Lurlinemas Eve
The small wooden buildings of H'yup sagged against the weight of the Lurlinemas snow that drifted down in tiny glittering orbs from the dark grey clouds above. Through the howling of the winter wind could be heard the roaring laughter and cheering echoing out of the village tavern, the faint melody of ancient Lurlinemas hymns being sung in the streets and the shouts of children as they, in their dainty knitted tunics and jumpers, frivolously pelted large balls of snow at one another as the sun began to set behind the peak of the great mountain the villagers knew only as "Old Munch." It was only a couple of hours now before the entire H'yupii populace gathered in the centre of the village to sing, chant and dance as yet another Day of Lurlina dawned upon them and another year passed away. Already in the square, the great tents were being erected ready for the great feast and the Tribe Leaders were readying their readings from the Oziad.
Binaric Aru tightened the belt around his waist and finished combing his hair, placing the fish bone comb down on the dresser and adjusting his collar. The dim lamplight shed a gloom across the room, his shadow flickering in the corners and unnerving the cat, whose eyes darted with it's every movement while she lay motionless of the bedspread. His cheeks were beginning to sag with age, he ascertained, looking himself up and down. Forty years had passed that his eyes had seen, and it had gone in the blink of an eye. How he wished he could relive those good old days with his friends at the Shiz University, going out every night, meeting with girls and more often than not, not just for a good chat. Studying in the great halls of Ozma Towers where each and every day his skills at the many subtle and mutating arts of sorcery grew and grew. And for what? Nothing. Sometimes he relished the exquisite irony of the fact that Lady Glinda was called Glinda the Good. While her intent might have been pure, her Sorcery Act had put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. He sighed, trying desperately to rub away the dark circles under his eyes. While his devotion to Lurlina was unsparing, he had developed an unsavoury and secret disdain for Lurlinemas. It would be fifteen years tomorrow that he would have to sit and relive that fateful day when his only true love had been carelessly torn from him. Sometimes he wondered why the Fairy Goddess scorned her children so. And then he remembered that the god's purposes were not always so blatant to be seen by mortal eyes. He wiped a tear from his eye and picked up the small black and white photograph that had been taken of the two of them on their Handfasting. He had never quite understood how a snapshot could be captured in an image like that, but then again he was no scientist. He traced her outline with the tip of his finger. She had been an exotic woman, with the most striking eyes he had ever seen, glimmering black hair that fell in waves down over her shoulders. By the time they had met, a good three years after his graduation from the Shiz University, her father had migrated west in his old age prematurely and with no mother she had appeared little more than a lost cause in the crowd. Her father had told her that her mother died during labour, a sad case, but she got on with her life. 'Life isn't for looking backwards' she would say 'the past cannot be changed; only the future can be determined by your actions.' It was obvious enough really, but whenever she had said it, it had made it seen so much more real, more relevant.
They had gone travelling. Both were keen sorcerers, perhaps she more than him, and so with the mixed reviews of magic in Oz, some places they were met with welcome and others disdain, but after the years of treks from the Vinkus to the badlands, Binaric thought it better to settle down and start a family. The settlement of H'yup was a close knit community and little accepting of outsiders, but the snow-tribe seemed to take great joy of her coming to live with them. But with her foreign blood, so unused to the freezing cold winters, her body quickly succumbed to illness while she was pregnant with their son, Kiki, and he presumed that the birth had finished her off on Lurlinemas Day. A sad sequence of events, yes.
From that moment on, Binaric distanced himself from the tribe. His motherless child was cared for by an Ama whom he hired from a high society in Gillikin while, for days at a time, he locked himself away in his study to scan the many pages of a fabulous artefact he had come across. Since the death of his wife, Binaric had become little more than obsessed with sorcery. Every weekend or near enogh he would travel to neighbouring cities if not the Emerald City itself to attend sorceric conferences but most of all auctions where he would bring back trinkets of lost civilisations or tomes bound in leather and filled with arcane secrets. Once though, he returned with an object curious and fantastic… a book bound in jet black leather clasped with silver and with pages of brilliant purple vellum. The writing, in some curious script, was drawn in glittering silver ink that seemed to drift from its place and reword itself on the page as he watched. This grimmerie had vast power… he could tell. He could remember, with the book came a collection of papers, translations it seemed, of the mysterious ancient script the book was written in. Soon the book would become known as not only item of great power, but also of great grief…
The book had transformed his life as a sorcerer, and ironically at that. He remembered one day, while searching through his notes, hat he came across a word… A word that to his eyes looked unpronounceable. At first glance, he thought it nonsense to even consider pronouncing such an incantation. Sure enough, spells were meant to be archaic and hard to pronounce. Why would the syllables of the universe be easy to speak, for that was all that a spell was, using sound to tap into the very substance of the universe and change it to your own liking. After years of failed attempts, it would seem that with a combination of throaty noises, hisses and splutters he could pronounce the 'word' and work miracles. The word forced whatever the magician focused upon to immediately transform into whatever he willed it to. Of course, releasing the secrets he had learned out into the open would cause trouble. Entrusting such power to untrustworthy people was a risk and a world-changing risk at that. It was so, that he decided to keep the secret to himself. Of course, when Kiki came of age and grew out of his teenage 'menopause' as Binaric liked to refer to it as, he would entrust what sorceric knowledge he had to him. But until then, it was likely the secret would stay firmly within his own head.
Replacing the picture on the dresser and putting away all of his implements, comb, blusher and hair wax, he picked up a small silver key and replaced the grimmerie inside it's small slot in a compartment under the floorboards before locking it up and placing the rug back down. Standing and brushing himself off he paced out of the room and towards the living room where the hearth was in full flame, sending a warm golden glow across the quaint circular room lined with pictures and bookshelves. In one of the armchairs around the fire, Kiki sat, his hair jet black like his mothers, the same protruding jaw. He had his fathers nose however, slightly crooked. His brilliant emerald eyes stared down into the volume of Ancient Qua'ati folklore. Binaric cleared his throat to try and gain the boys attention. Kiki looked up with disdain before replacing his gaze towards the pages of the book.
"I take it you're still going then?" He queried coldly without looking up.
"Your mother wouldn't want us here replacing what joviality we could be having with mourning over her…"
"She wouldn't want to be forgotten," he hissed before he could finish.
"There's little chance of that!" Binaric snapped back.
"You know what, why don't you just go… It's not like we'd spend any time together for Lurlinemas anyway… you don't know me and you never will. You had a chance to be my father and you passed it off. So why don't you just fuck off down to your service and stay there!"
With that, and before Binaric could scold his son's rudeness, he had sprung from the chair and departed through his bedroom door, slamming it behind him.
