Post by Wilhelm Opens-the-Way on Mar 15, 2011 12:04:22 GMT -8
Suggested Listening: Two Steps From Hell - Undying Love
The old Troll Sir Tyrn McCullough was hardly a harsh taskmaster. Yes, I'd made the mistake of telling him my true name, a mistake I learned about early on when I grasped that I had been sworn into service as his serf. The ties of Faerie magic had bound me true, because I had been an idiot and told him my Name. Names have power. I found that out the hard way at eight years old. And now the aged old blue-skinned troll had himself a wolf-boy as a slave. Or he would have, if he'd had any idea what to do with me.
Truth be told, Tyrn was not much of a knight anymore. He told me a tale of a great King he had once served, and of how that king had abandoned his knights. He told me a tale of his commission, to reunite a terrible winter queen with the lover that had jilted her, and keep the crumbling ways and paths to Arcadia safe for travellers. It was, as it turned out, a fool’s errand, akin to a suicide mission. The way to Arcadia was twisted and full of nightmares and the Winter Queen bitter and utterly untouched by love. She was a word that Sir McCullough taught me - Unseelie, and so powerful had she become, and so lost in the Umbra that she was merely a spirit, a pale, beautiful avatar of discontent and scorn, and the lands reflected that scorn, and the paths to Arcadia were as tangled and thorny as her black heart.
So he drank. A lot. From the ale made from the flowers that grow near Fairy land, which is to say, is more like chugging liquid cocaine and absinthe than like drinking traditional alcohol. Meanwhile I shined his armor (which was so filthy as to be almost unrecognizable at first), prepared the animals he'd hunted, cooked his meals (I was a bad cook, but he was truly terrible), dug his latrines, pitched his pavilion, fed and watered the horses and mended his clothes. When we would travel, I would carry about as much as his pack horse on my own back half of the time.
When I was disobedient, he would beat me (if he could catch me) and threaten to leave me alone on the twisted paths to the Gateway, where nightmares and spriggans and Unseelie Boggans and the Winter Queen's dire minions lurked. Once a year or so (though time was nearly meaningless there) we'd make the long pilgrimage to the hearth of his home back on Earth, and each year found the little hamlet where he'd made his mortal money as a patent officer approving new inventions each shabbier than the last.
"Ach, but these are dreams, laddie," he'd say, fingers stained with ink from approving them all each night. "Dreams ha' the greetest power of all."
We never stayed there long. It was always back to the ways before sunup, and soon, we hardly travelled back to earth at all. The cars got newer and the airplanes larger. Radios became televisions, which turned to color. People started controlling their televisions and calling them computers. Meanwhile I shined his armor, prepared the animals he'd hunted, cooked his meals, dug his latrines, pitched his pavilion, fed and watered the horses and mended his clothes. For an age I did these things, while I slowly, ever slowly because of the slow-time near the Arcadian Gateway, grew from a boy to a teenager.
And he benefitted from my company, I daresay. His armor shined, he was no longer ignored at court. When we'd stop at the Freeholds of his allies he'd be served good wine rather than poor. When he listened to me at court (for I had a natural talent with intrigue it seemed) he did well. He maintained his station and even managed to increase it somewhat. Before long he had some small holdings, and a Sidhe Lady that favored him enough to grant him the armor that he'd lost in a feud with her House some years earlier. It was silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson - the Fae Armor of the Knights of the Red Branch, defenders of a King called David, now long missing from his throne, but clearly not forgotten by his Knights.
I, both herald and jester kept him in good spirits, told tales of his heroism (somewhat dramatically I'll admit) and treated him as if he were the Knight that he had it in him to be. Soon pride entered his bearing once more, and kindness rather than surly grumble and gruff guffaw. I even got him to trim the unruly tangle of brambles that he'd called a beard.
One night, before he'd had too much wine to be able to speak, (for love of drink was one habit he never did kick) we sat together on the nob of a hill by the firelight, his pavilion crisp and his banner sliding lazily through the light breezes that signified the changing of the season to come.
"Boy," he said, "Ye done right by me ah wager." His black eyes glittered in the fire with something like thankfulness. "It's tyme... well tha' ye and I remember wha' i' is to behave like Knights." There was genuine affection between us. That old drunk was as good a step-father to me as any other. At least he kept me fed, and kept me from dwindling away to nothing but a dream in along the paths to Arcadia.
And he taught me the Chivalric code, to which I adhere:
To fear the Makers of our Faith and maintain their Church, be it Mother Gaia or Father God.
To serve the liege lord in valour and faith.
To protect the weak and defenseless.
To give succour to widows and orphans through charity.
To refrain from the wanton giving of offense.
To live by honour and for glory.
To despise pecuniary reward.
To fight for the welfare of all.
To obey those placed in authority.
To guard the honour of fellow knights.
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit.
To keep faith.
At all times to speak the truth.
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun.
To respect the honour of women.
Never to refuse an honorable challenge from an equal.
Never to turn the back upon a foe.
Each of these tasks would be the most difficult koans - all of which translate to almost daily tasks - I had ever undertaken and, considering that I am a Ragabash, a fine line had to be drawn between deceit and cunning. Cunning is advisable, rather needed for one of my moon, yet outright deceit is unconscionable. Where is the line drawn? With someone I don't like or admire? May cheat my enemies, but not my friends? Too easy, and not in the spirit of the code. To withhold truth or to give enough of it that your enemies may make their own minds up in accordance with what their egos believe is one path. In the end it is a line I tread each day, a decision I make each day.
And to refrain from the wanton giving of offense? How does one joke without making a little fun at the expense of others? The jibes must either be a weapon to stop swords, or to soothe them from being drawn. For Rage can be a poison that if not drawn out from time to time may harm the victim of it or make their allies those victims.
But knowing the code and applying it to my life are two different things, and much of that maturity of knowledge came from my later mentor and our travels together.
The adventures of Wilhelm Wolf-Boy and Sir McCullough the Red could fill the pages of many stories, tales of rescue and reward, of knightly training and perserverance of spirit, but sufficed to say, there comes a day when all knights must face a foe that they cannot defeat - age. Wounded from battle and weary of life, on the last day of the old Knight's life, he bade me come into his tent, where friends had gathered to hoist him up upon his feet. Other knights, their armor the same as his, silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson. There he slapped the flat of his blade upon my shoulders and asked for my oath. I gave it. I was fifteen. Then he lay down and shooed the rest out, releasing me from his service and whispering his thanks.
"Thank you boy." He said, his frail voice the barest whisper and rasp.
"Don't go," I strained to the breaking trying not to weep. I knew there was no keeping him, and my instincts told me it would have been wrong to do so. "Why?" I asked, my own voice breaking with emotion. Why did he thank me? Truth be told, I was angry just then, that he was abandoning me.
"For once again before I died," he said, wheezing his last, fluttering breath "I have served a prince."
A funeral for one such as he is both solemn and merry, yet all of the dirges, drink and raucus song in many worlds could not console me for his loss. He left me his armor, of soft steel that changed as I did all silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson, and I carried it upon my back like a burden, heading back to that very hill where I had first landed as a young boy.
I had gone there to meditate, to find my ‘roots’, to wallow perhaps. Imagine then, my surprise to see another tent upon the knoll with a banner I did not recognize. It crackled in the wind, its standard written in a language I had all but forgotten from my Father’s books. There upon the hill waved the banner of purest blue, and the glyph upon it in verdant crimson read: Deep Skies.
The old Troll Sir Tyrn McCullough was hardly a harsh taskmaster. Yes, I'd made the mistake of telling him my true name, a mistake I learned about early on when I grasped that I had been sworn into service as his serf. The ties of Faerie magic had bound me true, because I had been an idiot and told him my Name. Names have power. I found that out the hard way at eight years old. And now the aged old blue-skinned troll had himself a wolf-boy as a slave. Or he would have, if he'd had any idea what to do with me.
Truth be told, Tyrn was not much of a knight anymore. He told me a tale of a great King he had once served, and of how that king had abandoned his knights. He told me a tale of his commission, to reunite a terrible winter queen with the lover that had jilted her, and keep the crumbling ways and paths to Arcadia safe for travellers. It was, as it turned out, a fool’s errand, akin to a suicide mission. The way to Arcadia was twisted and full of nightmares and the Winter Queen bitter and utterly untouched by love. She was a word that Sir McCullough taught me - Unseelie, and so powerful had she become, and so lost in the Umbra that she was merely a spirit, a pale, beautiful avatar of discontent and scorn, and the lands reflected that scorn, and the paths to Arcadia were as tangled and thorny as her black heart.
So he drank. A lot. From the ale made from the flowers that grow near Fairy land, which is to say, is more like chugging liquid cocaine and absinthe than like drinking traditional alcohol. Meanwhile I shined his armor (which was so filthy as to be almost unrecognizable at first), prepared the animals he'd hunted, cooked his meals (I was a bad cook, but he was truly terrible), dug his latrines, pitched his pavilion, fed and watered the horses and mended his clothes. When we would travel, I would carry about as much as his pack horse on my own back half of the time.
When I was disobedient, he would beat me (if he could catch me) and threaten to leave me alone on the twisted paths to the Gateway, where nightmares and spriggans and Unseelie Boggans and the Winter Queen's dire minions lurked. Once a year or so (though time was nearly meaningless there) we'd make the long pilgrimage to the hearth of his home back on Earth, and each year found the little hamlet where he'd made his mortal money as a patent officer approving new inventions each shabbier than the last.
"Ach, but these are dreams, laddie," he'd say, fingers stained with ink from approving them all each night. "Dreams ha' the greetest power of all."
We never stayed there long. It was always back to the ways before sunup, and soon, we hardly travelled back to earth at all. The cars got newer and the airplanes larger. Radios became televisions, which turned to color. People started controlling their televisions and calling them computers. Meanwhile I shined his armor, prepared the animals he'd hunted, cooked his meals, dug his latrines, pitched his pavilion, fed and watered the horses and mended his clothes. For an age I did these things, while I slowly, ever slowly because of the slow-time near the Arcadian Gateway, grew from a boy to a teenager.
And he benefitted from my company, I daresay. His armor shined, he was no longer ignored at court. When we'd stop at the Freeholds of his allies he'd be served good wine rather than poor. When he listened to me at court (for I had a natural talent with intrigue it seemed) he did well. He maintained his station and even managed to increase it somewhat. Before long he had some small holdings, and a Sidhe Lady that favored him enough to grant him the armor that he'd lost in a feud with her House some years earlier. It was silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson - the Fae Armor of the Knights of the Red Branch, defenders of a King called David, now long missing from his throne, but clearly not forgotten by his Knights.
I, both herald and jester kept him in good spirits, told tales of his heroism (somewhat dramatically I'll admit) and treated him as if he were the Knight that he had it in him to be. Soon pride entered his bearing once more, and kindness rather than surly grumble and gruff guffaw. I even got him to trim the unruly tangle of brambles that he'd called a beard.
One night, before he'd had too much wine to be able to speak, (for love of drink was one habit he never did kick) we sat together on the nob of a hill by the firelight, his pavilion crisp and his banner sliding lazily through the light breezes that signified the changing of the season to come.
"Boy," he said, "Ye done right by me ah wager." His black eyes glittered in the fire with something like thankfulness. "It's tyme... well tha' ye and I remember wha' i' is to behave like Knights." There was genuine affection between us. That old drunk was as good a step-father to me as any other. At least he kept me fed, and kept me from dwindling away to nothing but a dream in along the paths to Arcadia.
And he taught me the Chivalric code, to which I adhere:
To fear the Makers of our Faith and maintain their Church, be it Mother Gaia or Father God.
To serve the liege lord in valour and faith.
To protect the weak and defenseless.
To give succour to widows and orphans through charity.
To refrain from the wanton giving of offense.
To live by honour and for glory.
To despise pecuniary reward.
To fight for the welfare of all.
To obey those placed in authority.
To guard the honour of fellow knights.
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit.
To keep faith.
At all times to speak the truth.
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun.
To respect the honour of women.
Never to refuse an honorable challenge from an equal.
Never to turn the back upon a foe.
Each of these tasks would be the most difficult koans - all of which translate to almost daily tasks - I had ever undertaken and, considering that I am a Ragabash, a fine line had to be drawn between deceit and cunning. Cunning is advisable, rather needed for one of my moon, yet outright deceit is unconscionable. Where is the line drawn? With someone I don't like or admire? May cheat my enemies, but not my friends? Too easy, and not in the spirit of the code. To withhold truth or to give enough of it that your enemies may make their own minds up in accordance with what their egos believe is one path. In the end it is a line I tread each day, a decision I make each day.
And to refrain from the wanton giving of offense? How does one joke without making a little fun at the expense of others? The jibes must either be a weapon to stop swords, or to soothe them from being drawn. For Rage can be a poison that if not drawn out from time to time may harm the victim of it or make their allies those victims.
But knowing the code and applying it to my life are two different things, and much of that maturity of knowledge came from my later mentor and our travels together.
The adventures of Wilhelm Wolf-Boy and Sir McCullough the Red could fill the pages of many stories, tales of rescue and reward, of knightly training and perserverance of spirit, but sufficed to say, there comes a day when all knights must face a foe that they cannot defeat - age. Wounded from battle and weary of life, on the last day of the old Knight's life, he bade me come into his tent, where friends had gathered to hoist him up upon his feet. Other knights, their armor the same as his, silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson. There he slapped the flat of his blade upon my shoulders and asked for my oath. I gave it. I was fifteen. Then he lay down and shooed the rest out, releasing me from his service and whispering his thanks.
"Thank you boy." He said, his frail voice the barest whisper and rasp.
"Don't go," I strained to the breaking trying not to weep. I knew there was no keeping him, and my instincts told me it would have been wrong to do so. "Why?" I asked, my own voice breaking with emotion. Why did he thank me? Truth be told, I was angry just then, that he was abandoning me.
"For once again before I died," he said, wheezing his last, fluttering breath "I have served a prince."
A funeral for one such as he is both solemn and merry, yet all of the dirges, drink and raucus song in many worlds could not console me for his loss. He left me his armor, of soft steel that changed as I did all silver and crystal and tooled with copper and golden leaves tinged with crimson, and I carried it upon my back like a burden, heading back to that very hill where I had first landed as a young boy.
I had gone there to meditate, to find my ‘roots’, to wallow perhaps. Imagine then, my surprise to see another tent upon the knoll with a banner I did not recognize. It crackled in the wind, its standard written in a language I had all but forgotten from my Father’s books. There upon the hill waved the banner of purest blue, and the glyph upon it in verdant crimson read: Deep Skies.
