Forest & Kingdom Balance (9 page)

She looked into his eyes and felt something stir
within her, a feeling that she had never experienced before. It was
a feeling of power, but also warmth and somehow love. She began to
question who she was, and then put aside the thought. “You were
telling me of the danger to my kingdom, what type of danger is
it?”

“For you to truly understand the threat, you will
need to know how we in the Forest and Kingdom came to be.” John
looked into her flame and saw that she was ready to listen.

The Red Knight

Ages ago when all of humanity lived in scattered
villages on the continent across the sea, it was a time of
awakening as people began to discover the advantages of community,
farming, and working together for mutual survival. Naturally, it
was also a time of those who used force to take anything they
wanted. This should have led to a natural progression that would
eventually have brought about a strengthening of community, and
from there, the rule of law for the common good.

Unfortunately something happen very early on, before
this natural progression could take place. While raiders and
marauders were still a dominant force, there came a day in a small
village that reshaped the world. While the event’s exact date and
location have been lost to history, its impact is still felt
today.

One crisp fall dawn found the villagers already hard
at work to prepare winter stores from the their harvest. The
peaceful scene was suddenly shattered by a frantic alarm as the
dust from mounted raiders could be seen in the distance and
everyone in the village knew that they would shortly be fighting
for their lives. Barely armed, most with farm implements, the men
stood together to face the threat. Among the village’s defenders
stood a boy in his teens. It was his first time to stand proudly
among his father, brothers and uncles to defend his home. Pride and
duty beat back the fear that rose within him.

The young boy stood forth to challenge one of the
first raiders to enter the village, a great iron axe swung down,
aimed for the young boy’s head. The boy tried to duck but this only
caused the blow to catch him squarely between neck and shoulder.
Through leather, muscle and bone it nearly cleaved him in two. His
last thought as he felt the deathblow strike was one of
disappointment and shame at being so useless. The raider rode on,
unaware of the brilliant crimson light that flashed behind him.

The boy, dumbfounded, suddenly found himself alive,
nude, and standing on a pile of bloody clothing that he had just
been wearing the moment before. Unable to comprehend what had just
happened, he stood there unmoving while another raider came up from
behind and sliced his head cleanly from his body. Again there was a
flash of crimson light and again the boy stood. This time though,
he moved.

The crimson light flashed countless times that day,
but the young man conquered his fear and put his physical pain
aside. When the last of the raiders had been killed or driven off,
he began to realize what the day had cost him. From brother, to
uncle, to father, he went from corpse to corpse as he learned how
deep pain could feel. Time passed as he knelt beside his father’s
lifeless body. Fires burned all around him as he sat, only
partially aware of the screams of pain and loss that filled the
air.

Suddenly, a thought flashed in his mind, “Momma!” He
screamed and leaped to his feet. As he approached his home a sense
of hope arose within him, the small farmhouse had not been set
ablaze! Bursting through the door, he felt his hope die as hideous
a death as any other that day. Lying where they had been raped and
murdered, were his mother and sisters.

Over the decades and centuries that followed, the
man who was that young boy traveled across the land, he created
kingdoms from scattered villages and introduced King’s Law. He
taught the people how to defend themselves and throughout his
travels he mercilessly pursued any group who preyed on the weak and
helpless. He chose to be known only as the Red Knight.

For centuries he was revered and welcomed in every
village, castle, and kingdom for the great works he had achieved.
Unfortunately human nature is not always a blissful thing. Once
peace was the norm and the threat of raiders nothing but a memory,
the lure of power began to draw those who would covet it for its
own sake. Selfish kings and lords took the gifts that the Red
Knight had brought, the training and structure for defense, and
used them to war with each other for no other reasons than greed
and avarice. Betrayal after betrayal hardened the Red Knight’s
heart.

Over time the Red Knight took on the roll of king
maker and supreme sovereign. He came to believe that weakness
allowed the unworthy to prosper and to respect strength above all
else. So he pitted kingdom against kingdom at his choosing to weed
out the weak. For thousands of years, this has been our world.

“Hold on.” Dionara looked at the empty glass in her
hand, “I may be a bit tipsy from all the wine, but I don’t believe
I’m drunk enough to have momentarily forgotten about an immortal
who rules the world.”

“That’s because you Dionara, and your subjects, are
the only people who are not taught of the Red Knight from birth.
Far too many know of his manipulations first hand, at the thrust of
a sword.” John sat up and looked into Dionara’s eyes, his
expression relayed the seriousness and concern that his words held.
“This is the gift your kingdom receives.”

“Assuming this ‘Red Knight’ even exists,” she
countered.

“He does.” John’s tone did not waver.

Dionara considered his words, “To my knowledge he
has never bothered us here, what does this have to do with me? I
though you were going to tell me of our founding?” Dionara waited
for an answer.

John retrieved a second wine decanter from a basket
beside the tree and handed it to her. “You may want a refill for
this next part.” He noted.

The Mindow

Over time the Red Knight became restless for new
lands, he commissioned ships of exploration to sail the vast sea.
One people, the Mindow, who respected peace, art, craftsmanship and
fellowship, saw the Red Knight’s decree as an opportunity to escape
his oppression. They designed and crafted great ships to withstand
the heaviest seas. Even so, many years passed and no ships
returned.

The Mindow did not give up hope and a fleet of
eleven ships set out once more. They were led by Paladin, a
craftsman, seaman, leader, and a man of great faith loved by all
who knew him. After many months at sea and the loss of four ships,
land was sighted. They landed at what is now Kingsport on the
coastline to our west and established a new kingdom. Now king of
the new lands, Paladin sent ships back to their home with an
invitation for all that wished to join him to set sail.

Being a man of deep faith, Paladin gave thanks to
Spirit, the Prime Creator, for guiding them. He felt the number of
ships that completed the journey was no accident. Seven ships for
the seven levels of human experience that lead from the physical to
enlightenment. He built his citadel crowning the highest hill in
Kingsport and surrounded it with six tiers of gardens. The seven
levels were dedicated to the seven levels of attainment.

Eventually other explorers found our shores and set
up kingdoms to the north and south between coast and mountain. Once
established, each kingdom began to explore into the mountains. From
Paladin’s first explorations to all the peoples that followed, each
found that venturing into the mountain range would be greeted by
fear, dread and mishap. The range came to be known as the Warded
Mountains, for protected they were.

The Mindow were your ancestors Dionara, their
coastal kingdom flourished for a thousand years. Art, peace, and
faith were their hallmarks. The Mindow kings strengthened their
realm, and from that position of strength, they sought only peace
and trade with their neighbors. Due to the vast distance, the Red
Knight chose not to travel to the new lands and only send
occasional decrees, until the reign of King Palinar.

The Red Knight had become increasing frustrated by
the lack of expansion inland and decided that consolidation of the
coastal peoples would lead to greater progress. He ordered King
Palinar as leader of the strongest kingdom, to conquer the other
realms and create a single kingdom on the coast.

This was against every tenant of Palinar’s beliefs,
so he decided that since the Red Knight’s influence was minimal in
the new lands, he could ignore the decree. He judged
incorrectly.

On a sunny spring day much like this one, the
lookouts at Kingsport harbor bore news to Palinar. Warships
approached baring the flame on crimson flag of the Red Knight.

A fleet had crossed the sea led by the Red Knight
himself, they were joined by ships of the northern and southern
kingdoms who were more than willing to divvy up the Mindow’s land
and wealth among themselves. The Mindow fought bravely, but to no
avail.

Palinar was gravely wounded repelling the third
assault on the harbor. He was taken to a house of healing south of
the capital where he regained consciousness two days later. By then
the battle had long been lost. Bands of invaders had flooded the
kingdom to round up the Mindow and loot as they went. When just
such a band arrived at the house of healing where Palinar had been
taken, his fellow wounded as well as their caregivers fought
fiercely to allow Palinar time to escape.

Two of Palinar’s captains, both themselves wounded,
took him east toward the mountains. For weeks the three traveled
farther and farther inland. During the journey both captains
succumbed to their wounds. Palinar, lost and alone, felt his life
slipping away. Starving, exhausted, and injured, he stumbled onto a
beautiful glade with a pond fed by a waterfall where he rested and
prepared for the end of his mortal journey. The glade he found was
Angel Falls.

“Wait, what happened to the Mindow?” Dionara
questioned, then leaned forward thinking she’d spotted the flaw in
his tale. “And besides I thought that no one could enter the
mountains or they’d get gobbled up by an evil ghoul or
something.”

John’s response was a deep, robust laughter, “I
don’t know about an evil ghoul, but to put it in terms you can
identify with, normally they would have been sat on by a very
annoyed frog! But you’re getting ahead of me, don’t interrupt your
storyteller.”

Then John’s expression turned solemn once again. “As
far as the Mindow, their fate was much more dire. The Red Knight
declared them non-people, not protected by King’s Law. They had no
rights and could be taken at any time as slaves, or simply used,
abused or even killed with no recourse or consequence.”

While Dionara absorbed that sobering thought, John
returned his focus to Palinar’s plight. “Whether through fate,
luck, or happenstance, Palinar had stumbled onto the one place most
protected throughout the mountain range, the entrance to the
Caretaker’s home. To understand the Forest, or why your Kingdom
even exists, you must first understand who your friend Froggy
really is.”

The Caretaker

The Caretaker is an immortal being whose flame is
independent of any physical form. He is an observer who has roamed
the world since the dawn of time. He studies life by taking the
forms around him and has experienced every aspect of the natural
balance; the seasons, the rain that falls to nourish the forests,
and the fire that gives birth to new growth. He has felt the seed
and the fertile earth that gave it life. He was the doe giving
birth to the fawn and the cougar that hunted. Above all he seeks
balance and knowledge, and is always in search of a deeper
understanding,

Over time he perceived a new predator, one that was
intelligent and self-aware yet preyed upon its own kind. Disturbed,
he took the form of these beings hoping to understand them. Over
millennium he watched the flame of life grow within them,
eventually achieving the complexity of sentience. Seeing the vast
destruction they could cause, he came to believe that they were not
of his understanding, they were not balance. This predator called
himself, “man.”

The Caretaker kept an eye toward humanity as he
continued his search for knowledge. Many ages passed until the
Caretaker was once again faced with an even greater disruption to
balance, the Red Knight. The Caretaker looked into the Red Knight’s
immortal flame and perceived his true warrior’s spirit. Unlike the
white flame of mankind, the Red Knight’s flame burned with the
bright crimson of heart’s blood. The Caretaker knew that the Red
Knight’s hunger for battle would never be sated, and that he would
lead mankind to greater and greater conflict.

The Caretaker then cloaked his own emerald green
flame and withdrew. He came to a mountain range on an uninhabited
continent and created a sanctuary hidden from mankind’s world where
balance could be preserved.

The Caretaker found peace and balance in his
sanctuary, this sanctuary, and time passed. He was aware of the
first ships to land on his shores, but was content not to interfere
as long as they did not threaten to disrupt the balance he
maintained. He merely kept watch and dissuaded any attempt to
explore the mountain range. Those who heeded the gentler warnings,
a general feeling of fear at proceeding, were no worse for their
experience. Those who ignored the warnings were less fortunate.

Here in the Forest, away from outside influences,
the Caretaker chose to maintain his human form. Partially to
understand us, and partially because of the range of physical and
emotional experience that being human offers. So it was that when
he sensed the Red Knight’s armada approach, he knew that death
would follow and felt the very human emotion of revulsion at the
physical carnage that was about to take place. He turned his
thoughts away.