A look into the past allowed me to see Jeramy’s childhood. The days he remembers his father’s name for the first time when he was told the first legend from their infamous book on the farm, to even the days of his teenage years. The young boy was adventurous and risked his own life to see his father and read another story with him. A notable one was hard to look at from time to time. The day he was caught outside after hours.
It rained that night, cold and the only break time the Joraal slaves could have that day. Jeramy ran off that very night to read another story with his father. Same damp den as he always had, lit with a candlestick Jeramy stole from a guard. Khal`En sat in a chair by the bed as Jeramy sat on it. He opens the book to an old religious legend called: Thropian Sanity.
“Should I read to you, Jera?”
“I think I’m old enough to read to you, Noama.”
“Oh!” He looked at his son a grin. “We have an adult in here.” He lends the candlestick to Jeramy as he reads.
The Fourteen Wolves
Told by Arthur Milton
A pack of fourteen wolves hang over the horizon as the gods lower the sun down below them. The Three Moons fly above the wolves as they howl for protection of a great city called Thopia. The King of this great city relied on these wolves for the gods wish a great curse on a certain day. On each night of the third month of the three moon rising as equal, a great herd of beasts will destroy the city. A test of mankind that soon would fail. They had no wall, for the people did not accept it. The King had no guards for the people were not willing to lend their lives, so the King carried a trust with the wolves of the horizon, giving their howl of protection in return for a daily feast.
The Gods saw this and called for an assassin among the city people. They chose one man, a strong family man with no evil intention in his heart and told him his wildest dreams would be granted in the afterlife, with or without sin. He accepted as the Gods tasked him to kill the wolves. He bought a bow from the local trader and a horse from the stables on the border of the city. He rode off towards the horizon with a bow and a quiver full of fourteen Bron Silver arrows as he followed the distant howls of the wolves he were ordered to hunt. The first four were easy, killing each one as he skinned them and wore their furs.
The others were a challenge, three of which hid under a Smolder Tree. Protecting them as the tree believed they were of natural nature. He burned the tree as the wolves cooked until the smell of their fur faded in the wind. He ate only three of them and kept one for his family. Then there were five that hid in a mine near the city, but this only made searching for them easier. They did put up a fight, ripping the man’s arm off, but they all perished in the mines as it collapsed. The last one was easier than the rest as the man slowly died, having seen all of his pack members die and offed himself to nature’s forces.
The King was left with no protection that night, neither the next month, the month of the Three Moons rising as equal. The King worried as the people began to leave and the trust of his own people dwindled. His son died from sickness as every medicine doctor had left and his queen gone for the worry of her own death. The King was left with nothing as he watched the herd of beasts destroy everything in his city. The Gods spoke to him about his protection and failure to amuse them, leaving a curse among man because of the King’s wrongful trust of his own people, a curse of losing his own sanity and become a wolf-like monster called, Thropians.
Footsteps pass by the door as Jeramy finishes the story. Khal`En looks at the door with a club he made from the trees the cut down from extending the farm not to long before at his fingertips under the bed. Jeramy closes the book of legends and leaps out the window with thoughts of his father being whipped again for his actions. It was night during all of this, patrols were out in a tired state of mind and anyone to snitch out the boy was gone to sleep in the cabins. The latest years had the owner reward his slaves with loyalty for any rightful deeds they committed for him. The awful things the Joraal do just to gain respect from these heartless people. Sometimes they even promote them to a safer and higher standard of less work and hardly any discipline. Why wouldn’t you strive to such heights in this lifestyle?
Jeramy finds his room window in the cabin and jumps in. The room is dark with glimmers of the moonlight glisten on the floor revealing the rug and dresser carrying a candle, Jeramy knew was there. He grabs for it and it wasn’t there. He held his hand over the dresser in search of the candle. He wasn’t there for some odd reason as he kicked a metal object on the floor. A sudden muffled voice sounded out of the shadows untouched by the moonlight. Jeramy reached down and picked up what he kicked as a flaming arm ignited in the shadows holding a maid by the neck, burning her neck and whatever else touched it. Jeramy was startled to see this. Two men grabbed him and pinned him to the floor as one the man with the flaming arm spoke. “He’s only a boy! He doesn’t need extra strength to put him down.” His flaming arm lets go of the woman as he muffled screams turn to shouts as her skin looked like it was boiling. “Hand me that candle, would you lad?” One the men grabbed the candle and held it to him. He pinched his fingers on the stick and lit the candle, lighting the entire room.
“Wallas, look! I-I didn’t do anything this time. I… I was simply going out to get a drink!” Jeramy panicked.
“I know what you were doing! She knows what you were doing!” He pointed at the maid on the floor still in pain from the burns on her neck. He kneeled down to Jeramy on the ground, almost level to Jeramy’s face pressed to the ground. “We both know what you were doing.”
“P-please don’t hurt him. I… I-I can-”
“You can’t do anything. You know I have my arms tied on this. I can’t keep shite worth of anything from your… Father.” He stood and looked away with a disturbed shape to his face. “I still can’t believe he has you call him that.” For a moment, the maid tried to get up, but the one guard left doing nothing kicked her in the gut and she fell back down.
“Why did you hurt her?” Jeramy pleaded.
“Her? This... “ he paused, “... Whore? We all knew she loved you, like a mother, but mostly like a… A smuggler is the only word I can think of, so he asked her where you were when we found your room was empty during curfew. She said she had no idea where you could be, so we beat her.” He gave her a glance as she stayed shivering in her pain. “She gave us the same words as last time. You Master called me in-”
“He’s not my Mast-” Carter slapped him.
“Don’t interrupt me. I was called by your Master and he asked for my hand.” He gave a sinister grin just thinking about what happened. “Her determined face turned sour, Khaja. You hear me? She had everything spill out once I pulled off that glove, glowing like molten rock. Told us everything, how many times you met that insult of a slave as we thought your days with your father were over.” He gave a look of murder, crusty with a half bitten smile like a cigar was in his mouth. “Bring him up.” The guard strikes him on the head, almost unconscious, and pulls him up to stand. He could barely keep both feet on the ground, steady and firm.
“Take the boy to the shed, make sure he learns his lesson. And you,” the guard straightens his stance. “Take the whore to the doc, she’s not completely useless. Just be careful when you handle her and make sure the doc knows that too. She’s still of wondrous youth.” The guard grabs her as blood trickles down her cheek with sizzle through every drop that hits the floor.
I watch the boy get dragged to this so-called shed, watching the door open, revealing horrible tools to do horrible things. The guard grabs a club as Jeramy screams for mercy. The door closes. All I could hear is hardy thuds against flesh and screams turning into moans and then silence. A strange silence, the only silence I can admit to being eerie, the only sound I could hear was the thud, repeatedly hitting against flesh.
I hear a hunter’s bow… I’ve drifted for far too long. Seems a month or two has passed since I dazed. Jeramy seems to be hunting with the kind man from earlier. He’s panting and sweat, he shows a face of exhaustion and pain as he pulls back the bowstring as far as he can. “Quiet,” the man says under his voice, “try to relax yourself before your prey notices you.”
“I can’t… All this running and hunting has gotten me... out of it.” He takes a knee on the floor slump like a hunchback, he tries to straighten himself as the grip of the bow loosens. The arrow leaves Jeramy’s fingers and sores through the air and hits a tree beside the beast he was aiming and chasing for through the entire day. The beast is startled and runs away on alert. He just lost his food for the day.
“What is wrong with you Jeramy!” The man with his soothing voice then crackled like fire. “This is your third loss this month and it seems the training I was giving it going to waste!”
“I’m sorry… I-”
“Don’t be sorry! Just uh-” he stopped himself as his voice altered again for some reason, like a boy hitting his manhood. “Let’s get home.”
“Okay, sir.” Then they walked through the forest back to their cabin. The whole way back, the man was silent. He did not talk even when spoken to. Jeramy tried to talk to him, asking for a crossbow like the man he follows, he never answered. It was strange.
I looked into his eyes once more as he stopped walking. Blue, glowing orbs that felt powerful, that’s all I could see under the hood, between that mouth guard. Jeramy asked why they stopped, as the winds blew the man’s hooded robes. I stepped aside as he followed me with his head. He began to walk again, Jeramy without question, followed as he watched with a long, confused face. I pondered whether or not this man revealed his own name to Jeramy as they walked back to the cabin.
They arrive home, opening the cabin doors as the man points to what I believe to be his room. He walks towards it with some kind of guilt on his mind. He is out of sight as the man waves his fingers and hands for a moment as a bright yellow light emits from it, casting some kind of spell on himself. I interrupt him and feel this beauty again.
“You’ve been gone for some time.”
“It’s in my nature.”
“Why do you show your face to me now?”
“I am curious.”
“Why so curious?”
“Why do you give me such estranged beauty? Is this how you see me? Death is beautiful to you?” She gave me such a confused look like she didn’t know what I was saying. She must not know how I feel.
“Why is this a surprise? I thought most men of the English Reign believed death was beautiful.”
“Most men see me as something feared and disgusting. I never felt such supple cheeks on my face and smooth white skin on my hands, only hard bone, and deathly skin. Why are you different.”
“Because I don’t believe death is disheartening. The gods gave us this relief and we should hold it as a gift, not a burden.”
“You are a strange man, but that’s not the only thing I feel curious about.”
“And that is?”
“Why did you lie to Jeramy?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you told him you were with him, you lied and told him something his father did not. Why did you lie to him?”
“It’s to comfort the boy and so he can be on my side, we want to make sure all the Joraal want to help us instead live in a mindless state of working, we need someone like him in the revolution-”
“Who are you?” I interrupted him. He froze in mid-sentence. He tried to question why I would ask that, but I stopped her. “Who are you? Have you even told the boy who you are?” My beauty began to turn grim, blackened with fear.
“That is not of your concern, spirit.”
“If you don’t tell me, I will sooner or later.” My arms turned to bone as my lips were black. She was seeing me as something else now.
“I said this is none-” His voice changed again, sounded feminine. I looked in his mind and I saw was the boy on that fateful day when the farm was destroyed, sights of Gallingway on the floor broken and blood everywhere on his face as men carried the Jeramy on horseback and road into the forest wall.
“Mz`Andla?” Before more could be said, the boy was wondering who she was talking to.
“Sir? I something going on?” She waved her hands and used that spell again.
“Get back in the room and rest.”
I looked at her as my beauty came back partially. My lips were still rotten with an awful color. She gave me an angry stare as she said nothing. She walked to her room with an act of defense crossed her mind. I left to the boy’s room before she could do anything. She wanted me gone, so I left her alone, but the boy, although could not see me, I felt some kind of connection as he laid on his bed. He was still exhausted from the hunt and worrying coursed through his mind. He wanted to impress this person he barely knew. I stood back and wanted to watch this boy and how he would find out more about this person he barely knows or should care for. I was curious then and when I think of it, it’s hard to imagine I would go about any other way.