Pain slowly slipped away as lifetimes of nightmare moments trudged into. across the vast plains of, and then out of his mind. Consciousness was fleeting, thankfully. A moment here, another much later. Always brief visits; just long enough to reinforce to 'Tj'Chin'Ker that he had not yet healed enough to accept the pain his body was in.
At times he recalled the fiery moments of first emerging from the Ring. Limbs not always working right as he made his way at a dripping of tree sap’s pace from the exit point at sight of the ancient broch.
Sleeping had always been his favorite way to heal. But pain and imperative would not let him nap long. During naps the wolves might come; those that grew fur and those that wore it, too.
Slumbering wounded in the open invited bears. And of the Picts... he could not be sure any of them would recognize him for what he was; an emissary so long away might not be welcomed. And The People had been away for far too long. The pact had long gone untested while his people had been in retreat.
While they had been in the Other Place.
A small forever spent in a Summerless world away from the war that would have slain his kith and kin down to the youngest child. Would the Picti folk even know him now? Would they care, even a little? An ally gone from the field for so long... could that People still even be called "ally?"
Was this place now held by the fucking Scottii? Those fools wouldn’t know him if he had luck on his side, a bag of gold on his belt, and a slaughtered bull turning on a spit.
…get up…get up…get up and... Move...
Another fit of exhaustion took him after having crawled but a paltry few body lengths.
Blackness and voices. Murmuring, sibilant voices surrounded him, as he dozed fitfully. Parts of his mind catalogued the voices. Much shock in those he could hear. Not Pictish, occasionally guttural, like those of the Goths across the small sea. He should have been worried; a raiding party was trouble in good days. In his condition it was a curse to be found by these Northmen. But these Njordi must not recognize me at all, he thought as they tended to his many aches.
Surprise was replaced by confusion as his wounded body was shown compassion by these strangers whose language burbled, popped, and slid around him where he had been left to lie healing.
Time wandered and meandered randomly onward.
Sleep, jarring pain as they moved him, sleep; it became a terrible repetition.
Am I dreaming of what I did? Anticipating what I must do? What I’m doing now?
His mind had trouble keeping track of in what direction time was moving.
He awoke finally in a room. The weirdest room he had ever seen. White smooth walls, clean cloths tucked around him as he lie on the bed, these very smooth, fine materials, as fine as any king might have, being used as coverings on a sick man.
Then he noticed the myriad “things” placed about his sickbed, trailing lines like fishermen on a riverbank to his poor battered and burned body.
Devises, he guessed, sorcery probably, but unlike anything he had ever thought to see. Humans were, on the whole, bad at magic, and many of their finest "healers" had always been jumped up charlatans at worst, and lucky at best. Some of them were ahead of others in their knowledge of the "mystical secrets" of the great healers that included "washing your hands," and "cleaning your knives BEFORE surgery."
It was no wonder humans bred so quickly. They had to, to survive as a race.
Little lights flickered candle-like behind glass smooth enough to make his brother’s second wife go pale in envy. Odd magics these Northmen, he had started to equate their weird language with that of the Goths. Not the same... but also very much in that linguistic family; these Njordi had to have gained indeed to set watch on him, as he guessed some of the things must do.
There was a bag of liquid hung above him, and if his eyes were not lying to him, dripped through a clear viny-vein into his arm. Warmth flooded him from this invading fluid. Where that needle entered, his arm didn’t feel relaxed and in less pain as much as it “tasted” warm honey and whiskey.
The substance moved through his body from that point, ‘Ker didn't so much as grow light headed, as he maintained a sense of not caring about his various hurts. And many of his senses were...off.
His mouth felt green, his right thigh heard itchiness on the wind, the voices coming from the hallway smelled of swamp gas, and in general all of his other senses had gone off to visit their neighbors.
Nice actually, I think I like this thing on my arm…how many of these clear vine- rope things are having this effect on me? BLUE!
Other invasions to his person he thought not of with as much regard. He could feel great discomfort in his penis. Not actual pain, but much inconvenience. Struggling to rise proved too much effort for now. What ever it may be, as long as they didn’t kill him, 'Ker knew he would heal.
Later, he promised himself, I’ll see what has been done to me. I’ll kill those guarding me, find the magus who has such knowledge, and bring him with me when I return to Father. We need the secrets he has locked away in whatever tomes he uses.
Sleep stole many more hours and days from him as ‘Ker healed the many wounds he had been made to suffer.
First in the dungeon, then in the Court, and finally in the Passing from the Summerless Lands, but all would be healed, and sleep was his best route. When awake he was constantly amazed by the things he witnessed.
Clothing, tools, much time had gone since the last time he was in the Sunlit World, he knew; but, such things he saw! Thralls came daily to clean the room around him, and they looked content in servitude. What made it more confusing were the tools these thralls used! Devises of such power! Dust and dirt humans had always ignored as acceptable for eons past, were now whisked away by buzzing wands! This room had windows with more fine worked glass than most of the Human kings he remembered could have afforded, better than the glass even the Romans had made in the days before they retreated back to their cities of open sewers, and pest and plague riddled pleasure houses.
Colorless, or as close to it as made no matter, and these windows were cleaned EVERY DAY as well! Worthy prizes, and greatly valued indeed! Some thralls of the Njordi that had him were richer than most fine humans he had ever met. On woman, with the lovely oak bark brown skin that showed she had been captured from Alkebu-Lan, called "Afreega" by the Romans, came in daily wearing large gold earrings, several necklaces of gold, and at least eighteen different rings he had counted, interchanged with each other on the days he had seen her toiling for her masters. She spoke their language as well as they did, ‘Ker assumed her highly educated, and of a fine Nubian house, or possibly from Southern K'met.
Though she spoke in an odd lilting voice, rising and dipping like a songbird’s trilling as it slipped through his mornings. She spoke like no Alkebu-Lani he had ever had chance to hear, though she might have been the prettiest he had seen.
There was much 'Tj'Chin'Ker just did not understand here.
The most unsettling of all this came from written charms, and spells. While he had yet to know the language, their writing was EVERYWHERE! On the arcane devices, he expected such scribing; but everyone and everything around him had such runes. Even the people wore such runic jewelry, the very vestments they trod about in had writing stitched or dyed into the very cloth. Prayers to the goddess Nike were sewn into so many shoes, ‘Ker was left to wonder what foot ailment so many people here all had that they all needed to pray to Her for relief.
Every cleaning thrall carried such mystical markings. ‘Ker began to think it was the means of their enslavement, this batch of humanity came heavily laden in such charms. But then he saw that each person to enter his cell had such markings and enchanted broaches and clothing, no matter their station. A rare few sported the skin art he had always known and loved, but they wore runic words on biceps, forearms and one fellow had a word of obvious power blazoned across the back of his neck. ‘Tj’Chin’Ker had no idea what “Jesus” meant, but it was obviously a powerful charm used to keep this slave in line.
Even the “Jesus” servant wore fine clothing and rune riddled jewelry.
Maybe it’s all to protect against me? They know! The though came with a cold sweat, and just as quietly fled. If they knew, if his magics had failed, he would have been killed and tossed into a fire pit.
None of the People fared well in the Northmens’ hands. And the Romoi? He shuddered at the thought of what the Legions had done with his kind. Later peoples like the Scots, invading his beloved Pict’s lands, had no love to share with his kind. Only harsh spells, fiery arrows, and sharp spears. They didn’t even like each other that much, as far as he could tell.
Almost every item he could see was thus ensorcelled. ‘Ker had no idea what could cause such an expenditure of magic, or what a people could fear so much as to cause such efforts on the part of their shamans, mystics, and magii. The language they all spoke was very strange as well. Not the harsh tongue of the Oslars, nor was it the quick babble of the Goth rabble. Not the Norman, or Frankish drooling sibilance, either. Like them all, but not really like any of them at the same time; and not the Latin traders’ languages. Though, to the outsider, that had always mostly been about wildly gesticulating, and making mad hand signs. When two Roman traders bargained or argued, it was debatable if logic won the fight, or if it was settled by whosoever made the silliest combination of arm and hand movements.
My elder brother used say the Phoenicii were the worst at this, and developed a runic language completely unrelated to magic so they would be able to trade.
Keeping them convinced as to his helplessness was simplicity itself.
The machines set to guard his escape told with beeping noises when his heart moved faster, or slower. Stay calm, rest, healing is made better by these things anyway, he thought.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Another thing connected to his temples by a wealth of drawn copper wire drew jagged lines on a fine glass window, and also replicated the squiggle on a wealth of pulped wood-felt, long valued by every human tribe to trade with the People, whenever his thoughts delved too deeply.
Stunning magic, in its scope. But cheatable, to one as crafty as ‘Ker. Think only with the low mind, and the wyrd devise cannot follow me where I might go, he thought. Harder to do, but not too much effort to spend on his safety.
When he was able to, he finally saw the source of the discomfort in his genitals. Another of the strange see through veins exited his penis, letting not a single drop of urine fall on the fine cloth bedcovers.
That is... Ingenious! A bit hurtful, but ingenious, still! Will wonders like this meet me every day? What would the Plague Wives make of this? It was hard to imagine the raiders who excelled only at boatbuilding and thatch burning being able to do so much in such a short time.
A thousand years didn’t seem like enough for such strides in study of magic, nor in its younger, uglier, more awkward sister, science.
The placing of small charms had helped to keep the guards from knowing how much he had healed. Even the Northmens’ Magi seemed to ignore his quickly knitting bones, and mending flesh. Looking him over with eyes that would glaze over as they surveyed his injured flesh.
"Burble... hrrrm, burble-burble, poppity-burble..." they would say as they nodded over the information the magical bed monitors spat out at them.
Burned flesh from the passing healed now almost to smooth skin, in some places erasing much older scars.
Rents in the flesh healed as well, though some were still covered in light scabs. Each bathing his nurses gave him knocked more clotted blood from his body; but, they never saw how much he had come along in his healing from the sodden and blood soaked apple peels he had been when they found him. He wouldn’t let them. Too many Northmen knew the signs of the People. The small price he paid in headaches was well worth it for these glamours he used.
On his last flight through this sunlit world many were the cries of “DUNKEL-AELFE!”
He could live without such cries following him this time; in fact he would only live now if no one holding him knew he was not of human stock.
The eye and the fingers would take longer. Much longer without his skin charms that had long been tattooed upon him, but now were lost.
The People could quickly heal small wounds with ease, and larger hurts would close even on the battlefield if given a matter of minutes to mend. Scars, in time, would fade almost to nothing. But regeneration of missing flesh was hardest and took the longest to manage. It was all about his intake of food, and rest. A starving man will not heal; the body isn’t built of air. While he appreciated that they had somehow kept his body fed these last few months, he now had to keep his captors confused long enough to escape and find the Maker.
The Maker.
Tj’Chin’Ker had been named for the Maker.
Tj’Chin’Ker was the People’s name for the Maker. And as a child he had always lived up to his naming. A trickster at heart, nothing really gave ‘Ker more joy than seeing foes confused; friends and family were fair game as well, though never with the malicious joviality he would heap onto the unwary heads of his enemies.
His more noble siblings might have stood before the charge of an enemy, waiting for the clash of hammers, axes, and swords to ring through the cold dawn shaking the leaves on the trees. ‘Ker however would love nothing so much as to kill his foes by a thousand small cuts when they could not see him.
“Chasing a wisp through a thicket of daggers,” the Father-Now-Passed had once called it.
Seeing his enemy thrash about, flailing with swords trying to cut a shadow only half glimpsed at the eye’s edge. He once tricked a distant cousin into stabbing himself, thus saving ‘Ker from having to meet him on the field of battle.
The goofy moron!
But we can’t choose our blood, now can we? Many thought his tactics ignoble, even shameful. It had earned him a few more enemies. More cautious enemies, who, like himself, would rarely attack from the obvious places.
It also confirmed everything the Mother had always said and thought of him.
Some at home called him “Maker’s Son,” or simply “Makerson” when they thought him out of earshot. As if that would be an insult to him or to me, the elbow biting fools.
The Father standing, hugging me to smear his arms chest and face with my blood. Memories came calling again, as they did most days while 'Ker anguished in the amazing prison. They whispered to him his mission, as Father had whispered to him in the Great Throne Room.
He whispered to 'Ker a truth that was hard to believe.
One impossible for an adult of the People to believe. “The Maker, for whom you were named, my boy, is not a matter of children’s tales, he is real. And with no mates, or children to tie you here, you can best go out to the Sunlit World to find him. Your elder brother is the better Hunter, and the wiser diplomat, and I cannot be away from my People, or madness will reign as assuredly as the Mother sits near us now, your other siblings... they are all too tightly tied to the communities in which they all live; but, you…YOU are the crafty soul no one but your brothers will miss. Yes, I know the Gray Hunter would go, your dour Tj’Arr’Dne. He might relish the chance to get back to see the wars he started finished. But, I need a silent knife, where he would be a great spear of light and noise. You are my tool for this finding.”
The Father’s eyes had been sad, but hope filled, too. His handsome face bejeweled in 'Ker's blood, small beads of his life dripping from the edge of the older man's hoary cheeks.
Remembering his stunned silence as his Liege Lord, wisest of the Fingers amongst the Hunter’s Hands told him that most of the tales of the Maker were real.
Real as the blood the Father then later wore standing before The Court. Real as the rings forbidden him the Mother had brought into The Court, and then had H’Lafai’I the Seoid first break in a cruel vise, then melt down with a blowpipe, a small lamp and bellows, in a small crucible.
The cracking asunder of the rings broke ‘Ker’s heart more than all the abuse might have done to break his body and soul. Then the Seoid poured the molten metal slowly from the height of his head down into a bucket of honey wine. The mead hissed and steamed as metal, quenched in its bath, became gleaming beads of ‘Ker’s pain and memories. A bucket of water would have done, but the Mother wanted to drive the point home that his marriage, and his claim to part of his wife’s soul, had ended at her death; mead was used only for celebration and ceremony. Scooping her dainty hand through the drink, droplets falling from her golden-thistle embroidered sleeve, She Who was Mother cast the newly made gold shot before all assembled then in that Great Hall, during that Court of Royal Thoughts.
The small blue tinged fingers, so delicate and fine, glistened. Golden sheen added to the watery tones of her perfect skin, mead beading on those cerulean curves imitated the tiny metal beads she let slip to the floor before and angry gesture that spoke lies about the saddened and serene continence she held upon her face and belied the harsher truths of her beautiful features.
The clicking of the gold beads rattled through his memories like the crying of children and the death of futures.
No one spoke, and so loudly did the metal roll through the hall; he only breathed once in the short span of time the beads used to travel the icy stone floor. With a grin made in mid-winter, she bade her subjects “Do with these small bits, these most precious of metals, what you might. Our least loyal son will not have need of them ever again.”
He thought the grinding of his molars would sound like the breaking of ice sheets on the mountain cliffs that lined the tops of the ridges about the valley in which sat this castle, as the sounds moved through the audience chamber.
‘Ker remembered then the stark silence of the room, as all heard the words, and knew the Mother’s wrath had finally found its long sought target. Death. All laws said such was to be his fate. Every member of his race would know by the fourth hour that day that Tj’Chin’Ker, the Trickster, the Makerson, and the Motherthorn would have died before the Court of Royal Thoughts tonight.
Maybe my Brother and his brood will mourn me, he thought morosely. Though known for never showing much emotion beyond lust and anger outside of his home, ‘Ker suspected his stoic sibling would cry that night. If not among the People in public, than in his mates’ arms and surrounded by his sleeping children. None of his brother’s women loved their youngest brother-in-law, but all his nieces and nephews held ‘Tj’Chin’Ker in very high esteem. They loved him quite well, in fact. As an uncle ‘Ker was there for the children in all things their father and mothers could not or would not be there. Teaching them dirty tricks, and how to vex their enemies was the favorite pastime of the children when he played with them. ‘Dne didn’t like that he taught such confounding and ungallant things, but he never actually objected either. Too many other fathers had buried children more honorably taught; what the People thought of as "children’s games" were rough on the People’s youngest.
His sisters-in-law were the ones often to try to keep his lessons from the little ones. Especially ‘Ml’Uenda. None of the women objected to ‘Ker as strenuously as ‘Ml’Uenda. At every turn she tried to keep his influences from her home and offspring. If she knew her brother-in-law was coming to dinner, ‘Ml would do whatever she might get away with to keep ‘Ker away from their keep in the Iron Cliffs. She hated ‘Ker for his failings, and none so much as the deaths of her three brothers.
If he had faced them in noble combat, ‘Ker thought she might not object quite so vehemently. But as it was, he had killed them while they slept in a camp outside of the city. By law it had been judged as A Just Revenge, but ‘Ml and her family balked at the Father’s ruling.
She loathed him, and would have kept him from seeing his own brother, and his brother’s children, if she had been able. If the Law would allow it.
That silence, ringing horrifically through the Great Hall, was the crescendo of war compared to the quiet to follow.
It was decreed, then; Through the Paths three would be sent at fifth hour. An emissary was being sent to the Sunlit World. "Did you hear, were you there, did you know, did you see the Makerson get sentenced?"
"See him die?"
"See the heroes take him through the Paths?"
Gossip ran rampant throughout the land. And this must have run faster than normal. Of the tens of nobles and their thralls at Court, thousands came to see the condemned and also those two commended be the Father and Mother off. Flutes trilled, drummer lost all inhibitions, and keeners wailed for the brave, the bold, and even the damned alike.
Two heroic sons were being sent off to see the other side of this reality, the sunlit lands they long ago left. Women in
the crowd dressed the two fools with flowers, both real and fake. Many women, who would never have considered those imbeciles as matches, suddenly draped the brave souls with promises of warm nightly intentions awaiting them upon their gallant return.
Many bows were made to the High seats, and many obsequious motions to the watching crowd the brothers had made that day. Then the final words of banishment came from those same High seats. The Mother sat her high seat looking, so all the Court could see, like the saddened mother whose special project of a child had finally failed too large to be saved; a dog everyone had said could not be trained, was, alas, being finally put down.
Forget that I was never a project of her’s for anything but death, and the lie worked…
Sleep claimed 'Ker again in his clean bead, in his clean room, in a far kingdom he had yet to see any more of than this one amazing room.