Origin

Origin

Legends of the Known Lands

By

Samantha Smith

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Ethelwyn Lopez

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the author.

Dedication

Table of Contents

G
emma, racing through the night, looked like a drop of white paint running down a black canvas. Twilight had come and gone on the dark, treacherous trail and, even with her sharp eyesight, the only things visible in the blackness were occasional shadows outlining large trees and rock formations along the sides of the path. No moon had risen to light her way and the darkness closing in around her was palatable; the heaviness of it was constantly threatening to steal the very breath from her laboring lungs. Rhianna, her precious cargo had moved beyond tired into an exhausted sleep many hours before.

“That might actually be a good thing”, Gemma thought to herself, as she fought to extend her senses into the darkness surrounding them. With the exception of the brisk breezes that had developed over the last hour in anticipation of a storm soon to come, the forest on either side of her was unnaturally quiet. This, of course, only fueled her paranoia about the danger that lurked in the dark shadows surrounding them. She and Rhianna had struggled to survive over the past few days and she knew her imagination was working overtime. Several times during the last several hours she was certain she felt, rather than saw someone staring at them from out of the thick brush that banked both sides of the trail. Just before the inky blackness closed in, she even thought she’d glimpsed a pair of glowing red eyes from deep within the cover of the shadows. Her only response to the unidentified threat had been to increase her already reckless speed, hoping to glimpse some sign of civilization on the trail ahead.

Gemma knew she was almost spent. She hadn’t able to stop the muscles in her legs from quivering for almost an hour now. Eventually she would have to stop or risk death from exhaustion. While she would willingly run herself to death for Rhianna, she was, also unwilling to leave her charge in this wilderness alone and unprotected. Rhianna was her best friend, her companion, and to a very large extent, her responsibility. Keeping Rhianna safe from harm just went along with the territory. But never in her wildest dreams had she thought that a desperate flight like this would ever be necessary, or that Rhianna’s life would ever be in danger from the very people who had sworn to protect her. But here they were, fleeing everything and everyone they knew and rushing into territory unfamiliar to them both on the crazy chance that they could locate a small fishing village and the only man that might be able to keep her precious Rhianna safe.

After, what seemed like hours, she spotted a small light in the distance. She snorted to alert the sleeping Rhianna, who sobbed in relief. Both of them pushed on depending, at this point, only on adrenaline. After a short time some small thatched-roof buildings came into view. Rhianna was able to flag down an elderly man who looked as if he was trying to reach his home ahead of the storm. At first he seemed reluctant to give her the information she required, but after Rhianna identified herself he quickly pointed out her destination; a few buildings near the edge of the little settlement. As they arrived at the smaller of the wooden buildings, Rhianna slid more than dismounted from her back, staggered over to a heavy wooden door, and pounded on it using, what she knew was Rhianna’s last remaining bit of strength. As the door opened, Rhianna fell into the arms of a well-muscled curly headed man sobbing;

“Oh Rhys, help. They are trying to kill me!”

E
lwyn flew across the golden sand as fast as her legs would carry her. As she ran, her sandals kicked up small wet clumps of the golden granules that seemed to cling like glue to the bottom of her sage green skirt. She began to slow down, not from fatigue, but from fear that the new skirt she and Clayre just finished sewing that morning would become noticeably stained. If she returned home with a dirty skirt, she would have to endure yet another lecture from her Uncle Rhys. Elwyn sighed as she thought about the lectures she’d been receiving, in greater numbers, lately from her uncle and Clayre. Over the past several months she’d come to the realization that she wanted to be away from her village, her apprenticeship as a healer, and even her uncle more with each passing day. She felt smothered living in the settlement of Tarlon. Unfortunately, to date, she’d been unable to come up with an acceptable alternative.

As she relaxed and began to meander further down the beach, the sea breezes whispered in her ears and played with locks of her unruly reddish gold curls as they fought to escape from the leather tie that attempted, with increasing failure, to hold them prisoner. As she walked, she reached up absentmindedly from time to time attempting to tuck an errant lock, freed from captivity, behind her ear. It was a beautiful day. Elwyn followed several large lazy clouds drifting slowly across a cobalt sky with her eyes, wondering enviously where their travels would take them. The warm yellow sun beat down upon her face with such intensity that her large violet eyes were forced into a squint to block out its harsh brilliance. The soft rhythm of the gentle waves lapping over small rocks at the water’s edge failed to penetrate her troubled thoughts. Even the gentle whispers emanating from the tall grasses as the breezes swept through them brought her no peace of mind. Her mind was not on the sun or on the beach this late spring afternoon, but upon a heaviness that weighed down her heart, like stones in a sack.

As Elwyn glanced back at the remnants of her village curling around an old dilapidated wooden wharf, she sighed. Tarlon had once been a thriving seaport like the large cities of Strabo and Galba that straddled it. Then, after a strange illness swept through its population when she was a month old, both the trade ships and the merchants began avoiding its docks. The city began to die and over the next few seasons slowly shrank to the status of a small village. One by one the businesses, shops, and inns disappeared until all that remained were some large dilapidated buildings and a few dozen small homes clustered around an ill kept village square. Elwyn had no memory of the days when Tarlon teemed with life. To her, this place had always represented nothing more than a dead end. The problem right now was that she was afraid that her life would end up like her village; sad and stagnant. There were times when she wished she felt more like the other young people who lived here. They were looking forward to following in their parent’s footsteps; young men taking over a trade from their fathers, and young women looking forward to the joys of marriage and motherhood. Something inside Elwyn yearned for much more.

Today of all days she had every reason to feel elated. This was the day that the Annual Rite of Passage was being celebrated, and her village had been chosen to host the festivities. The neighboring towns had chosen to honor Tarlon this season, because she was the only person of age representing her village in the celebration. The same illness that brought ruin to the city sixteen seasons previously had also ended the lives of all the children less than two seasons of age. Last season, there were no young people to represent her village in the festivities. This season, she would stand alone and represent Tarlon. All of the villagers were celebrating as if it was the end of a curse. In a few hours, Elwyn and all the young people from the surrounding area who had reached sixteenth seasons were being honored and presented to the community as adults. To Elwyn, the celebration generated mixed feelings. Visitors from neighboring towns and villages had been arriving all day to join in the festivities. She had to admit to some excitement at being able to listen to the merchants hawking their wares and exchanging news from far off places.

Unfortunately, this ceremony did present a new set of problems that Elwyn would now have to contend with. After the conclusion of the celebration, she was considered old enough to marry. Even though she currently had no suitors, Ston the village elder would seek out a suitable mate for her immediately. He encouraged the young women of the village to marry and begin a family as soon as they came of age. It was his way of encouraging the village to grow and it had also been a long standing tradition. Unfortunately, Elwyn could think of no worse fate than being confined to a hut, busying herself with the wifely duties of a fisherman or a hunter, and never experiencing any more of the world than this small abandoned port on the Miervari Sea. Currently, the only other option open to her was to formally accept the position of apprentice healer. The problem with that path was that it would commit her to becoming the next village healer and having to live a solitary life like Clayre, without a husband or children. Right now, that option didn’t sound appealing either.

Elwyn jumped suddenly, startled as an angry sea gull squawked, complaining about missing a potential meal. Realizing how far she’d strayed from the village square, she turned and slowly began to meander back the way she came so as not to be late for the start of the ceremony. She hated public functions and tried earnestly, earlier in the day, to convince her uncle to let her skip the celebration, but he would not hear of it. He seemed so proud and excited that she was representing the village, that she hadn’t the heart to disappoint him. Unfortunately for her, occasions such as this one only served to remind her just how different she was from her neighbors. She had different interests, different skills, different aspirations, and was definitely different in appearance from any of the other young women.