eyebrows, surprised. “Even the pikesmen aren’t that barbaric. They do have a Code of the Guard you know.” Then he raised the notebook to cover his mouth. “That is the work of her very own hand.”
The young man looked like he didn’t believe him. “Why the heck would she ever do that?”
“Honor, Tom Cat. Honor and guilt…
“Though she testified she was ready to die, brave Aylynn was held aside from the others — her friends and fellow conspirators — denied her death wish yet made to witness as they all fell one by one. Powerless, she mourned their loss with all she had, a rebel yell. Only then did she learn she’d been spared from the grave by the well-meaning plea of her last living kin. It was her cousin, Hannyn Hurx, daughter of the old Lyll clan and grieving wife of Treasuror Ayryx. Thanks to Hannyn’s intercession, Aylynn was sentenced as solely a leaver, breathing but broken in body and soul, the lone surviving rebel girl…
“One empty day of the winter that followed, as Pax Fyryx gripped the land, a lonely Aylynn stirred the fire, glowing iron in her hand. Then, by a bowl of cold reflection, she immortalized her pain in skin.
“A tattoo of her choosing, defiant, taboo, to never forget, to speak the truth.”
Ho-man had to clear his throat. Both men stood in silence for a moment.
“Um, hope I’m wrong,” resumed John Cap, “but I’ve got a feeling that this ties in with what she wanted to warn me about… What’d she mean, ‘Beware the garden’?”
The penman lowered his log book again. “It’s a thorny subject,” he answered, “the dark side of our nature, my friend.”
The stranger leaned in to be sure to hear.
“Martial law bore us a bounty of crimes and a windfall of criminals piled up high. Our freshest fruit gone bitter and rotten. Their sour grapes of wrath turned whine. But that crop also yielded the bad seed needed to sow a hell on earth as jail, a prison risen from the soil. A warden’s boneyard, an orchard of tortures, pretty blades all in a row — over groans. And not some little shop of horrors. No small wonder of nurture and dung. But a scarlet damned plantation slaving under a gangrene thumb.
“Yes, that’s what you’ll find in the garden of thorns, where the Guard leave their guests not a leg to stand on — especially the red-handed ones…”
Ho-man cut his sentence short at the clanking sound of an empty cup. He reopened his book. He looked out and took note.
“Pardon me mate but we’ll have to be quick, now that breakfast is wrapping up.”
John Cap, however, was still stuck on Aylynn. It gnawed at him, something he had to know.
“Miss Lyll… you’ve got to tell me how she stayed in one piece. Any secret or trick?”
The lean man looked apologetic. “Forgive me if I’ve misled you friend. She lost her beautiful left in the end. Every bit of it, from toe to hip.”
The revelation had John Cap stumped. “Impossible. You’re making that up. She walked, I saw her for myself. In fact she moved super naturally…”
“Well yes, but only by the grace of a brace of kindly patron saints, her childhood neighbors and our pike makers, the famed twins Droy and Nystra Mayn — a charming pair of miracle workers who’ve single-handedly kept us armed. Sympathetic to her plight, they labored in the dead of night to sprout from a seedbed of virgin dirt a limb befitting her untamed heart. It worked like magic, up to a point, saplings replacing her missing part…
“Yet not even guardian angels could make whole a soul who’d been consumed, devoured, done in by inhuman nature, cast into the garden of eaten like her.”
The tall young teenager stared where she’d been. “Still, they didn’t kill her spirit. I saw it.”
“Yes, it’s true she burns.”
John Cap turned away. “More Dante. What I need is a little Houdini…”
Suddenly Fyryx Hurx stood up looking fed up and full of prejudice. “I judge we’ve had enough of this.” Then he tossed his bowl of grub and spit.
“Now is the time to try men’s souls.” He mashed his fist. “Get on with it.”
###
To be continued… Look out for the next exciting episode of Lore of the Underlings!
About the Author
John Klobucher is the author of many technical manuals that you’d never want to read. But he is also to blame for Lore of the Underlings, this ill-advised epic adventure that’s available to you in tasty little episodes, with new ones coming — farm-fresh, organic, and cruelty-free — every now and again. (For more behind-the-scenes news and nonsense, hie thee to this bloggery: loreoftheunderlings.com).
John has also been known to paint a little, including the watercolors used in the cover art for Lore of the Underlings.
John lives in Framingham, Massachusetts, USA with his wife Diane, son Sam, and daughter Mia.
~ ~ ~
Other ebook titles by John Klobucher:
Lore of the Underlings: Episodes 1 & 2 ~ A Door to the Lore
Lore of the Underlings: Episode 3 ~ Fyryx
Lore of the Underlings: Episode 4 ~ The Letting Pen
Lore of the Underlings: Episode 5 ~ Into the Pit
Lore of the Underlings: Episode 6 ~ Meeting Minyon
Print titles by John Klobucher:
The Lore Anthology
~ ~ ~
Lore of the Underlings: Episode 7 ~ Ho-man Holds Court Page 4