Author's Note: This was a fun little sketch I began writing one night and continued to work on now and then. It is currently unfinished, but if I feel motivated, I may add more to it.
The Ring of Water
Chapter 1: In the Garden of Water
It was the first day of autoem when the strangers came to us through the great, metal ring. It had been centuries since the portal had been used last, and all knowledge of how it operated was soon lost to my people. The majority of my people believed that the stories surrounding the portal, the Ring of Water, were mere legends and the portal itself erected to transform these myths into a factual history.
Yet there were some who believed that the stories spoke true of a time in our distant history where the Water Ring was used as a wonderful doorway into other worlds and people traveled freely. These individuals were few in number and kept their beliefs secret or risk exile from the prefecture of their birth. Once branded as an exile, no other prefecture would accept that poor soul as a denizen and he or she would be reduced to the status of a thrall.
My father, and his father before him, believed in this manner and secretly disclosed to me this belief when I came of age. So when the fateful day in which the Ring of Water opened once more and strangers came into our lives, I was unusually calm, understanding, and extremely curious of these strangers, four in number, who dressed different, spoke different, and looked different. Though I was not present for their arrival, I learned of it later from Vachyllon, who saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears.
Vachyllon was the son of a supreme alderman, and as such, he was advantaged with broader studies and privileges than the offspring of the denizen. Each morning at sunrise, Vachyllon would leave his father's house and walk to the neighboring prefecture of Deluge. There he would spend the day as a preceptor, teaching the sons of aldermen, alongside the best preceptors in this region, amidst the Garden of Water, where the portal was located.
It was after the midday when the metal ring began to make a noise that none, not even the well-studied preceptors, had heard before and lights suddenly appeared on its engraved surface. With a rush similar to a sluice, inside of the metal ring a shimmering substance that appeared to be water suddenly appeared. The students stood in amazement and the preceptors quivered in startlement as four strangers stepped from the water and it abruptly vanish once more, leaving the strangers in the Garden of Water.
The strangers, Vachyllon told me, were dressed in dark green garments with adornments of a material he did not recognize. They carried metal objects in their hands and wore strange items on their heads, wrists, and feet. For a long while, the pupils and the preceptors stood staring quietly at the strangers, until Vachyllon felt that some manner of etiquette should be observed.
Being of the highest of rank among our people present in the Garden of Water, he felt it was his obligation to offer the strangers the proper respect. He approached the four strangers and greeted them as he would an alderman, with honor and respect, yet the strangers did not understand him and conversed in a strange language amongst themselves. After much conversing, the smallest of the three men responded to Vachyllon's greeting in our language, though broken, hesitant, and partially mispronounced.
Vachyllon learned from this man that the strangers were wayfarers from a distant land that traveled to seek knowledge from the societies of others so to better their own people. They were peaceful, the man told him, and meant our people no harm or alarm. Vachyllon decided it would be best to bring the strangers before his father, who was the supreme alderman of the southern prefectures, and thus invited the four strangers to his home.
I was tending my father's flocks in the meadows along the way when Vachyllon and the strangers approached. Vachyllon's return was earlier than it should have been, arousing within me curiosity. Leaving the precious sheep in the undisputable protection of my father's two canines, I took hold of my staff and went to greet Vachyllon at the way, as was my custom every eve. Vachyllon was attempting to understand the man who spoke some of our language when I arrived, but he was pleased at my presence. He greeted me warmly, despite the presence of the strangers, by gripping my shoulders gently in his hands and planting a kiss on both of my cheeks and my forehead.
"Good eve, Vachyllon," I greeted in return by closing my right fist and lying it over my heart. My eyes were quickly drawn to the strangers. I had never before seen people such as they, but it was interest and curiosity, not fear, that compelled my attention. "Who are these visitors you bring from Deluge Prefecture?"
"My Roani, these are wayfarers from the Ring of Water itself!" Vachyllon then explained to me how the strangers had come to our land through the portal. He indicated the smallest of the men, "And this preceptor can speak some of our language, though the rest do not. I am bringing them before my father, for he will know how to understand them better than I. You are fast on your feet, you will give my father a fair warning of our guests."
I gave Vachyllon a solemn look, torn between the intolerable desire to obey his wishes and the overwhelming sense of duty to the work my father had entrusted to me. After an agonizing moment of inner uncertainty, I was able to speak aloud.
"I must not leave Father's flock unattended, Vachyllon."
"Are you sheep-herder?" the smallest stranger suddenly asked, his brow creased with deliberation. His accent was strong and his pronunciation was not accurate, but I understood him well.
I turned to him in surprise and then nodded. "Yes, my family's caste is to tend the flocks." After answering the stranger wearily, I pleaded with Vachyllon. "Vachyllon, you know that I cannot leave Father's flock, he depends solely on me now."
The corners of Vachyllon's lips were turned up in the rare expression that he reserved only for me. An amused chuckled resounded from his throat as he leaned forward. He kissed my forehead again, which halted any other statements from me.
"Roanilleen, the canines will guard the flock until you return. Do not argue with me. Now go," he ordered, though not unkindly. He removed my staff from my hands and laid it aside the way.