Fantasy The Flow of Creation

[Owl Knight]

Astor's brow furrowed as he held the rudimentary lantern aloft, the tallow candle within giving off a flickering amber glow that cast discordant shadows around the close air of the low stone stable. In the hay below him, the bent back shepherd worked diligently over the fitful ewe. She lay on her side in the hay, her hinders red with blood.
"Come on, gilly," the shepherd coaxed wearily. The ewe's head tossed frantically and she gave a hoarse bleat as something slithered out of her into the shepherd's calloused hands. The ewe lay still, her sides heaving as she drew deep panicked breaths.
The thing she had expelled all of her strength to birth twitched once in the shepherd's hands, gave a croaking sound that was almost a cry, then it lay still. It was a hairless and slimy thing, mottled purple and crimson. One eye was a puckered slit while the other bulged unseeing, milky white like a tick swollen to bursting. A row of razor sharp hooks ran down its back and still others sprung like rose thorns from its shriveled and mangled legs. No doubt it had torn its mother's flesh on its harrowing journey into the world.
The shepherd lay the twisted little thing in the hay and sat back on his haunches with a troubled sigh.
"Well, there 'tis," he said in his gruff Northern brogue. "Four like'n that since the thaw."
The ewe shuddered once and then she too lay still, her blood flowing out quietly into the soft hay.
"Did they all look like this?" Astor asked. He stooped down to get a better look at the mutation.
"Moreso or less," the shepherd replied. "One'em had two heads. Another had no head a'tall, just a mouth full'a teeth where'n his neck ought be." He rose and walked to a water bucket where he washed the blood from his hands resignedly.
"If'n it keeps up, I'll lose t'whole flock." he nodded his head down at the dead ewe.
Astor drew a knife from his belt and severed the shriveled umbilical cord.
"May I take the lamb?" he asked. "I want to give it a closer examination." the shepherd grunted and dried his hands on a cloth tucked into his worn belt.
"Help y'self," he sighed. "I have no use fer it."
"Call me again when there's a lambing," Astor said. "Your lad can find me at the Ram's horn Inn, in the village." he wrapped the little body in a cloth and carried it towards the door.
"Y'seen the like of it b'fore?" the shepherd called after him.
"No," Astor replied after a long moment. "And that troubles me greatly. Good morrow."

He rode back down the winding dirt road in silence, the long stem of a pipe gripped between his teeth. His eyes were heavy from the long night in the stables and his right hip ached from standing for so long in the early spring cold.
Age had stolen upon him like a thief in the night and, despite the herbal brews and liniment salves, the aches and pains of his waning middle years had grown all the more insistent. He couldn't keep up his road wizardry forever.
The first hint of dawn's light was painting the eastern sky as he trundled down the cobbled street that made up the central thorofare of the village. He stepped down from his cart, stabled his stalwart horse behind the inn, and found his way up the stairs in the early morning darkness.
He was so tired he nearly forgot to weave a charm about the little body to preserve it, at least for a time, from the slow creep of decay.
He was asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.
In his dreams he stood before the walls of a castle, carved from a titanic solid mass of some dark volcanic stone. The moon gleamed down on the ravaged earth around the monolithic structure with baleful iridescence.
He heard voices, and a cavernous maw seemed to open wide in the castle walls and swallow him into darkness as black as the void behind the stars.

 

[amplexus]

Metal smacking against metal forced her awake. Groaning, Ravenna rolled away from the sudden sound. Though the hay was itchy and thin, her sleep had been marvellously long.

"Oi!"

A voice thundered through a, what should be empty, stable. Her eyes snapped open. Her heart tremored loud. Ravenna sat up fast and looked over her shoulder to see a red-face farmer, holding a pitchfork so tight she thought it may snap.

"Do ya think I offer this for free?!"

He shouted. She swallowed. When passing this quiet farm the eve before, there was not a light, not an animal, not even smoke puffing out of the chimney. Any observant man or woman would assume the buildings were long abandoned. Many farms looked deserted; she had hardly seen a living creature in the area.

"My apologies..."

She tried to twist a warm smile, but instead produced a more conniving grin. Hastily, she picked the straw out of her hair, leapt into standing, and straightened the ruffles in her cotton clothes. If she pretended to be a wayward, naive traveller, who accidentally ended up in this stable, and didn't intend any trouble nor harm, then he may not call the local guard.

"See, kind sir, I was not aware this stable was owned by anybody, and after a long, exhausting journey, I needed a place to rest my head. I can only deeply apologise for intruding on your property. I can assure you that me and my mare, Bel, are-"

A speech too little too late. The farmer stuck his pinky in his mouth and whistled - loud. It wasn't the whistle that made Ravenna shut up, but the rabid barking which followed. There was little point in staying longer - little point in meeting a vicious dog's teeth. Without a second to spare, she jumped to the wooden beam, using all her upper body strength to claw upward; as her last leg swung, she felt desperate teeth brush her boot.
The stable had a small roof window, open to air out the smell of manure. Mentally praying for no broken bones, she climbed through the slither and slid down the metal panelling.
Landing on the ground with a tumble and crash, she forced herself into standing. Coughs, aches, pains, these reactions had to be suppressed till later. After mounting her mare, she didn't even wait to untie Bel; Ravenna slashed the rope and sped at the fastest run possible.

Ravenna spat every curse and swear she could think of. Lord, her elbow was throbbing with pain, and her knees were aching, no doubt bruised to hell once more, and - oh no, she definitely tasted blood. Despite these accumulative injuries, despite the jerking fear of the rabid dog chasing after, despite the even worse possibility of the guard being called, this was hardly an uncommon incident for Ravenna. After so many close brushes with disaster, so many chaotic excursions, always ending with Bel racing fast against the wind, all she could do was erupt with maddening laughter. When it came to these petty endeavours, she was always unusually lucky.

Half-lucky. Some time later, she slowed Bel to a trot, then to a steady walk, and reached for her coin purse. Her eyes widened - it was gone. She could see it now, resting on that bleeding farmer's hay. Her missing fortune lifted the fantastical veil, casting her current circumstance in the cold, dark blue light: Ravenna was tired, cold, hungry, and trailing down a path to god know's where. Lately, the routine's thrill was wearing off at a quicker rate.

Over the next hour, twilight shifted to early morning. Ravenna smiled to herself. Her luck hadn't fallen yet. A village was approaching.

 

[Owl Knight]

Astor awoke from deep dark sleep as the afternoon sun was just reaching its zenith. His bones still ached dully from the long night in the cold stable and, though his sleep had been deep as the grave, he felt uneasy and worn. He could smell the aroma of a hardy midmorning meal being prepared in the inn kitchen below and he realized with some clarity that he hadn't eaten more than a few hard oatcakes since that time yesterday.

He rose slowly, stretching and limbering his temperamental hip. He threw a knit shawl of wool over his shoulders against the spring chill and made his way over to the tiny bundle where it still lay on the rough table against the far wall. He unwrapped it and stared down at the pitiful mutation where it lay, it’s one lifeless eye peering sightlessly up at him. It seemed a little thing, so small as to be inconsequential, yet what it may portend was grave indeed.

Astor stretched out his hand above the stillborn creature. Even in death he could feel its essence, the faint eddy of warm energy that swirled like the summer wind around every part of creation, binding and linking all things to the great light that was from the beginning, from which all things spring, to which all things must return. It was a great linking chain shared by all, but sensible to only a select few.

His eyes drifted closed. He reached out to the little thing, seeking a thread of light to draw upon, to link to his own. Even in death, some trace of that lifeforce still lingered, though in time it would fade as the body of flesh decomposed and returned to the great oneness of creation. Though it was little more than a flicker, he found it, drawing it out slowly, feeling the tiny thread of light in the darkness that swirled around the still body.

“Come to me,” he thought, his breath coming is deep long rushes of meditative calm, “share your light with me.”

The thread whirled out in the darkness until it touched his own light of life.

“Ahh!” Astor cried, drawing his hand back as if from a hot iron. As he touched the thread of light, he had felt the sting of something foul. It was as if the lifeforce of the mutation was barbed with razor thorns of ice. He clutched his hand, still feeling in it the phantom sting of that foul magic.

“Sorcery…” he breathed. For a moment, staring down, he thought the bulging eye shifted to better look at the graying wizard and Astor felt a chill race through his body. He hastily covered the little body with the cloth and stepped away from the table to find his tall boots, discarded by the foot of the bed. The situation was as grave as he had feared, perhaps worse.

Holding his shawl around his shoulders he left his room, drawing the bolt, and made his way down the narrow stairs to the great room to take a very late breakfast.