Ivan

The wind blew over the grass on the plain as Ivan walked the path to a tree on a bank above the stream. It was his favorite spot to sit and pass the time. He enjoyed the breeze and the way the grass moved as the wind's flowing touch rolled over it. Ivan reached his spot and sat down at the base of the large trunk supporting the tree's heavy limbs. The roots at its base curved in such a way as to make a perfect spot to lay back and rest. They enfolded Ivan in a loving embrace as he watched the flowing stream pass by a short distance away. Ivan's thoughts strayed to why he had come up here in the middle of the day.

He remembered his father yelling as his face turned red. His mother behind his father in her cooking apron with a stern expression marking her face. Anna his sister on the other side of the main room of their small home seeking shelter behind a chair as she watched the unfolding spectacle.

"Boy! Look at me when I am speaking to you! No son of mine will ever turn his back on the land! Our family has worked this land since the immortal races fall, may they remain sealed in the hells forever, you shall not abandon it and go to SkyWall as long as I still draw breath!" said his father in anger.

Ivan remembered his mother after his father had left the room in rage. "Ivan, you need to be satisfied with what we have here. The land has provided for our family for generations. Your father has worked his entire life to leave you something to be proud of and now you tell him you don't want it! You should be ashamed of yourself! Now go, think on what your father and I have said, I don't want to look at you right now."

Ivan had left his sister's soulful eyes following him. The pity in him making him feel worse rather than better. As comforting as it was to know he had his sister's support he somehow didn't think the little girl of five rings old opinion would count for much with his parents. Especially, considering how his father thought of the land. The land was something to be tended and worshiped as the granter of life and prosperity.

It was true Ivan's family had worked the land for ages beyond count. Their family and village had survived through countless droughts, wars, and famines. The land around Sharing was the most fertile on Adun. Even now Ivan could feel the soft sponginess of the black soil beneath his feet as he sat and thought under the shade of the tree. Ivan sighed, what she meant was consider what we said until you think we're right. While Ivan wanted to please his parents his heart and mind couldn't help but want for something more than a life of caring for the land. It was a fine profession and one he respected and had participated in since he was a small child. The problem was Ivan knew there was so much more out there. Traveling caravans and wanderers were seldom to pass through Sharing but on occasion they did happen by. Ivan still remembered the last group of traveler who passed through Sharing two winters ago. Ivan had just turned twelve rings old they'd come at the time of his shedding ceremony. He could still remember the stories they told of far off places and the adventures of people of ages past.

What fascinated him the most and captivated his attention was the story of SkyWall. He'd heard of the place before and knew it existed as other travelers through Sharing had chosen it as their destination. SkyWall was a city in the far off mountains to the south of Sharing. It was built into the mountains themselves as the people lived on the cliff side of the southern peaks. Inside the spires of the southern mountains the forges of SkyWall created weapons, armor, chains, hammers, picks, axes, plows, sickles, scythes, jewelry, gold, silver, platinum, and mendral coins. Anything of the inner earth, of metal, was made in SkyWall.

Ivan wanted to be a smith like the one in the story the travelers told. He wanted to forge armor, magic armor, that would be used by Lords to defend themselves against assassins, swords that would be used to kill dragons, spears that would slay the lumbering beasts commanded by the hordes of the western reaches. Ivan knew he wasn't the type of person to be an adventurer himself but he would always think about aiding adventurers on their quests by creating the weapons, the tools they would need to succeed. He knew most of the magic had disappeared with the ancients but he still dreamed of succeeding in forging that which had not been made in generations. Instead of being able to follow his dreams though he was tied to the land. His father's will more binding than any spell a sorcerer had ever wielded in even ancient times.

Smoke rose from the grassland of the plains as Ivan sat under the tree in silent, sad, contemplation of his situation. He was trapped in a life he did not dream of but the fire was even now setting him free with its burning. The smoke signaling the end of his family's bond to the land.

The smell of the smoke awakened him from his musings. He looked up and out toward Sharing, the scent of smoke drifting across the plains to the tree on the hill in the gentle flowing hands of the wind. He stared entranced for several moments before his eyes widened in shock as it dawned on him that his village burned. Ivan jerked to a standing position stumbling as he flew forward down the hill towards his home. He knew he had to get back to help. Fire was a true danger to any village as it could consume everything leaping from one home to another in its ravenous hunger. Even worse it could sweep across the plains to the other villages. Grass fires were told about in the legends passed down from generations past as one of the few horrors faced by the caretakers of the land in their fertile paradise.

Nearing the village Ivan could see people running about and hear yelling carrying on the wind, no... it was screaming. Ivan's stomach turned and he redoubled his efforts to reach home with all haste. At the edge of the village Ivan stumbled falling down into the runoff ditch along the road. Mud covered, he clambered to his feet in time to see a rider on horseback chasing a woman down the road. His mount a golden tan, its main the shinning yellow gold of the plains. The rider wore pure white his sword gleaming in the blazing golden touch of the sun as it swung in an arc outward and downward. Mrs. Clearwater's head fell from her shoulders as her body ran a couple paces onward before stopping to stand before flopping to the lifeless. He didn't recognize her at first because of his shock at seeing the rider but it was Mrs. Clearwater the baker's wife. She had babysat his sister Anna when his mother had fallen ill four winters ago and he and his father had to tend to the fields. Ivan had never hated gold so much as in that moment.

The rider was scanning the horizon and all Ivan could do was stand there in the ditch in shock. Ivan went unnoticed by the white rider's gaze at the whim of fate or the helping hand of the land he wished to abandon covering and concealing him. As the rider turned back to the village Ivan began to run along the ditch crouching low so as not to be noticed. He had played games like this with the other village children. They would hide in the grass and crouch or crawl along popping up long enough for a peak hoping to spot one of the others in the sea of golden grass. Only when we played those games the loser didn't lose their head! thought Ivan. Sick to his stomach and tired of running Ivan reached the portion of the road where what was Mrs. Clearwater lay. He tried not to look but could keep from glancing at her severed body as he continued on deeper into the village.

The thatch and wooden slate of the roofs burned and collapsed all around Ivan's village. Flames lapping at the air from searing windows and doorways. Sharing was going back to the land it had arisen out of. Ivan hid behind clumps of bushes along the edge of the roadway as he neared the village center. He could see riders all in white gathered in the village circle. They raised their swords and yelled out an oath in a language he had never heard before. A white rider in the center of the group raised the visor of his helmet. Ivan recognized him by his golden tan steed, the one who killed his sister's babysitter. The man spoke to the assembled riders while Ivan understood not a single word. Ivan tried to concentrate on the man's face but he was far enough away that it was difficult to see. Ivan saw the man had golden hair when a few strands peaked out from beside his face drifting in the wind. So much gold, thought Ivan as tears began to stream down his face. When their leader's speech ended the white riders saluted once more with their swords and then turned their mounts and in single file began to ride away to the west.

When the riders were well out of the village and had long since faded into the golden grass of the planes to the horizon Ivan stopped crying and stood up wiping away the last of his tears. He walked aimlessly around the village anywhere but to his own home. He did not want to see what he knew in his heart he'd find there. It was as certain as the land. The last of the golden rays of the sun fell behind the curve of the world and the creeping darkness of the night reached out to enfold the village of Sharing. Ivan had made his way back through the village to his home at last. The embers of the deaths of the many fires providing a dancing light which played over Ivan's ruined home. He stopped well away from his house he could see bodies laying in front of it's remains and had no wish to recognize them. Sat down in the street and watched them as they rested there. Eventually, he got up and left the village returning to his tree on the hill falling asleep in its loving embrace one last time.

In the morning the golden light of the sun returned once more to awaken him. Ivan stretched and stared down the hill towards the village no... the ruins. He watch the rest of the sun rise over the western plains. He felt numb, tired from sadness despite his comfortable night's sleep. Obeying his mother's last words Ivan thought about what his parents had said. After some time, the sun was now overhead, Ivan took one last look at the ruins and began walking south. His heart and anger traveled west with the golden plains.

The Beginning

In another world there was...

a time known as The Age of Man. The Forgotten races had disappeared several centuries before and as their name suggests much of what they had achieved was no longer remembered. Ruins of these empires stretch across Adune dotting its landscape. Travelers pay them little attention as all that could be scavenged from them has been. Legend has it the Forgotten races kept their most precious secrets hidden away and that those have not yet been found by the dungeon raiders who once prowled the ruins. It is said that the hidden magic of the Forgotten could make a man an emperor and an emperor a god. However, this is just a legend. As the Forgotten faded away human men had built great fortresses and monuments to themselves across the world of Adune. Many great leaders fought with each other for wealth, land, and the power to create their own expansive empire. Of all things, magic was that which could bring power but of magic there was precious little to be found. Many people of Adune possessed some magic but most of it was weak capable only of healing small cuts or charms to ward off vermin. The few that possessed stronger magic, war magic or the great healing magic of the clerics of Ormond, guarded it zealously and withdrew from society or lashed out at it to bend the people to their will. The few scholars who understood what once could have been achieved by magical means considered this age to be one which had fallen into darkness. In this darkness the story of the world of Adune begins.

A Campfire

The Visitor approaches a campfire in a small clearing. It is night and the light of the fire plays with the dancing shadows around the ring of trees. A figure sits by the fire cooking something on a stick.

"Come and sit by the fire my friend. I shall tell you a tale of a land long ago in a world not so far removed from our own," said the Monkey.

The Visitor sits down by the fire as the Monkey requested of him. He notices that what is roasting appears to be an apple. The Monkey, seeing him observe the apple, gestures toward the Visitor offering him the stick. The Visitor accepts the gift graciously and waits for the fruit to cool before partaking of it. The Monkey then picks up another apple on a stick from beside him and rests it over the flames to cook. The Visitor is unsure whether he failed to notice the apple on a stick was beside the Monkey or if it was not there before. He has a suspicion that the explanation is the later.

"Now where to begin? Hmmm....yes.... we shall begin at the beginning as anything else would be confusing," said the Monkey. Taking a short pause he continued, "In another world there was..."

And so the story begins.

A Note to the Visitor

This will be a new blog for some of my stories. Hopefully, I'll have the time enough to write for it.