Hi
This is the next part follows directly on from the previous - thoughts of the prisoner on the decending platform with the guards. Do not be deceived the child is not what he appears. It is 20 words or so over but I will be retiring to my lair to consider your judgements and will not come back for some while...
“Learn to Swim”…
An evil thought from the past was opening in my mind.Is this then the same strange boy whose face is before me now as the changer, stealer of souls foretold and stole from my future, Profi?
My memory prises apart my actions from months before and they swiftly come back in blood and water.
More and more images fill my eyes and I remember with stunned shame or sharp relief, the punches I rained down on the little boy of single years struggling to stay afloat in the deep pool, screaming that I should aid him, his lungs half filled with pure glacier water.
His once perfect skinned face was smashed and bleeding profusely as I punched him briefly senseless and then hauled him under the frigid now crimson water in the mountain pool above the falls.
I held him there with all my strength but on outstretched arms above the water, his numb little fingers were blindly tearing at my hair and grabbing at anything to save him, then at my mouth…So without care I then bit his tiny hand so hard I broke every bone, I tasted hot blood …I knew he could not swim and by that token of chance I held him under still more tightly and thought I murdered him, drowned brutally and with ease. The roar of the falls was just feet away, we were both drifting close to the point of no return; I thought about reaching for the knife on my belt and put it into his neck as the final act.
But I told myself- “let him go - or go over yourself, maimed perhaps he will not trouble us again”.
Seconds later he was motionless and I let go, I watched his body now face down in bloody crimson water go over the smooth age worn ledge and vanish to the rocks and deep pool bellow and it was over. I looked back earnestly to the point where he had jumped in panic to the pool, my eyes filled with tears of fearful relief. Two soldiers of my Squadron, short bows tightly drawn in hand, had stood silently watching me from the ancient Pines that stood high on jagged rocks twenty feet above the scene. When they saw the boy go over they withdrew the arrows poised for a chance shot ( though I was too close for a good chance I should be shot in lieu) and looked relived, tired heads from the chase through the woods then bowed low in sudden relief, then bewilderment.
The sun was setting fast and vanished behind the Western ridge of the purple grey mountain, its sheer walls towering above us as I struggled numb with cold from the pool. Gasping for breath I moved quickly from the water as my stiffening limbs allowed and went to the edge of the falls, to confirm the boys passing.
I looked over, the drop was severe, that pleased me, thirty feet or so, no one should survive that intact even fit and able. But alas no broken bloody body or brain saturated rocks were to be seen below as expected, nothing in the pool and the light was failing fast to see more.
My eyes quickly darted over the scene below…at every huge bolder, broken shards of petrified pine, every deep pool with growing shadow or at white foaming water…primeval beauty, ancient perilous world.
Then finally something in the water immediately below took my eye, my heart sank with fear fast as I saw a great silver fish, ghost carp from the deep river and alien to this place, drop ungainly from rapid white foamed pool to rocky still pool and on into the growing twilight… away with the water, Westward.
I looked again and again into the rolling waters but it was gone.
My mouth went so dry. I did not want to speak , I blinked the tears of shock away as I looked blankly at the archers as they approached calmly from the deep wood eager for a sign from me that the boy was indeed dead and they in turn, un cursed. They looked at the knife still in its sheath at my waist, then at each other but said nothing. I knew they were wondering why I had not cut his throat, the same thought came to me again, and it would have been so simple.
Minutes later I stood in the pine needles and struggled with my wet clothes with numb hands until I was naked and then one of the soldiers Araxes ( I think ) gave me his thick cloak, and I then struggled for some time to get my soaked boots back on, finally I gave up as its truly impossible and went carefully barefoot. We said nothing as we made our way down the slope toward the light of the Regiments camp and the horses on the picket line in the deep ravine below but I knew they were very afraid, the boy had seen us all and knew our faces well.
Then, as we descended carefully on the steep ragged little track, the air was become still, and the prickly screeches of Mountain Owls close by filled the air of the bolder strewn slope with an eerie resonance. Distantly I heard the falls but step by step they were fading into the growing dusk and the ancient pines of the upper slope.
As I walked in silence with my thoughts I told myself he was dead again and again, tirelessly wandering over my actions, my hands unable to free the knife, or unwilling? He could not have lived by default, by accident, it was over. Then the great fish, the fish is always there in my doubt, slipping over the ledges to the lower pools and away.
Here and now, months away, I have dry boots; I also have chains tight upon them, the platform ground on downward, ever toward distant earth…
Purlivus had been talking for a while that was clear - he now mumbled something I heard about “a woman prisoner washing or being washed, held down… while he watched, which he liked ”. He reached up to turn the lamp down… while the other Dragoon looked down distracted to hitch up his scabbard upon its belt hook, hid beneath his cloak.
So I took my chance for action - but really, if I was honest, I hesitated a second or so fearing what they may do and it was too late…
Escape, shackled tight? No… those wild fortunes written of so many times are for tale and song or children’s stories- All I took from fates chance then handed me were words. Shouted words, questions thrown upward in desperation!
This is the next part follows directly on from the previous - thoughts of the prisoner on the decending platform with the guards. Do not be deceived the child is not what he appears. It is 20 words or so over but I will be retiring to my lair to consider your judgements and will not come back for some while...
“Learn to Swim”…
An evil thought from the past was opening in my mind.Is this then the same strange boy whose face is before me now as the changer, stealer of souls foretold and stole from my future, Profi?
My memory prises apart my actions from months before and they swiftly come back in blood and water.
More and more images fill my eyes and I remember with stunned shame or sharp relief, the punches I rained down on the little boy of single years struggling to stay afloat in the deep pool, screaming that I should aid him, his lungs half filled with pure glacier water.
His once perfect skinned face was smashed and bleeding profusely as I punched him briefly senseless and then hauled him under the frigid now crimson water in the mountain pool above the falls.
I held him there with all my strength but on outstretched arms above the water, his numb little fingers were blindly tearing at my hair and grabbing at anything to save him, then at my mouth…So without care I then bit his tiny hand so hard I broke every bone, I tasted hot blood …I knew he could not swim and by that token of chance I held him under still more tightly and thought I murdered him, drowned brutally and with ease. The roar of the falls was just feet away, we were both drifting close to the point of no return; I thought about reaching for the knife on my belt and put it into his neck as the final act.
But I told myself- “let him go - or go over yourself, maimed perhaps he will not trouble us again”.
Seconds later he was motionless and I let go, I watched his body now face down in bloody crimson water go over the smooth age worn ledge and vanish to the rocks and deep pool bellow and it was over. I looked back earnestly to the point where he had jumped in panic to the pool, my eyes filled with tears of fearful relief. Two soldiers of my Squadron, short bows tightly drawn in hand, had stood silently watching me from the ancient Pines that stood high on jagged rocks twenty feet above the scene. When they saw the boy go over they withdrew the arrows poised for a chance shot ( though I was too close for a good chance I should be shot in lieu) and looked relived, tired heads from the chase through the woods then bowed low in sudden relief, then bewilderment.
The sun was setting fast and vanished behind the Western ridge of the purple grey mountain, its sheer walls towering above us as I struggled numb with cold from the pool. Gasping for breath I moved quickly from the water as my stiffening limbs allowed and went to the edge of the falls, to confirm the boys passing.
I looked over, the drop was severe, that pleased me, thirty feet or so, no one should survive that intact even fit and able. But alas no broken bloody body or brain saturated rocks were to be seen below as expected, nothing in the pool and the light was failing fast to see more.
My eyes quickly darted over the scene below…at every huge bolder, broken shards of petrified pine, every deep pool with growing shadow or at white foaming water…primeval beauty, ancient perilous world.
Then finally something in the water immediately below took my eye, my heart sank with fear fast as I saw a great silver fish, ghost carp from the deep river and alien to this place, drop ungainly from rapid white foamed pool to rocky still pool and on into the growing twilight… away with the water, Westward.
I looked again and again into the rolling waters but it was gone.
My mouth went so dry. I did not want to speak , I blinked the tears of shock away as I looked blankly at the archers as they approached calmly from the deep wood eager for a sign from me that the boy was indeed dead and they in turn, un cursed. They looked at the knife still in its sheath at my waist, then at each other but said nothing. I knew they were wondering why I had not cut his throat, the same thought came to me again, and it would have been so simple.
Minutes later I stood in the pine needles and struggled with my wet clothes with numb hands until I was naked and then one of the soldiers Araxes ( I think ) gave me his thick cloak, and I then struggled for some time to get my soaked boots back on, finally I gave up as its truly impossible and went carefully barefoot. We said nothing as we made our way down the slope toward the light of the Regiments camp and the horses on the picket line in the deep ravine below but I knew they were very afraid, the boy had seen us all and knew our faces well.
Then, as we descended carefully on the steep ragged little track, the air was become still, and the prickly screeches of Mountain Owls close by filled the air of the bolder strewn slope with an eerie resonance. Distantly I heard the falls but step by step they were fading into the growing dusk and the ancient pines of the upper slope.
As I walked in silence with my thoughts I told myself he was dead again and again, tirelessly wandering over my actions, my hands unable to free the knife, or unwilling? He could not have lived by default, by accident, it was over. Then the great fish, the fish is always there in my doubt, slipping over the ledges to the lower pools and away.
Here and now, months away, I have dry boots; I also have chains tight upon them, the platform ground on downward, ever toward distant earth…
Purlivus had been talking for a while that was clear - he now mumbled something I heard about “a woman prisoner washing or being washed, held down… while he watched, which he liked ”. He reached up to turn the lamp down… while the other Dragoon looked down distracted to hitch up his scabbard upon its belt hook, hid beneath his cloak.
So I took my chance for action - but really, if I was honest, I hesitated a second or so fearing what they may do and it was too late…
Escape, shackled tight? No… those wild fortunes written of so many times are for tale and song or children’s stories- All I took from fates chance then handed me were words. Shouted words, questions thrown upward in desperation!
