Greetings everyone! It hasn’t been too long since I published my last short story, but I have a bit of an announcement about that. Unsurprisingly, I’ve discovered that my goal of publishing two short stories a month for the whole year is too ambitious, and that I’ll probably burn out if I continue at this rate. After all, I just finished the first draft of my current WIP novel The Sun-King as well, plus being in college, so… I’ve been busy!
So, I do not plan to publish stories on any regular basis for the rest of the year. That being said, I have plans to write a few more which will hopefully show up this summer, and maybe I’ll attend to some other sections of my blog as well (music reviews, poetry, etc).
As for today’s short story, it’s one I actually completed last year (with a few last-minute edits today). It took a long time to write and revise and so it probably has an added layer of depth compared to most of my previous stories. I’ve been in a “quantity over quality” mindset for most of the year—hopefully this story is a change from that.
Enjoy, and thanks for sticking around!
Felicy’s Death
Another fantasy tale
The settlement of Batton lay in a vale not too far from the Mountains, and a bit farther away from the Sea. The woods on the hills grew dark but not too thick, and the sun shone warm but not too blaring over the little town with its fields, mines and mills. A population of about three hundred farmed and frolicked across the valley they called Batton Vale, with little regard for the world beyond the hills.
In the center of town two buildings rose up like hills themselves. The smaller was called Brimor’s Hall, where the people of Batton met for emergencies and Town Meetings every other day, and where the councils and committees sat and discussed the town’s affairs. That hall was built square and gray, of tall unforgiving stones, like most of the other buildings in Batton. Its solemn facade was dwarfed in height and solemnity only by Zeygler’s Arena, an enclosed amphitheater as young as the town but older in its style, in the ornate carvings creeping over the stones. This arena alone was a monument to the far past.
In the Vale, the hills were high enough that the people of Batton could not see the Mountains to the west. These mountains quivered always behind a stormy whiteness of clouds, and their stone faces looked reproachfully whenever a villager climbed a hill and glanced their way. Yet when the histories were told they must be spoken of.
Once the people of Batton were the people of Attinor, a mountain town under the domain of a kingdom whose name they left behind. The whiteness of the peaks and the crushing coldness of the streams and the sun’s festering light bound the people’s souls to the simple days of work and rest without thought, simple submission without dreams, fear of what lived above the mountain peaks.
In those days every house contained a shrine with a finely carved statue of some god believed to rule from the sunny snowcaps above. There had been many, perhaps - Ahela, Torin, Hikith, Mera - names considered slurs now. Soldiers from the king’s palace far away would come to ensure the people were burning candles at these shrines, drying herbs to offer, singing prayers of protection when the sun slipped away at night. The king wanted his people to be in good favor with the gods, they said.
It was hard to breathe or think up there, people said now.
The herbs were dried, the prayers said, and candles flickered in the night. The people didn’t need to deal with the god’s wrath on top of the dragons.
Perhaps once or twice a year merchants would come selling gold trinkets or artifacts of great worth. The people might buy them, but whatever the case, they would cast sharp looks at each other and would draw out chests of clinking armor from underneath their beds. After a few days, a dark smell would roll its way over the town. Red hazy light crept steadily through the crevices of the mountains, and the villagers would hear snorting and huffing from far off. The dragons had awoken from their lairs, aroused by the scent of gold.
Then children were shut inside, and the well-trained Dragon Warriors prepared for action. When the glimmering beasts swooped down from their lairs in the high peaks, the Warriors were ready with every kind of weapon and tactic, with skills and knowledge having been laid up and taught for many a year. It was no distress to face the dragons. This was the glory of those who lived in the mountains, to fight off such plagues.
After years of practice, they defeated the dragons every time, driving them back into the heights. These dragons were too slothful to vye for gold from such persistent fighters. Several days would pass of scarlet and yellow still smoldering, and then the air would clear. Attinor knew the dragons slept again.
Worship and work and dragon-fighting continued, until one day along the familiar paths there came an unknown man bearing only a staff, wearing a pendant of gold, but with no caution of dragons. Brimor he called himself, a sojourner from the far southwest.
This man entered the town square and leaned on his staff and spoke, and it was unlike anything the villagers had ever heard. He told them of the king in his faroff palace, how he lived in luxury while the villagers lived simple, hard lives. He spoke of their gods, Ahela and Torin and the rest, and reviled them for their emptiness. “There are no spirits in the mountains,” he said. “No kings on the clefts. The only kings are earthly kings who falsely claim authority over other men, their equals. They obscure the truth: that all men have knowledge and power. That we can govern ourselves by reasoning alone. We can rule our own hearts.”
It was in the green and the flowering of the spring he came, after the dull sleep of winter. He came to teach them, tear down their altars, hush the foolish hymns.
Dragon-fighting was the only special custom he did not abolish. Rather, he gave the people gifts of spells and magic they could use to fight the dragons even more effectively. “This magic draws its power from the valor of the individual soul,” he told them. “It will defeat the dragons more completely than weapons empty of magic ever could. When you fight the dragons with their evil strength, remember the evil force of the kings who tried to enslave you using myths of gods.”
Brimor left with the autumn sun, to preach his gospel to other towns and settlements. After his departure, the people of Attinor decided together that they should leave to find a new home. To rule themselves, they could not stay in the domain of the authority of deception, or in the choking cliffs and the blinding light. They went on a great journey, learning together to depend on their wits and not worship, and eventually reached what they would call Batton Vale.
Noran did not know whether to move from the doorway of the arena. Within lay the site of his victory, where the hulking beast he had fought lay battered on the sands. Without, the blue sky glowed from hill to hill over the settlement of Batton, encouraging him to come out and share the news of his success.
Every second, fourth, and fifth day Noran and the other young men honored to be Dragon-fighters gathered at Zeygler’s Arena to train. They stood in the scattered sand of the arena with a spear or sword in their right hand and a staff of Power in the other. There were no real dragons to fight, but they knew their moves, knew how to visualize where the dragon would be and what angle to strike it from. They’d been taught the dimensions - the length of the wingspan, the tail, how far the fire billowed. They knew the consistency of the hide of a dragon, replicated by combining leather and chainmail, of its softer belly - leather only. They’d practiced their aim on real targets - angry bulls and other livestock that could be spared. And their staffs, of course, carried the power of Brimor.
The great test of a Dragon-fighter was to face one of Asha’s models - Asha the craftsman, the greatest genius of Batton, one in whom the valor of Brimor shone strong. It was Asha’s great skill to construct huge models of dragons that he then set in motion using his own combinations of spells. They took months, even years to make, each one more elaborate than the last, with fire, metal scales, hissing, and jagged teeth of steel. And every two years, the best Dragon-fighters showed their skill by battling his latest bejeweled beast in Zeygler’s Arena.
The model Noran had just fought had been only a training model - a small beast of silver, with red gems for eyes - and so his victory had been carried out without ceremony. But Noran knew from the expression on his trainer’s faces that he had done well today, very well indeed.
He squinted up into the full, markless blue and imagined the dark shapes of dragons crossing it. In his mind he waved his staff at them and they were snuffed away like candle flames - one, two, three. The next Dragon Festival was in a little less than two years. He’d be good enough by then to defeat one of Asha’s grand models without so much as a scratch.
The sun blazed in Noran’s eyes. It was time to head home, to wash himself before heading to the town square to help prepare the evening meal. Once a week the village gathered for a communal meal to hear the leaders speak on matters of importance and compare notes on the week’s events. The following day would be the day of rest. All but the most essential chores would be laid aside in favor of sleep and pleasure and for the very responsible, study. Noran was looking forward to rest. His arms and shoulders and thighs all ached. But mostly he was looking forward to boasting.
As he continued down the lane towards home one of the elders, Piero, suddenly appeared, whisking around the corner like usual.
“Noran, your sister’s gone missing. Selona said she hasn’t been in the fields all day. She’s likely gone wandering off as she tends to do, why don’t you go find her?”
“Well. Alright. Say, Piero - “
“I already know what you did today, boy,” said Piero with a chuckle. “Tishi told me. I’m proud of you too. Now go find her.”
“Alright, yes sir. ”
Noran thought he knew where she would be.
Felicy never missed work, and so it had never occurred to Noran to think about where she went on her rambles during free time. Now the answer materialized easily. She had gone to the western woods, and was wandering in the hills.
He left his weapons at the house and continued down the lane, taking it out of town till it became a slight path, brushed by grass, and with signs of recent footsteps. Really, he thought, he didn’t have to be the one to do this. It could have just as well been anyone. He would have preferred to stay in the village, where others were.
The path began clambering up wooded slopes, trees peeping forth blossom. Every tree, though altered now, had a place in Noran’s memory, for he and Felicy had once wandered here often, before they knew better. Those were in the days when Felicy began to acknowledge that she was not Noran’s sister by blood - she had only found the same refuge as he had with his aunt, Lelia, and uncle, Tishi. She had run away from the orphan train, and never having known her parents, she and Noran would sit on the highest outcrop of the hill they could reach and she would spin stories about what they might have been like. She would rock on her heels and push back her curls with a laugh as she imagined more and more things about them - Noran couldn’t remember them well now - things like their homes, their love, their habits. What Felicy invented shifted every time. He would speak of his parents, too, but he knew some real things about them, having his aunt and uncle for reference. What he had speculated, if anything, was buried somewhere deep. But he remembered well the clear stars in the sky, and the wind in the grasses, and Felicy’s hearty laughter.
The trees grew on the lower slopes. Near the summit, layers of grassy earth that burned the muscles to climb knelt on top of each other. Noran stepped out of the woods, fought through the tall grass to find the continuation of the path. It had always been slim. Who ever came up here but them?
The breeze was soft, and a sweet smell lingered. A flash of gold broke out from the grass.
Noran leaned down and picked up a sun-yellow blossom.
It had the layered petals of a marigold and the smooth shininess of a buttercup. It glowed, and when Noran held it to his nose a sweetness drifted into him, as soft at first as snow but growing sweeter and richer. It woke something in him.
He thought for a moment that he might have wings. The feeling was pleasant but it scared him.
Casting the blossom aside, Noran climbed up to their old meeting place, the clearing at the top of the hill, easy to reach. Empty. What was Felicy doing?
The flower-scent seemed only to increase. It pulled Noran on, and he crossed the clearing and began climbing the very summit of the hill. They’d never gone up this high before. Earth clods tumbled and he had to hold on to grass. Perhaps she’d found an easier way.
“Up! Put your hand up!” Dark curls suddenly dangled in his vision.
Felicy knelt over the edge and pulled on his right hand with both of her own. Noran propelled himself up and over. Noran realized as he felt her touch that the two of them hadn’t talked much lately, at all - they’d both been absorbed in their separate work. He didn’t know what to expect.
A few yards off from where they stood, a bed of the golden flowers filled a depression in the earth. At one end of it lay a strange marble sculpture, cracked and caked with moss, but evidently in the middle of being cleaned.
Felicy and Noran both stood up, panting.
“What is that?”
Felicy took a few steps stumbling back towards it. “That is Merni. See, there’s an inscription on the stone.” She pointed.
Noran came warily towards it. Hardly distinguishable among the flowers, the statue was of a maiden, wild eyed, lying on her side, a crown nestled in her moss-crusted hair. She lay on a slab, on which was carved, in the elder form of Attinor’s script,
MERNI I am a queen whose spirit lives still. I had a heart whose love all knew well. Plant my sparks of sunlight, To let my spirit see, And with my power born of death I’ll grant sure good to thee.
The longer the words sunk into Noran’s mind the less he liked them. Strange they were, with unclear words like “spirit” and “death” and “heart”, and the matching sounds at the beginnings and ends of lines. Sourness began to creep into him. Even the blue of the sky seemed sour.
“What is this?”
Felicy had picked a few flowers and was caressing them. “I think she must be a queen of old. Before our time, in the times we don’t know about.”
Noran blinked.
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you? We don’t talk about the times of before the life of - oh, I don’t know - Peori’s grandfather. But there must have been something happening then. I don’t know why we don’t have any books about it. There are none in the Hall.”
“Because those were times of foolishness. It doesn’t matter what happened. There was - nothing happened then.” Noran shook his head. “There was nothing.”
“There’s nothing in the books. It’s as if it’s been just us. But think about all the trees and earth and stones that have been living breathing here all this time - seeing it all.”
“Stones don’t live and breathe. Or see.”
“But they’ve been here all the time.”
Noran looked back at the statue. “So what have you been doing with this thing?”
“Doing her bidding. Planting the flowers.” Her voice faded. “And the trees. There’s a pretty golden tree in the wood… saplings grew.”
They held each other’s gaze for a long time.
Her lips parted a few times as if to say something, but she seemed to decide that there was nothing further to say.
“Let’s go back down,” he said at last. The sun was setting. In the golden light the flowers shone so wildly it hurt his eyes, and the smell hurt his nose. She dropped her flowers and showed him the path to get down.
“Felicy, this is wrong,” he said, putting out his arm to steady her as they descended. “This is worship.”
“What’s that?”
“A foolish practice we abandoned.”
“Part of the nothing? That there was?”
“You could say that.”
“Why would we stop?”
They reached the treeline. Their arms parted as they stepped into cold. “It only leads to harm in the end.” He tried to give her a hard gaze, to imprint his point in her mind. “It will destroy you. Take your soul away. Peori says that’s why we stopped. To save our souls. You’ve got to stop serving this statue.”
She frowned and looked away.
As they came over the hill, it was dark. Lights glowed in the village below, as Noran pushed branches away to clear his vision. Felicy moved with a step more certain of the way but less certain of herself.
They shuffled leaves and underbrush down the slope, leaning their weight on tree trunks, silent all the way.
When Noran awoke the next morning his first thought was that Felicy would not listen to a word he had said.
As he got up and moved through the house he found that she was gone, and he was perturbed but not surprised. He had no intention of making inquiries, either. She had most certainly gone back to the woods.
He stepped out into day and the street was still, as it usually was on a rest day. People would be out playing in the fields or shut up in their various houses doing whatever pertained to them. Noran turned his steps to the east, towards Zeygler’s Arena, without knowing why.
Yesterday seemed not to have happened, the meeting with Felicy all a dream. It was time to go back and fight dragons again.
Asha’s model of the dragon surged in his memory. He’d go look at it, enjoy the perfect placement of the dents he’d made. If anyone he passed asked where he was going, he’d smile and say something like, “Oh, just revisiting the site of victory.”
The model had been dragged to the side of the arena where it lay, head askew. The leather belly of it had been ripped to shreds, and the claws had been twisted into various angles. Broken scales glittered in the morning sunlight. Noran walked around it a few times, cocking his head to peer at its cracked cobalt eye, then sat down to feast himself on the sight. “I did this,” he muttered. “I did you!”
Brimor’s Bell was tolling. The town was being summoned. Just then, Noran noticed a honey golden smell on the air.
In the Hall Felicy’s absence was now worrying. Her wandering figure could not be made out amidst the bustle of people settling in the pews, so Noran sat down alone. But the thought of her nagged at his mind.
“Don’t even bother to take time to sit down, this is urgent,” said Peori, striding up to the podium as everybody sat down. “Guards have caught sight of dragons, heading towards us from the west, while they were out searching for a certain villager who keeps slipping away: Felicy.”
Noran ignored Peori’s gaze. The hall was swelling with commotion. Peori frowned and yelled louder.
“For it is due to Felicy. Felicy has led them to us.”
Shouts of alarm turned to gasps and murmurs. Noran felt as if a writhing serpent had taken hold of his ribcage and was threatening to break it to shards. Whatever could Peori mean?
Suddenly heads began to turn to the back of the room. With a churning in his stomach, Noran copied them.
Felicy was standing in the Hall doorway, curls waving around her flushed face. “What? What’s going on?”
Piero got down from the podium and strode towards her. “Your gilded trees and sunblossoms. They attract the dragons from far away, with their scent and their radiance. Just look at what you’re holding right now.”
Her arms were full of radiant yellow flowers, leaves nodding, ruddy centers shining.
Aretha, Piero’s sister, stood. “You are foolish because you have had no education!” Her voice rose to a louder pitch than was often used in the Hall. “This is what happens when we let the orphans fend for themselves.”
“We should have told her,” said Emelle, another elder.
“The dangers of such plants has not been taught, because we assumed no one would have knowledge about them,” Piero said wryly. He turned back to Felicy. “Because of your strange and careless deed Batton must now prepare to defend ourselves against a thundering and fearsome attack. Let all now disperse to protect themselves. Dragon-fighters make ready.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Noran to whomever would hear him as everyone got up and began weaving through the chairs toward the doorway. “It’s what we’re trained for, after all.” His head reeled so with what Peori had said about Felicy that he could not yet take in the fact that dragons, real dragons, were heading their way.
He looked up to find Felicy, but she had turned and darted away before the crowd, leaving a few blossoms on the doorstep.
The Dragon-fighters would form a line along the border of the hills. They didn’t understand what exactly the dragons were seeking, but whatever the cost, they must show their prowess, declare victory of spear over scale, skill over strength, intellect over pagan power. It didn’t matter that most of them were only in training. Truth be told, most of the dragon-fighters were only in training, and they’d need everyone they could get.
Noran hurried down the path towards the woods with the others. Felicy was in the village still, being chastised by Peori. Noran let himself feel some anger, let it fuel him as he darted up the wooded slope. It was an insane thing to do, a softheaded dreamer’s thing to do, to plant strange flowers and trees because it seemed to match the will of some long-dead queen.
The smell of the sunblossoms was suffusing the whole woods, making the fighters cough. As he neared the other edge of the woods, Noran saw a lurid light of yellow and red throw itself across the sky, flickering, quite unlike evening light.
“Noran!” He turned and saw Felicy standing, not where she should be, on the summit of the hill.
“Don’t,” she called. “I know what to do. It isn’t what you think.” She looked at him desperately for a moment, then receded suddenly from the edge, as if drawn by another, stronger force.
Noran launched himself up and over the clearing, noting with irritation the golden blossoms sprouting up, filling even the dusty patches around the boulder. He could not remember the path Felicy had shown him, so he clambered up the higher slope, propelling himself with his core strength. He came over the edge with dirt crushed to his fingertips and sweat dripping down his brow.
Felicy was kneeling by the statue, surrounded by sunblossoms that multiplied with each second, their fragrance bursting from the air like juice from fruit. In the woods beyond the hills, trees of golden leaves and branches had sprung up. The leaves shook and sparkled in the rushing light.
The dragons were coming, soaring with great speed. Twelve great shapes of webs and thorns and steel, bellowing in blue flame, bringing all the colors of fire with them.
Noran could just see their quivering nostrils and smell the smoke before he was cast onto the ground by the wind they brought. The cries and clangs of his fellow fighters echoed round the hills.
A beast swooped towards him and he was caught in its frame, wriggling to get away, but it followed him as he rolled in the grass. He managed to pull out his shield and stumble to his feet as the dragon paused for breath. It turned to do another wide circle, keeping itself above the summit of the hill.
Noran bent into fighting stance and raised his staff. The sky was ablaze by now like the interior of a furnace, broken over the world. In its hellish dusk he could see in the sky wings cruelly hooked and jaws opened against his companions. Letting all his fear rush into his bones he summoned Brimor’s Magic. “For free minds and wills!”
The greenish bolt shot out of his staff with the same speed and accuracy it had in the arena, colliding with the dragon’s underbelly just as it bent to give Noran another burst of flame.
“No!” Felicy called.
Ignoring her voice, he swore as he crouched beneath his shield, then darted to the side and with good aim summoned another bolt. It sang ringing off the dragon’s hide but the beast was clearly unfazed. Nothing he’d been taught about magic was working. This wasn’t what he’d thought.
Felicy. Where was she? Ignoring the dragon for a moment, Noran pivoted and saw Felicy kneeling next to the statue, muttering to it with eager eyes. She was praying to it.
She looked up. “Noran, I know what to do!”
Flame blasted his side. He raised his shield to block the stream, stumbled to his knees.
“I know who Merni is, for she has told me. She’s a queen of the past who died to pay for wealth her people stole - she died even though she was so different from the rest of them and they considered themselves heirs of the gold. Her loving death saved them from their enemies’ wrath - “
Another blast of fire. Noran tried to crawl towards Felicy, but the dragon was closing in on him, descending with heavy claws -
“That’s why these flowers grow, because of the magic of what she did. Noran, I must do the same - “
He expected another wave of flame to wash over him. But the dragon had ceased its attack. Felicy was withdrawing from her pocket a small knife, one Uncle Tishi had given to her long ago, dirtied as if she’d used it to dig holes to plant the strange sweet flowers. Before Noran could do anything she drew it across her throat, once and then a second time.
Noran felt as if he was struggling for air. “Felicy!”
There was no answer. Felicy had keeled over and now lay still, her mussed head near the heart of Merni’s statue.
The sounds of fighting had ceased in the hills. Those Battonians still alive looked up towards the top of the hill. The dragons looked for a moment as if they were considering, and then, in a great rush, they turned and left. Wings flapped and tails waved as if nothing at all had happened.
They took their haze and their stench with them. The red and gold leaked out of the sky until it was blue again, the ordinary blue of a spring forenoon. And the smell of the flowers was back, sweet, so sweet. Noran thought his heart might burst.
He stood up slowly, aching with burns, and went to look down at Felicy. Her lips lay parted as if her soul had been whipped from them and sent off into the sky, among the very winds. Color lay still in her cheeks. They would not burn her body as they usually did, they would dig a hole by Merni’s statue and lower her into it and bury her and replant all the sunblossoms over her… he would insist.
He looked up, thinking about the dragon that he could not kill. He had failed. But the sky was clear.
Enjoy your June! I hope to see you around more this summer, albeit on a less predictable basis :)