Chapter 2
Nineteen Years ago . . .
The Troupe had pulled up to Vestice’s
Rise, the little village that I grew up in.
it had been two years since I had run away to join this troupe after it
came to stop here those many months ago.
I saw my parents, my siblings and a few of my friends. I had left when I was 15 and I am sure that
my leaving scandalized my parents, and I am sure I was the talk of the town for
months if not until new of the troupe coming to town. Likely when the troupe came to town the
elders chastised and warned to keep the village youths away because of what I
did . . .. But I was teenager, and it
was summer during High Summer. Why do
you stare at me like that? You don’t
have High Summer you say, well let me tell you about that. The
Calendar is not like where you are from?
Our calendar months are four weeks of nine days, with three festival
days spread around, one Mid Summer, one Mid Winter and the day before the
calendar begins in the Spring. 435 days
a year, but that is not the complete story.
The Dancers are big for part of the year and the weather is warmer, we
call that Summer, and the Dancers are small for part of the year and we all
that Winter, they even disappear for about a week and we call that Mid
Winter. The Dancers? Oh well there are two bright suns in our sky,
and they dance around each other as they move across the sky. Some cultures say they are fighting, because
one is Scoria the Goddess of Law and the other is Stromida the Goddess of
Chaos, I prefer to think of them as dancing, but I can see why people might
think they are battling Law vs Chaos, but I can’t imagine that because they are
sisters and sisters can fight, but can they truly ever hater each other? They are gods, but no one worships them. There are stories about people who tried to
worship the Overgods, but all attempts end in disaster. Scoria is Pure Law and demands any who hold
her as true to those standards, Stromida is pure Chaos, Drogath pure Evil,
Hestium pure Good, Xeric pure Nature. I
don’t know what the sixth Overgod is, no one does, but the point is humans and animals,
and everything can’t be pure anything and anyone who tires to do it goes
insane. In plays there are characters
that worship one of the six and they are usually the Antagonist. There is a saying that people are a mix of
the gods and committing to one would be like an arm cutting itself free from
its body. Oh, yes, the calendars I
digress. The dancers move through the sky,
and we get Low Summer and Low Winter through the course of the year, but the
track the dancers take changes from year to year and the weather gets hotter
and hotter. In High Winter, the weather
is quite temperate, and nights get as cool as 10 degrees and days as warm as 20
degrees, which is cold if you ask me.
Low summer during High Winter the temperatures rise to 25 degrees. In High Spring the weather warms over six
years from highs in the 30s to highs close to 45 degrees in low Summer. Low Summer in late High Spring is a switch
over time for us when we avoid the heat of the day and sleep through it and stay
awake at night. The highs in Low Summer
in High Summer can reach 60 degrees and lows of 40. No one ever badmouths Tradselac, God of Rains
ever, for fear that High Summer will be without rain.
So . . . I was 15 at the end of
High Summer and I wanted to get out from under my families control as fast as I
could. The coolest part of the night was
just before sunsrise, and I stole away and traveled through the day to reach
their camp and they had to keep me then.
Two years after that I had changed a lot. I was a better singer could play the lyre and
the flute. I could tumble and I gave a
turn or two on the highwire with the triplets.
I was also a passable member of the cast for the plays the would be put
on. This was the life I wanted to
live. I wanted to show my family I was well
cared for. Basil the Ringmaster said we
were ahead of schedule, and this was as good a place as any to take a rest so
it was announced that we would be there from Brightday to Darkday. What, Okay.
Bright day happens every week, like swinging partners the Red Dancer
swings behind the Yellow and on Darkday the Yellow sun swings behind the
red. Darkday is creepy because with
only the red sun in the sky everything turns black except for Red and Blue things. Plants go black except the ones with blue or
red in them, those shine red and blue.
In Mid Summer, Darkday is really creepy as the sky goes black like at
night and the stars come out.
So, we stayed for half a week, the
first time we stayed that long in one place that was not a city. and that was great for me because it took a
couple of days for my parents to forgive me enough to allow me to talk with
them and my brothers and sister. A month
later word reached us that a necromancer had attacked Vestice’s Rise. I borrowed Basil’s horse and set out at once. The Illusionist for the troupe said I would
need some minding and he journeyed with me.
A few hard days later we arrived at the Rise and learned to awful truth:
My parents were dead, and my siblings were taken captive. Three other families were similarly affected,
Yvonne’s family, a friend, was the only one not killed or captured. The other two families were fully dead or
gone. I swore an Oath to Cyr Astra to
take revenge on the Necromancer and save my family. Either my plea was filled with so much
passion or Cyr Astra was watching me closely, because the lights in the inn
dimmed as the light of Cyr Astra enveloped me
and I was proclaimed his Holy Champion.
Hagrad moved by what he saw, Yvonne, and a merchant, Fali Plainswallow,
staying in the inn witnessed the transformation and they pledged to see this
through with me.
The next two months we four battled
the foe and the undead he created until we cornered him in a small hallow as he
performed a dread ritual. We attacked as
soon as we found him, and he sent the undead that he had left at us. That battle broke something deep inside and
when it was over the group broke up and headed in different directions. Yvonne had her eye scratched out by her
little brother now zombie. Fali was
blasted by the necromancer and possessed, Hagrad killed her before taking off
after the Necromancer while I held off the rest of the zombies three of whom
were my own family. Hagrad came back
after he said the Necromancer escaped after sending more undead at him. We quietly buried the dead, my siblings,
Yvonne’s brothers. Fali. Hagrad left to go back to the Troupe and
Yvonne did not say a word to me again. I
left her with her aunt and choose to wonder, vowing never to go back the Rise
again.
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