The Village at the Edge
Posted
“You’re late!” growled a voice, as Trevor opened the door to the little cottage at the edge of the village where Michael lived. “And you smell like one of the fish people’s chemistry sets. What have I told you about meddling in their affairs?”
Michael’s small house was a spartan affair overall. Tidy, albeit dusty, as though never really lived in. His usual fare of dried fish, cheese and bread did not require use of the small kitchen area, so even that was usually untouched. The table was the exception. It sat up against the wall, and served double duty as workbench and eating surface.
“I’m sorry Michael, I know I’m not supposed to, but I think Tasha’s okay. She has been showing me some magic with their spell books, and she’s really nice.”
Michael pulled his bent frame out of the chair in the corner, and thumped his cane unhurriedly towards Trevor. “Yes, I dare say she must be nice. Nice enough to turn a foolish boy into a thrall.” He grabbed Trevor and examined Trevor’s eyes closely.
“What do you mean? What’s a thrall?” Trevor asked, confused.
“Did she sing to you?” continued Michael, to which Trevor nodded. “Did you try to use the counter encantation?”
“I don’t think she was trying to enchant me,” he replied, with an edge of doubt creeping in about the margins.
“Well, the ‘don’t think’ part is right enough,” Michael replied, swinging his cane up sharply into Trevor’s midriff. A punishment usually reserved for a badly mangled verse to an encantation. “Why do I teach you to sing if the one time you need to use it you drop the ball?”
Michael made his way slowly back to the chair, and sat down. “Let’s start with the counter chant then, since you clearly need to practice it.”
Michael glowered at Trevor while he sang. Trevor was not certain why his efforts were eliciting displeasure from the old man this time, but he had learned it is best to avoid causing one of these moods in his vocal instructor.
Michael hobbled slowly up as Trevor’s voice reached a triumphant crescendo, the climax of the song. As he held the note, he noticed something was wrong. This understanding was driven home by Michael’s cane striking him in the midriff again.
“Support with your diaphragm!” bellowed Michael, heeding his own advice. His eyes smiled, taking the sting out of the rebuke, if not the blow.
“I was! Ouch,” muttered Trevor, rubbing his tender belly as he leaned against Michael’s cluttered table. “I won’t have one if you keep clobbering it with that stick.”
“It won’t do you any good if you trash your vocal chords.” Michael’s eyes sparkled. “Ruin your voice, and none of the girls will have anything to do with you.”
This stung Trevor. His mother made sure he took voice lessons from Michael, and his grandfather provided fish for payment. It was as though they thought that the only thing he could possibly excel at is singing, but he had a late start at that. “No one will care if I can’t sing if I am a good at hunting and fighting. What about Don? He shrieks like a wounded rabbit.”
“Yes, but with his assets, he can afford to have throat nodules like Steven Tyler.” Donald was two years Trevor’s senior, and already excelling at many of the tasks most valued in the little fishing village. He could run faster, dive longer and outfight any of the current crop of young men. Don was also refreshingly calm and free of the angst that commonly infected boys his age. Trevor regretted bringing him up and settled into a more sullen mood.
Michael sensed the change in atmosphere, and decided that further musical efforts would not be productive. “Come now, let’s go. We are getting hungry, so our tempers are short.”
Trevor brightened as he picked up his bag and they proceeded out the door. Michael had let fall another of his enigmatic references to the Outside. It was common knowledge in the village that Michael had come from beyond the mountains to retire in peace on the outskirts of their fishing village. Very occasionally, Michael would tell a story of the Outside, and Trevor thought that he sensed one in this.
Michael had told him stories of tremendous battles over the mountains, enchanters, and dragons that he had met. Perhaps Steven Tyler didn’t warrant a story beyond a warning not to abuse your voice. Trevor doubted this though. Surely Michael would not have mentioned the name if there were not some story to it.
Trevor’s house lay on the outskirts of the fishing cottages, scattered along the beach at the base of the cliff face. These cottages were inhabited mostly by the fisher folk like Trevor’s grandfather, and those who supported them, as a matter of convenient proximity to the sea. The rest of the village spilled up onto the steps of the cliff face. Pleasant limewashed houses dug into the stone and shining in the sun, overlooking the cottages, docks, and vivid blue waters of the bay that stretched to the south.
As they continued through town at Michael’s hobbling pace, interested eyes followed their progress. Trevor returned smiles and nods as they passed. He looked forward to being able to impress everyone on their next meeting with some new knowledge gleaned from his time with Michael.
“Michael, who is Stephen Tyler?”
Michael’s eyes focused back on the near space, “Pardon?”
“Steven Tyler. You mentioned he has nodules. Is he someone from the Outside?”
“Ah, you mean Steven Tyler. Yes, I suppose he is from the outside. He was a fletcher.” Michael’s eyes twinkled, but Trevor didn’t notice the signs of amusement.
“What is a fletcher?”
“He made arrows. He also wrote and sung songs.”
Trevor was unimpressed with these mundane revelations, and struggled to wrest something useful from the conversation. “So he trashed his vocal cords, and girls didn’t like him?”
Michael paused for a moment, with perhaps a hint of annoyed amusement on his face. “Perhaps I should have chosen a different example,” he muttered as they climbed the whitewashed steps to the red front door of Trevor’s house. One of the modest ones dug into the stone near the base of the cliffs.
“Mom, I’m home! Michael is with me,” shouted Trevor as he passed through the door.
“Hello, Trevor. Hello Michael. How was practice?” came the voice of Trevor’s mother from the kitchen. It was better equipped than Michael’s, and showed a great deal of use. It was separated from the rest of the main living space by a counter.
“It was fine,” piped Trevor quickly.
“Oh, good Lord, what is that smell, you two?”
“I…spilled something on myself,” said Trevor.
“You didn’t go to Michael’s smelling like that, did you? Go get washed up, and set those clothes on the back porch. Michael, I’m so sorry! come in and have a seat, you must be tired.”
“Thank you Sarah, don’t worry too much about it. It’s not often, but I do get worse pupils…”
“Hey!” Trevor called from the other room.
“Your fish are hanging there by the door, Michael. Supper is nearly ready. Would you care to stay?”
“Wouldn’t miss it! I don’t often get a properly cooked meal. What are you serving?”
“A chowder tonight. The last of the potatos are starting to sprout.”
“Potatoes,” Michael corrected.
“What?”
“Potatoes has an e… Never mind, just a pet peeve,” Michael said.
“Trevor, be a dear and finish setting the table. We will need another place setting for Michael.
“Yes Mother.”
“Michael, how have you been lately? It has been a while since you have been over.”
“I can’t complain.”
“If you can, you never let on. Are you eating enough, sitting alone in that hovel of yours?”
“More than enough for my needs. I don’t have to cook for a teenage boy, and I have simple tastes. How is your father faring?”
“Well enough to catch those fish for you this morning. His back bothers him, but it is to be expected at his age.”
“Indeed it is, mine certainly gives me enough trouble.”
“Michael, would you ask the blessing?”
“Of course.”
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for another day that we lived as free men, and were thralls to neither flesh nor a ghing.
We ask that You keep our village safe and secret, and that You watch over those who fight to protect us on the Outside.
We pray for Your peace to rest here until Your Son returns.
In His name we pray, Amen
“Thank you Michael.”
“Michael, when you were on the Outside, were you a soldier?”
“Trevor!”
The old man chortled softly, “It’s fine, I don’t mind talking about my past on occasion.”
Michael closed his eyes in thought for a moment, and then began. “I was a militiaman for my village, just as you are. Our village was attacked, so we mobilized and went out to fight. We were gone for a long time. We won, but my village had been razed, along with several others. After that, I had nowhere to go to. I served as an adviser to other villages, but I didn’t fight any more. Eventually I ended up here and settled down.” Michael smiled, as though some new thought amused him. “I suppose that I am in an Appendix of my story now. Not a bad place to be.”
“Who were you fighting?”
“Oh, an old ghing. Long forgotten now.”
“What were they like?”
“The ghing? The first one? Unfeeling, controlling. It is ghing. Those beneath it were still persons, if that’s what you mean. They had not gone very far down the Broad Path. Not yet components to be replaced.”
Trevor wanted to continue asking questions, as the cryptic remarks seemed to invite, but Michael’s detached and pensive look combined with a sharp glance from his mother dissuaded him. They ate in thoughtful silence.
Suddenly, Michael drew himself upright, his eyes showing a keen attentiveness toward something beyond the far wall of the house. He sat like this for several seconds, catching the concerned interest of Trevor and his mother.
Michael stood, and muttered something that sounded like, “Prologue then…” He paced to the door, his cane forgotten along with the stoop in his back that accompanied it. “I apologize, but I really must be going,” he spoke before letting himself out the door.
Confounded, Trevor and his mother were left to wonder at the forgotten cane and string of fish by the door.