Velus in the Vale
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 19332
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Velus walked through the familiar hills while the beauty of evening grew,
with songs of birds and frogs and crickets, and scents wandering from
wildflowers, and shadows that deepened and deepened, and night prepared
herself to receive the proud Evening Star. For the first time in weeks he felt the faintest hint of joy and hope touch his troubled heart, reminding him of the days when everything had been so much simpler. Before the nightmare his life had turn into. He could still almost hear the outlandish howls of the monkeydemons echoing through the hills. He shivered as chills went down his spine and the hairs on his neck turned up. He reached the summit of a large hill and gazed down at the wide scene below. The Vale. Home.To his right the pale-blue Shreken rose from the purple haze and bleak grayness of the downland ridges in countless towers of ancient stone. Their dark, looming presence could always be felt. Right below him the fair, green valley opened up in the somber foothills of the dominating peaks. Sheep were pasturing along the hills, where here and there a farmhouse or cornfield or pocket of wood could be seen. A silver ribbon wound about the bottom of the Vale, all beset with willows and mulberry trees and wide reedlands and marshes. Starwater Stream, it was called. It lazily meandered it's way northwest and eventually met the maze of rivers and waterways in the Duchy of Hindsight and the Plains of Toulaine.Warm lights began to pop up here and there throughout the valley. In the middle of the small vale the largest clustering of these lights anigh the water began to illuminate the cool, lush fields. Little round houses built of turfs and thatched with reed lay clustered there, dominated by a small steepled tower built of stone. Shadowdale. The Vale's largest village, the place where Mayderry Two-River had taken Velus to all those weeks ago, to see if the village monk might know something of the boy's condition (when his water had been tainted with the southern weed). Lo then! Velus turned his gaze to the darkening sky, northwards. Black smoke in a long stream poured from that direction where the rolling hills disappeared into the haze. Horribly black. What could have done this!? There was no sign of a fire, and what he feared even worst was that the smoke came from the direction of proud Penn."But that is leagues away! The smoke couldn't come from there, not unless the whole city was burning!" He said aloud. Lastly he saw the stone fortress that was the pillar of defense in the Vale, Woodmark-on- the-Hill. It's proud stone surface was basking in the last rays of the sun. Tears welled up in his eyes and ran down his face as he thought of all of the dead Fellows of the Black Hand, of poor Old Alfredo dying at the hands of the mace-wielding monkeydemon. He had beheaded the beast, at least he had had some vengeance for the sake of his comrades.The face of Astra was still a thorn in his mind. Had it really been her? It couldn't have been! He remembered the time when he had saved her distant cousin from a well, not long before the Dragon had captured him. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She might be wild, but she was not evil. Or at least not then she hadn't. And what of Lord Frederigo? And Prince Cedrik? And Mayderry and Reggie and all of the others? He had been lucky the old healer and her daughter had found him near the border of Olde Nelon. They had nursed him back to health and given him an old scroll. The old healer said she had been told to give the scroll to Velus in a dream. The words contained on the old, fragile scroll were foreign and wild and badly faded. But somehow he knew it carried some great power. The old healer said she had found it when she was a girl, underneath a skull in a small cave in the mountains. The only thing he recognized on it's surface was the image of a black serpent devouring a white hand. He turned his thoughts to the present as he made his way down through the foothills, towards the farm he called home.It was Velus's younger brother (by two years), Zephyros, who first saw him approaching the house. "Velus Westwind! You leman of a liche! What do you think you are doing, returning home from the claws of the wyrm only to disappear again without a word or farewell!? Where did you go!? We feared you dead! I'll punch you in the nose!" Zephyros ran at his brother with clenched fists and hastily threw a wide punch at Velus. Velus caught his brother's fist and the two went tumbling unto the ground. Zephyros began to punch him in the stomach but gave a cry of pain, having hit Velus's hidden, gem- covered ringmail."Please, brother! Forgive me! Try to understand! Please forgive me! The last few weeks have been madness and nightmare, do not think you have been alone in your worrying!" Velus pleaded with his brother. "You have some explaining to do!" His brother exclaimed. "Now let's go home, you have nearly sent dear mother to her grave!" That night there was much merriment in the humble house of Westwind. They had been overjoyed at his return from the Dragon's cave, but then he had disappeared yet again only a day or so later. Velus still did not mention anything concerning Cedrik or his plight. Not even to his father. After he was stuffed full of the dainties of the Vale and everyone had retired to bed, Zephyros and Velus were seated next to the fireplace, it's fire low and hot. Zephyros insisted on speaking first.He was both alike and unlike Velus, speaking of a few simple things which he knew, of herding, of the ways of sheep and of the approach of the seasons; and he also spoke of the things that he guessed; in the deep of the woods and mountains and in the dark of time; and especially he cared to tell the fables of foxes and badgers, which he had come by from watching them at dusk. He spoke of a dark storm approaching, of sunless winter, of moonless, starless night. Of dark things awakening in the depths of the mountains, the forests, the fens. Velus reeled at the story of the headless dragon, although at this point firm news was hard to come by. It was hard to decipher rumor from fact, madness from sanity. He would sleep well on his old bed tonight, only because his limbs ached and every fiber of his body begged for rest. But he knew he could not remain at home for long. There was too much at stake, too much to do.That night a fox emerged from the dark upland wilds carrying a dead, black serpent. It dropped it in front of the alderwood door of the Westwind household and then sped back to it's home in the hills.
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Ib
4/1/2002 11:30:39 PM
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