A man in simple clothes walked the streets of Arnheim, the traveling bard Mikhal once again visited the city of the king. He reached one of his favourite locations, close to a tavern frequented by the middle class, and started playing his lute.
It didn’t take long before the first people stopped to hear what this bard would do and Mikhal continued the jolly tune until the group of curious people was large enough.
“Today I have a story for you,” he told the gathered crowd with a clear voice. “It is a tale about two people whose journey doesn’t exist anymore.”
“How is that possible?” a man from the crowd asked.
Mikhal smiled as he looked at the man. “I will come to that. The story begins a month ago, although in hindsight the story began before that. It all began two years earlier, but I am getting ahead of myself.” He looked over the people, the introduction had them curious enough to hear the tale.
“There once was a powerful sorcerer who had developed a hatred towards humans,” he began with the strong voice a storyteller should have. “What exactly fuelled this, no-one knows. One day he announced he would punish every one of us and kill us until no human would walk the earth. And he did as he said.” The brown eyes of the bard showed grief, but none of the listeners seemed to notice. “He conjured up a magical rain that left animals and plants unscathed,” Mikhal continued, his voice softer now, “but when it touched the skin of a human it burnt and ate through the flesh. He summoned stone giants to destroy the villages and cities and trample the people living there. He summond vicious wolves to hunt down and kill humans. Cries of pain, agony, fear, sorrow and grief could be heard all over the country. People were dying everywhere, cities were destroyed. The sorcered did exactly as he said he would.”
He paused as he looked at the listening crowd, some showed curiosity as to how the story would progress, others seemed horrified or sad at the fate of the people in the story.
“The sorcerer took his time conjuring up his methods of punishment and death, he didn’t care for eradicating everyone in a single blow, he wanted humankind to suffer. Two people managed to escape the city of the king when it was overrun with Liador, all summoned by the sorcerer.” Mikhal saw some people shudder at the mention of the carnivorous and highly vicious monkey-like creatures. “The townsmen tried to flee the vicious creatures, but one after another fell victim to their sharp claws, their flesh was torn from their body as they feasted on their prey, until a movement caught their attention and they went after their new victim instead. It was the hunt they craved, not the food.” He saw how some listeners clutched each other, the creatures were well-known after all and they sympathised with the victims. “Some people were able to escape, a bard knew a song that put them to sleep, a warrior fought his way through them. The cries of pain and death haunted them as the fled the city, each with a handful of survivors. They met just outside the walls and while the devasted citizens continued to flee the horrors, the bard and the warrior tried to come up with a plan to stop the sorcerer.”
“They should just kill that bastard!” someone from the crowd shouted.
“If only it were that simple,” Mikhal replied. “The sorcerer knew how to protect himself. Many of the kings knights were send out to end his life, but none was able to reach him. No, the warrior and bard knew they would never be able to reach the sorcerer in time. Instead they decided to find the Lady of the Forgotten Songs.”
“Who is that?” a child in the front row asked.
Mikhal smiled at the child. “The Lady of the Forgotten Songs is the patron of the bards, she is said to be a nymph, but not one who lives in the water or in the trees. No,” he rose his hand to the sky, “she lives in the clouds.”
The people listening to his story all looked up at the clouds.
“I’ve heard that too,” a woman sighed. “Doesn’t she watch over us?”
“She cares for us,” Mikhal answered the woman, “but she sleeps a lot. I have a song about her which I will sing at the end of my tale.” He looked around to see if anyone wanted to add something or ask a question. He didn’t mind the interruption, on the contrary, he enjoyed interacting with his listeners.
(“Their journey was long and treacherous,” he continued, “danger seemed to wait behind every corner, but they managed to reach the place where the Lady of the Forgotten Songs could be summoned.)
“They travelled through the forest with a lone wof on their trail,” he continued, “but when it attacked the warrior drew his sword and as the wolf jumped towards them he trust his blade forward and pierced the exposed chest. When they reached the fast-flowing river they saw the remnants of the bridge, so they had to swim across. They nearly drowned, but together they managed to get to the other side. Their path lead them through destroyed villages and straight to the mountains. In the mountains they followed a narrow path and finally they reached the place where the Lady of the Forgotten Songs could be summoned. And when they did a woman with a skin as blue as the sky and long, silver hair appeared.” Mikhal smiled as he described her, but it faded again as he went on with the story. “They begged her to deal with the sorcerer and save the people, but she explained the sorcerer couldn’t be stopped at his point, even though she wanted nothing more. It was simply beyond her powers to deal with his powerful magic. The warrior and bard lost hope, but she gave them a new one. She explained she could see the flow of time and she could send someone back to stop the sorcerer. The Lady of the Forgotten Songs lead them to a pond and when she touched the water it showed the sorcerer reading a book in a dusty library, all by himself. The Lady explained this moment in time was two years earlier and just after the seed of hatred was planted in his heart. This was the moment he could be killed without disrupting time too much. She also told them that if the sorcerer would be killed at this moment, everything he did for the last two years wouldn’t exist. The world would change to accommodate the change of events and the people wouldn’t even know the world had changed.”
Mikhal paused and listened to the silence, the had probably expected a tale of a heroic knight who would slay the evil sorcerer. “The bard, apprehensive about ending somone’s life, asked if there was a way to avoid the seed of hatred being planted in his heart, but the Lady explained it would disrupt the flow of time too much to stop that from happening and one way or another someone in the past would have to die. The warrior was adamant, it would only take one life to save the lives of all the people that had died so far and would die later on by his hands. So it was decided. It was the warrior who stepped through time, straight into the library, and killed the sorcerer. The bard and the Lady watched through the pond how the warrior sneaked up to the reading man and without hesitation slit his throat. When the warrior returned and rejoined the bard, the Lady disappeared.”
“She just disappeared?” Someone in the back asked.
“She turned into mist and disappeared,” Mikhal explained. “Together they travelled back and much to their surprise all the villages and cities that had lain in ruins and had been filled with dead bodies were whole again. And full of life. When they asked about the burning rain, the wolves, the stone giant or the Liador no-one knew what they were talking about. It was as if it never happened. Up to this day it’s only the warrior and bard who still remember the dead bodies in the streets, the rubble, the crying children, the screams of pain, the smell of blood and fear. No-one remembers they left on the journey to stop the sorcerer, because the sorcerer died two years earlier. Murdered in his own library.”
“Wow…” someone muttered. “So no-one remembered anything of what had happened?”
“Not a soul,” Mikhal answered him.
“Did this really happen?” a young girl asked with wide open eyes.
The man next to her, presumably her father, rolled his eyes. “Only in the imagination of this bard, honey. You shouldn’t take any of their stories seriously.”
With a smile Mikhal turned to the girl. “It might have really happened, but at the same time, it never happened.” He winked at her, plucked on the strings of his lute and sang a song about the Lady of the Forgotten Songs, as he had promised.
At the end of the song he thought about what his next song could be when he saw someone he recognized. So instead of a new song he announced it was time for him to find a meal and a place to rest. Some people gave him a few coins and thanked him for the performance. Mikhal accepted every token and word of appreciation with a smile and a bow. As the crowd dispersed, Mikhal put the coins in his pocket and went to the nearby tavern.
There wasn’t much light in the tavern, the few windows it had didn’t let much light in, but it was enough to see. The sound of a lively chatter and mugs hitting wood filled the room, the people here shared a drink and didn’t seem to have any worries. Mikhal looked around until he saw a man sit alone at a table. He wasted no time and walked to him.
“Trevor,” Mikhal greeted him. “Mind if I join you?”
Trevor looked up and gestured to one of the empty chairs. “Be my guest. I see you’re back in town.”
“Indeed I am,” Mikhal said as he sat down. He watched Trevor take a sip from a cup which undoubtedly contained ale of some kind.
“You know,” Trevor sighed as he lowered the cup. “I miss the Terulian Ale.”
“Who would have thought the sorcerer was responsible for that recipe?” Mikhal answered with a small smile.
“It’s a small price to pay,” Trevor said as he lifted the cup for another sip, a remark Mikhal could only agree with.
*** © Mariska Bekker ***