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Dearest Readers, may the seeds you have sown become a harvest abundant.
THE HIDDEN SWORD: A TALE OF BALDUR'S GATE
Book One: From the Earth | Chapter 24: Upon the Ground a Fallen Leaf
Autumn. And upon the ground a fallen leaf.
While others now blanketing the earth had chosen brown, yellow, and orange for their shrouds, this one hued itself in both red and gold. Two halves joined, sharing the same face and the same veins.
A small thing, unexpectedly catching the eye. An impulse seized her - to reach out and pick it up, examine, admire, then slip the fragile piece in between the pages of a book. To dry and preserve for posterity, just as she and Imoen had done with flower petals and dead butterflies.
And one living cockroach in Brother Nador's book.
Except, the leaf lay at the tip of the dislocated ring finger of the sword hand.
Gingerly she attempted to lift the bokken. Curling all fingers caused them to drag against the earth, including the broken one. Pain shot up from wrist to arm, but she stiffened her lip and focused on flexing just the unhurt digits. Sweat beaded on the forehead, a drop straying to her eye, momentarily fogging sight. She wiped her face with the back of the other hand, snorting at the glimpse of her trousers, grimed with dust, a bit of blood where a knee had scraped during a miscalculated fall.
"Up," he commanded.
More out of stubbornness than obedience, Irse rose to her feet and positioned the bokken in kasumi. Seeing her at the ready once more, Okami held out his own practice sword but raised an eyebrow, not at the wood and arms unsteady from weariness, but clearly at the finger she couldn't force around the hilt, slightly raised above its sisters.
"Take a healing draught before we resume," he said. Standard offer after each hit.
"Nah. Save it until the next finger. Or three."
"As you wish."
Again, they charged at each other – one of them in the confidence of years behind his craft, the other in foolhardy haste, expecting speed would compensate for the handicap. Each of her strikes were parried without effort, concluded by a solid blow to her side. And another. And another. And another.
All right all right you've made your point, Irse nearly shouted at him when she finally broke away.
Graciously, he stepped further back to give her space as she panted and clutched at the bruised rib.
No time to rest, Irse demanded of herself, charged and switched to jodan, wooden sword above head. She attacked with a down cut but Okami drew his from the side and blocked; with fluid motion concurrently deflecting the blow to the right and circling his bokken without pause to rest the false edge at her neck.
A true blade unhindered would have decapitated with seamless grace.
Frustrated, the elf snarled, not at her defeat but at his unbroken composure. Roughly she swatted his weapon away from her neck and pushed against him, thrusting repeatedly and savagely to aim for his torso as she advanced.
Yet each time, wood found naught but air as he blocked or slipped past every single stab. Finally he sidestepped as she pressed forward, his bokken arcing to smack heavily on the back. Clumsily she spun to try and counter, but his second stroke landed clean on her sword hand.
Irse stumbled backwards; numbing soreness radiating between the shoulder blades, damaged finger now joined by another. Permitting herself a brief wince at the mounting pain, she strained at the grip with the remaining uninjured digits.
Okami lowered his practice sword and sighed. "How many more of them must we sacrifice before you abandon an unfruitful path and take another?"
He was right, well, about the fingers. Inability to maintain proper grip would keep her from swinging the weapon correctly.
But to answer his question… "Until I've run out of fingers and taught my toes to grip and you break each of them too, Teacher," Irse declared and launched herself for the attack.
Rather than another parry, he grabbed her collar and shoulder, and the world spiraled from sky to earth. She found herself down, a knee once more on the ground but the sword arm wrenched behind. With his right hand he twisted her wrist while the other pressed down on the elbow. Irse gritted her teeth, the pain forcing an angry gasp. He's going to break the arm.
Then without warning he readjusted the first finger. She yelped and instinctively writhed, a hurting animal struggling to free itself from the trap, but Okami held fast. He realigned the other finger; to her ears, the pop of joints louder than her cry. As soon as he let go, she drew her arm to herself and sat on the grass. Eyes misting with pain, she clutched the aching hand and glared at him.
Her Teacher returned an apologetic nod. He took out a vial, one he always kept tucked in his sash, and extended the potion to his apprentice.
"I thought you've already fixed them," Irse questioned, delicately rubbing the still sore fingers.
He rolled his eyes and edged the vial closer to her. "For any other hurts you are disregarding in the name of your obstinate pride."
Irse accepted but hesitated. However, Okami shot her a stern look carrying the threat of a good bop with the bokken for being such a bullhead. Conceding, she downed the contents of the entire bottle, face brightened with relief at the fading of all aches in her limbs and everywhere else. A fond memory of old chores came to her – of the rugs she had been tasked to beat with sticks. Have always wondered how a rug would feel like each time it's hit, Irse mused wryly as she kneaded at a spot where she knew a mean bruise had bloomed earlier.
"Thanks, Teacher. Now I can wield a fork again for supper tonight," she muttered as she got to her feet and patted at her trousers.
"Tonight," Okami murmured as if remembering something. "The village will gather for the final rite of the Burning Maiden."
"The… Burning Maiden. The closing of Highharvestide," Irse echoed, recalling when she first learned of Dearg's autumnal customs from Kerda, one of the village girls, dark-haired and freckled, an industrious and gentle soul who had become fast friends with the young elf.
Only more than a year ago when they arrived at Dearg in Kythorn, the months swiftly passing; the Time of Flowers wilting into the Fading and the annual harvest. Kerda had been thrilled to initiate the newcomer into the village's Highharvestide activities.
An ancient farming community, Dearg continued to hold on to traditions planted long before the marble spires of Iriaebor rose to the skies. The first tenday from the gathering of the first sheaf, the village busied itself with storing and preserving the harvest for the coming cold.
Everything culminated on the final night with a feast where everyone in the village, great and small, gathered at the main square to burn the Maiden - a straw effigy dressed in a gown of flowers and bundles of wheat. A solemn remembrance of the village's founding and of the first yet unnamed wisewoman who offered herself as a sacrifice to the old spirits of the land in exchange for a bountiful harvest - in itself a miracle for legend claimed that the first settlers arrived in the flatlands barely a month away from the onset of winter.
Sounds morbid, Irse had confessed her first impression but Kerda reassured her otherwise.
True, the thought of a person burning to death was frightful, but Kerda pointed out with deep pride how the ritual centered instead on the wisewoman's selflessness and reverence for the land – as demonstrated by the act of the village girls offering their firstfruits whether of the harvest or the work of their hands.
Curious and eager to belong, Irse had enlisted with the preparations, helping the villagers after work and lessons. At the night of Highharvestide, Okami himself couldn't attend, preoccupied with Mister Kagain's ill-timed requests, and thus the elf had opted to go alone. She had joined the girls in the procession to the bonfire, her firstfruit a simple dagger she forged herself.
Everything had been fine until she cast the blade into the fire. And looked up at the Burning Maiden. And saw.
Everything thereafter had been a blur. They told her she first trembled violently then clung to the girls around her, wide-eyed, shuddering and whimpering in terror. Finally her body went limp and they laid her down on the ground where she curled to her side and watched with glazed eyes at the fire. The wisewoman, kindly old Daserah, had told everyone to stand back and give her breathing space.
Not truly a blur. She had been seeing clearly. The burning woman alone filled her sight, still and unscreaming, the flames so brilliant they darkened the rest of the world. Another was there with her. Another in tears, who wept as firelight glistened on their bloodied hands. The vision had felt familiar, as if it were an echo of the dream which drove her out of her former home to seek answers – a dream which felt more like an old memory and gave her a name. Alianna.
And then Her Teacher kneeling between her and the pyre. Someone must have fetched him to talk sense into his apprentice. She remembered looking up at his worried face, and then at the others chalking up the courage to approach and stare at the spectacle she had made of herself. She remembered him lifting her from the earth, walking to the wise woman's cottage as a handful of village folk followed, murmuring. An evil fey spirit come upon the girl, some said. Who knows what madness elves carry in their blood, others supposed. This has never happened before, an ill omen, a few had pronounced.
Irse squirmed at the uncomfortable memory and clutched at her collar, thumbing the seams. Okami must have noticed her unease. Evidently he too had not forgotten about their first experience of the harvest rite. Exactly one year had passed since, and she had been dreading and bracing herself for this coming one.
"You need not be present this time. I will tell them you are helping me finish a rushed commission."
Not an untruth, for indeed, Mister Kagain had sent a messenger the other day bearing an instruction to prepare a batch of new shields. Don't forget, priority order, reminded the dwarf's tightfisted scrawl above his seal.
She breathed in sharply and furrowed her brows. "No, every girl and woman in the village has to be there. This is important to them. I'm not about to ruin it again for everyone. If I don't go, they'll continue to think something's wrong with me."
"It was not your fault. There are things that happen to anyone beyond our understanding and this they should accept without judgment," Okami contended.
Irse smiled to assure him. "I'll be fine. I've told Kerda to smack me in case I start acting out again."
Though clearly unconvinced, he assented. They returned to the smithy to prepare the forge for Okami's work. Not long after Irse had cleaned herself and set up the hearth and the tools, did Kerda arrive to call on her.
"Don't you fret, Mister Okami. I promise I'll bring Irse back without a complaint from the elders about eating all of the feast by herself," the girl promised a little too loudly before pushing the elf down the path leading to the main square.
"Isn't the food free for all to partake, no limit on the second helpings?" Irse grumbled.
"Not if you're the one tasked to watch over the tables and serve them to others just like in the last Greengrass," Kerda chided cheerily. "And you telling them it was the ants, Magical Ants, who carried off entire plates of mince pies, and returned them empty, didn't help."
Irse laughed. "Let's hope they'll have forgotten about it. Ah, hey," she said, turning to look at her friend with a grin. "Remember what I asked of you before? If I start, er, acting strange like I did last year, keep your promise to smack me in the face."
Kerda didn't return the mirth, her eyes suddenly grave in genuine worry. "I- I could do it for you if you think it'll help. I know you're thinking it'd be funny to see the look on the elder's faces. But are you sure you wish to go through with this again? We could tell the others you fell ill. Mother's friends might talk, but who cares what they say. Mother will put them to shame for wagging their tongues."
The elf kept silent, staring at the path ahead. Soon the pair arrived at the gathering in the main square, the womenfolk making their way to assigned stations within the circle.
Irse gazed warily at the others, noting a few sharp glances thrown her way. Then she looked at Kerda and beamed.
Yet for every judgment, there had been compassion.
She remembered the motherly Daserah handing her a mug of lemon balm with a consoling smile as if the village's most important rite hadn't been interrupted by the antics of a newcomer.
Kerda sat by her side, soothing and saying it was only a bad dream and no one here would harm her.
The usually cranky Farmer Teld stood by the doorway, offering to make ready his cart and take them to a temple in the city, if she needed healing of that sort. And of his wife, normally overbearing Alise, suggesting she would go around and collect coin from the villagers to pitch in and pay for the clerics.
Then Tucky, the grandfatherly inn cook, apologizing, perhaps one of the helpers may have ignorantly added a bad mushroom in the porridge fed to the laborers and girls readying the tables, and somehow Irse likely got the unlucky serving.
Even Headman Prappin was there, shooing the curious onlookers, assuring them that the elf had only exhausted herself from helping with preparations for the festival on top of her work at the forge.
And then the village folk who had welcomed her to the feasting tables with kind smiles and plates of food, fussing at how the young elf must have been merely famished.
Simple kindness prevailing over mistrust of the stranger.
"It will be all right," Irse promised the other girl. "This time I'm ready."
Having already presented her firstfuit the prior year, Irse took her place with the other village women. A few laid expectant eyes on her, but she steeled herself against their pointed gaze.
Wisewoman Daserah stood by the pyre, holding a lighted torch. She raised her hands and recounted the significance of their gathering.
"We commemorate the courage of our forefathers who came to these lands, fleeing the wars and monsters ravaging their homes, banding together to start anew. We remember the old spirits who delivered a harvest in a short span and ensured the survival of our people through the bitter frost. We celebrate the Maiden, wisewoman to our forefathers who refrained not in committing the ultimate sacrifice so that her people may live and not die."
Daserah lowered the torch, allowing the flames to light the edge of the pyre. "It is said upon learning of the spirits' demand, the people refused. United though not of the same blood; to them, the death of one is the death of all. And yet, the wisewoman herself selflessly lighted her own pyre, blessing her people with her final breath."
Soon smoke curled from smoldering embers around the pile of hay and it didn't take long for fire to engulf the effigy. The elf stared at the roaring flames. Nothing.
"Come, children. Present your oblations and honor the Maiden's sacrifice," Daserah beckoned.
In silence the girls approached and cast their offerings. A handful of onions. An exceptionally large head of lettuce. A bundle of herbs. A dress sewn. A basket woven. All lovingly cradled in their hands, tossed and suspended in the air for a moment before landing in the fire.
And then she saw, not with her own sight but through the sight of another. No longer fruits of the field but fruits of the womb. Not hay and the tongue of flames waiting for them, but cold stone and a dagger. Faces familiar and known for a year, now cowled heads and shadowed masks in purple robes. The solemn silence replaced by the wail of children.
Numbness crawled across her skin; ears deafened by a roar - waves of a sea behind cavernous walls. A shroud crept from behind, above and beside, dimming her vision. Darkness and wind swept around her, threatening to wash all feeling, her consciousness beginning to pull away and fade.
Not again.
Fighting the panic welling within her chest, Irse cast her questions before her.
Who are these people? Where is this place? Has this already happened or is it still to come?
But none answered and the tide continued to pull at her, almost succeeding. In desperation and instinct, she dug her heels into the ground, sliding one foot to rest at a stance. And the memory of muscle engaging made her remember.
Roiled by the waters, fire, and wind. But take root in the earth from whence all came and to whom all will return.
Her Teacher's words flashing in what remained of consciousness, Irse inwardly reached out to grasp and hold. A memory of them pausing from lessons and sitting beneath the shade of a tree, his hand, calloused and soiled from the day's labors, gently resting upon the weathered and ancient trunk.
Resigned and letting go of the need to see, she finally unfocused her eyes. One deep breath and the elf imagined roots sprouting from the soles of her feet, digging into the dirt beneath, shooting deeper into the depths. They anchored her to the earth as the wind, the sea, darkness, the cavern, the cowled mob and the wailing children, all rushed through her in a torrential wave, its roar collapsing to a single point.
Irse blinked and the world cleared around her.
The pyre still burned, its flames illuminating faces, all familiar once more. She peeked at Kerda now engrossed with observing the procession as the last of the girls completed their offerings. Irse poked her in the ribs. Startled, Kerda turned to the elf, exhaling at seeing nothing amiss. By the firelight, the elf glanced at the women around them, thankful for it seemed none paid attention to her anymore, no longer anticipating another bizarre demonstration.
The ceremony passed undisturbed by her, and surely henceforth the incident will be marked as simply another case of overwork or strange mushrooms in the stew.
"We give thanks to the Great Mother Chauntea and to the old spirits of the plains ensuring this land provides for our needs. We give thanks to the Maiden who burned her body that the fires of her sacrifice shall be a light enduring unto our days, now and until the seasons and the realms are no more," Daserah proclaimed, her voice strong and clear above the silence and the crackling flames.
"To Chauntea, to the spirits, to the Maiden," the village folk rejoined in one voice. At the wisewoman's nod, the rite was closed, torches were lit, and the air resounded with cheers.
But to the young elf, a faint echo of disquiet lingered. Inexplicably she had managed to maintain her senses throughout the vision, but it yielded more questions than answers. She sighed, absently nodding at Kerda who excused herself to go and assist with the serving.
The women's circle dissipated, and the surrounding crowd broke apart to gather at the tables. She looked around, somewhat unsettled, then her eyes were drawn to the torchlights.
Among the menfolk Okami stood, waiting. Irse ran to her Teacher, blurting out a greeting as soon as she reached him.
"You were here? Here the whole time?"
He nodded, a faint smile betraying the relief in his face.
"I thought you'd be working on Mister Kagain's commission instead?"
"It is important, but only yesterday and tomorrow."
Odd. Every single commission, even the ones not Kagain's, was of utmost priority – the blacksmith always insisting on delivering just in time. In many instances, working long into the night and until dawn by himself just to finish a work, even after his apprentice had retired for the day.
Irse tilted her head, puzzled. What else could be more important to him than completing a work order?
He must have noticed the questioning stare, for he quirked his lip. "It came to my ears that Farmer Mefer boasted of his success with a crop of daikon this year. I had been promised a portion of his harvest in exchange for replacing the coulter in his plough. Tonight, I come to see his pledge fulfilled."
She grinned, approving of his priorities. They walked away to join the others, the torchlights lending warmth to the near-wintry night air, the fallen leaves a royal carpet beneath their feet.
Apologetic scribblings:
I know, I know… this should've been posted last Halloween or right after. ಠ_ಥ
Full disclosure, though: Dearg, its customs and inhabitants are all products of the imagination, and the Rite of the Burning Maiden inspired by Roman accounts (though probably disputable) of Celtic Druids.