Exerpts

FRANKIE ROBERTSON

Excerpts

This is one of my early works, but still one of my favorites.

I often wondered about the people behind the heroes in the fantasy stories, the people who made it possible for the knights and wizards to complete their tasks. I also wondered: how could something horrible be the right thing to do? This is the story my fevered brain came up with.

I really like Brian Brennan's art for this story. He managed to make weaving look like a dynamic activity!

    As the day drew to a close, the twisted track from the village led me to a clearing. Long years of weather had removed any trace of paint from the small cottage I found there, but its shutters hung straight and the flowers by the door showed the place was cared for. A slight woman in a rocking chair plied her needle in the last slanting rays of the sun. As I approached she looked up at me with one faded green eye and one brown and pursed her lips. She was old, very old, and she folded in upon herself as though she had no more substance than a robe tossed into the chair. Yet those palsied, gnarled hands still produced the finest cloth in the Four Domains, and I had traveled far hoping to apprentice myself to her.
    But when I explained my goal, Mistress Nellan refused.
    "No, I'm too old now to take on a new apprentice, young man. There are many who have learned from me; go to one of them."
    "Mistress, I have already studied with two of your former students. Both Kina and Bolin have taught me all they know, but even their finest work is only called 'almost as good as Nellan's.' The standard by which all are judged is Nellan Silk and Nellan Wool. I want to learn from you, the finest weaver in the Four Domains."
    "Don't try to flatter me, boy. I'm old, and I want quiet. There was a time when I needed people around me, but that time is past. I again have the solitude of my youth and I intend to keep it. You may stay the night and share my supper. In the morning you must go." She unfolded herself from the chair and tottered through the door.
    Inside, I found much to admire. Nellan might have left behind the palaces and fine merchants' manors where she had worked most of her life, but she'd brought many of their comforts with her.
    We sat down to an early supper of fresh bread and mutton stew. The table we ate at was of fine inlaid wood and the fireplace mantle held a collection of valuable objects. Among them a silver goblet gleamed with a grapevine of gold, and a box carved of rare purple poulon wood sat next to an ivory candelabra. They were gifts, she said, from the princes and merchants she'd clothed with her fine work. "But the most generous gift ever given me isn't there on the mantle for you to see."
    Then she seemed to change the subject.    "Do you remember the Archmage Koomb?"
    Everyone knew of Koomb and how he'd destroyed the Curses of Wrandolc. Every Lay Master and bard in the land told tales and sang songs of his adventures.
    "I met him when he was just beginning his quest." She paused, her attention taken by something in the past.    "He said men could make enough of their own evil, they didn't need any extra from the mageborn."
    She fell silent for a while, and I wondered if time had withered her mind as it had her body. Could she really be old enough to have known the Archmage Koomb?
     Abruptly she said, "Remember that woven leather tunic of his? I made that for him."
    I sat up straight in my chair. "That was your work?"
    She nodded.
    The Lay Masters' tales told of a tunic that Koomb always wore. In some stories it moved and writhed on his back like a living thing; people dared not look at it directly. In others, the tunic was the source of his power. The tales never said whence it came, only that Koomb was never seen without it.
    "How did you come to make such a thing? What was he like? Are the tales true?"
    "Which tales? They all have some truth in them, but they're mostly lies. I only knew the man a few days, but he was nothing like the silly stories they tell. By trying to make him big they make him smaller than he was. Sit still, boy, and I'll tell you."
    * * *
    Nellan was spinning by the fire when she heard the crunching of feet on the morning snow. No one had come to her cottage since the villagers had brought her the fleeces from the fall shearing well over two months ago, and she expected no one until spring, when the villagers would come to pay her for the finished yarn and cloth.
    She jumped up at the first sound of approaching footsteps and moved to the door, pausing with her hand on the latch. There'd been rumors of bandits in the hills last summer, she remembered. Her heart beat faster and fear sweat pricked under her arms. But even a bandit would be some company, she thought, and opened the door just wide enough to peer out with one eye.
    It was not a bandit, only a weary young man. "Are you the weaver?"
    She nodded and opened the door a bit wider.
    He looked her in the eyes and smiled. "May I enter?"
    Embarrassed by her timid hospitality, she gestured him in. Rumors or no, you didn't keep a visitor standing in the cold.
    He hung his cloak by the fire and began to rummage in his pack. "Forgive me, I've brought nothing for your pot. But I do bring you business." He unrolled a skin, light brown in color. "Will you weave me a tunic from this?"
    She bent to examine the hide. It was thin and, from the smell, only recently cured. It was like no leather she'd ever seen. She cut a thin strip and stretched it till it broke.
    "I can't warp a loom with this; it has no strength. But I could interweave it with wool and --"
    "No. The garment must be solely of this. There must be no metal or fabric fastening. Can you make it so?"
    "Perhaps. But there's enough here, there's no need to weave it. The tanner in the village could cut the tunic whole from it. You could lace it up the sides with thongs cut from the limbs."
    "No. It must be woven -- but only from this skin. Can you do it? I'll pay you well."
    She looked again at the hide and turned various options in her mind, discarding one after another. Her eyes wandered and came to rest on the knotted string bag she took to market. Yes! She could slash the skin in staggered columns, stretch it on a frame loom and weave strips through the open rows of slashes. It would work. She nodded. "I can do it."
    They settled on the fee and she offered to share her mid-day meal with him. While stirring chopped onions and dried apples into the broth Nellan examined her customer with furtive glances. His legs were skinny, but he was tall and broad shouldered. Wavy brown hair fell into his eyes and he kept tossing it aside with a jerk of his head. He was handsome, she decided, but there was a deep weariness about him that showed in the way he concentrated on every word. It was as though he had to remember what each word meant as it was spoken.
    After their meal he was anxious for her to begin. Nellan spread the main body of the hide on the table and started cutting a series of staggered slashes. Bent over her work, she began to talk, not noticing his silence and lack of response until a question gained no reply. Then she glanced up and saw him slumped in his chair, asleep.
    He talked more over supper. The nap had done him good; the pinched look had left his eyes and he listened with interest when she answered his questions. He was easy to talk to. She had discussed nothing but spinning, weaving, and wool since her mother had died the year before. The villagers needed her skills at the wheel and loom, but her parti-colored eyes made them uneasy. They made the ward sign, and didn't linger when they did business with her.
    But Koomb, as he was called, looked her in the eyes and smiled. She found herself talking much more than she intended, and he seemed to hear the things she left unsaid as well as what she spoke aloud. When she climbed into the sleeping loft that night, her heart was lighter than it had been for many months.
    The next morning she gazed down to where Koomb had spent the night by the fire and found him preparing breakfast. As she watched his quiet, precise movements she realized she knew almost nothing about him; she'd done most of the talking the night before.
    He dispelled some of the mystery over breakfast, as he talked freely about the village he'd grown up in, his brothers and sister and the farm where they were raised. He told his stories well, and she laughed till the tears ran at his tale of the miller and his donkey.
    It was only after he'd left to gather and cut firewood for her that she noticed he'd said little of himself.
    Nellan bent to her work and found she needed to recut many of the slashes she had made the afternoon before. She supposed she hadn't cut all the way through the first time. Grumbling at her carelessness, she completed the slashes and stretched the hide on a frame till it was half again as wide as it had been. Then she began cutting strips from the long sections of skin that had been the animal's limbs. Once again the hide struck her as unusual and she wondered what beast it was from, but she was neither tanner nor hunter that she would know such things, and she dismissed the thought.
    Late in the morning when she stopped to prepare dinner she had an ache behind her eyes. I'm not used to this leather work, she thought, as she plopped dumplings into the stew.
    Koomb didn't return for dinner. Nellan waited past the usual hour of her meal; the sun passed its zenith and the grumbling of her stomach became insistent and still he did not come. Finally she ate her solitary meal feeling foolishly bereft.
    Afterwards, she began the tedious process of weaving the long thongs through the slashes by hand. She worked carefully, leaving a little slack in each strip to prevent breakage when the finished garment was worn. The thin ribands of skin wouldn't take much strain and the friction of cut leather against cut leather slowed her work.
    By mid-afternoon when Koomb returned, the ache behind her eyes felt like a knife in her brain. He glanced first at the frame and she could tell he was disappointed in her slow progress. Then he looked at her and his brows drew together in concern.
    "What's wrong? Are you ill?"
    She forced a weak laugh. "My head feels like someone took an axe to it. It'll pass. I'm just not used to the smell of such recently cured hide," she said, wrinkling her nose at the acrid odor of stale urine.
    He pressed his lips together tightly and examined the barely begun weaving. He seemed angry.
    She tried to divert his attention. "How long have you been a traveling tanner?"
    "I am not a tanner." He bent to rummage in his pack.
    "Trapper, then."
    "No," he said, pulling out a small bag from which he extracted a black gummy chunk. He cut off a bit and handed it to her. "Chew this. It will ease you."
    She regarded the strange stuff in her hand. "What is it?"
    He shrugged. "An herbal concoction I've found eases suffering such as yours."
    She looked at him and he returned her gaze directly and smiled. His confidence reassured her. She peered again at the glistening glob in her hand and sniffed it. It had none of the nasty, sour smell she remembered from the vile medicines of childhood. In fact, it had no odor at all.
    The pain lanced deeper behind her eyes, making the decision for her. Nellan shut her eyes, popped the strange stuff into her mouth and began to chew.
    It was stiff and stuck to her teeth. The first bite released a tangy aroma that penetrated every space in her head and the taste felt clean and smooth on her tongue. As she continued to chew, the room began to tilt and she thought she saw Koomb moving his hands in an intricate pattern.
    "Lie down," he said. "I'll fix supper." He kept a steadying hand on her back as she climbed into the loft and collapsed on her pallet.
    When Nellan awoke she realized Koomb had let her sleep past her normal supper time. Though she felt groggy, the torment in her head was gone, and she lay for some time in the near dark trying to decide whether to get up and eat or go back to sleep.
    Gradually she became aware of a murmuring. She peered under the railing and saw Koomb standing with his hands on the weaving frame, speaking words she didn't understand. She watched for a long time, waiting to see what he would do, but he didn't move, and after a while sleep took her again.
    In the morning Koomb looked weary, but he greeted her with such an open smile she thought she must have dreamed his strange behavior of the previous night. He stayed close about the cottage that day, doing the repairs that were part of her fee for the weaving. Her headache didn't return and she made better progress in her work.
    Nellan's attempts to draw Koomb out met with fatigued silence at both dinner and supper, and he fell asleep by the fire before she'd cleared the dishes after the evening meal. She gazed at him with a mixture of pity and curiosity. He must have been a long time gone from the farm, she thought, and no longer used to hard work.
    That night her sleep was troubled.
    She saw a tall, incredibly fat man. He was naked except for the rings he wore on every finger, but his pendulous belly obscured his maleness. He pointed a bloated, accusing finger at Koomb. Then his skin fell from his body. Koomb picked up the skin and walked away. The immense flesh left behind began to burn, flailing mindlessly in the flames. Wolves came, slavering and snapping, to eat the smoldering remains. In a ravenous frenzy they consumed the corpse, then one by one they died, writhing and howling in pain.
    Nellan startled awake, heart pounding, eyes staring into the darkness. The flickering light from the sunken fire did little to reassure her, and she lay on her pallet, clammy with fear, breathing in ragged gasps. Gradually her heart slowed, and she shook her head, dismayed that she could be so affected by a mere dream. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
    The dream returned a second time. And a third. Each time the naked man's flesh became whiter and more leprous. Each time she woke it was from wolves dying in ever greater agony.
    She was grateful when dawn finally arrived. Koomb's long rest seemed to have restored him; she wished her sleep had been as refreshing. When she came down the ladder his expression of concern was immediate. She must look as bad as she felt.
    "Bad dreams," she forestalled his query.
    He glanced at her sharply, but he didn't ask about them, and she didn't offer any explanations. She wanted to forget the past night's visions as soon as possible. She wanted those dreams to evaporate like morning mist, as all dreams should, but the image of the huge man's collapsed skin remained with her clearly, and the memory of the dying wolves crushed her appetite. Koomb's presence in her dreams and the recollection of the accusing finger pointed at him embarrassed and confused her. Nellan hardly spoke a word despite Koomb's attempts to draw her out and she avoided meeting his eyes.
    She sought refuge in her work as Koomb turned to leave for his own chores. "I don't believe it! I know I cut these thongs clean through." Nellan held up a piece of scored hide.
    This time Koomb didn't meet her eyes but gazed past her to the weaving. "Perhaps you missed a piece when you were cutting."
    "Then why is it scored?" She shook her head, no longer sure. Maybe she had been careless again.
    Koomb paused with his hand on the door-latch. "How much longer until you finish the garment? The work you asked of me is almost complete. I must travel westward soon."
    His words reminded her of an unwelcome truth. He was a customer, and when she finished her work for him he would go on about his business. Her solitary routine would resume.
    "The tunic will be ready by mid-day tomorrow." By tomorrow's supper she would be alone once more.
    By mid-morning the ache in her head had returned in full force. It began to affect her eyes; at the edge of her vision the weaving seemed to twitch, but when she focused on it directly it lay still. She tried to ignore the movement she only half saw, but it distracted her, and each time she turned to look the sharp throbbing grew worse.
    Koomb came in at mid-day to find her cradling her head in her hands. Gently he pulled her upright on her stool until she leaned back against him, and placed his hands on her brow.   He began to murmur strange words.
    His actions vaguely surprised her, but nothing mattered except the agony behind her eyes, which nearly drowned out the sound of his voice. At first his hands felt cool and soothing, but gradually they warmed, sending a wave of relaxation through her and driving out the pain.
    Koomb pushed her upright and stepped around in front of her. He knelt and cupped her face with his hand. "Better?" He smiled.
    Koomb's hand lingered on her cheek. Nellan felt herself blushing as she gazed into his eyes and she searched for something to say. "Why didn't you say that you're a healer?"
    Koomb slowly withdrew his hand and gave her shoulder a squeeze. "Do you feel able to work now?"
    Of course. He was anxious to be away.
    Her blush deepened and she dropped her eyes. "Yes, I can work."
    As the afternoon wore on Nellan's head remained clear but she handled the strips of skin gingerly, touching them no more than necessary. The leather had begun to feel greasy, and she wondered if it had been properly cured. Koomb had denied being a tanner after all. What was he then? He never said outright that he was a healer. She pondered the peculiar twist her life and weaving had taken since his arrival. She'd never suffered much from headaches and nightmares before this. No one had looked her in the eyes with warmth and humor much before either. It was almost like magic the way her life had changed.
    A little grue of excitement ran down her back.
    Then she laughed aloud. Of course Koomb was a healer; he'd eased her pain twice, after all. Mages were old and forbidding and uncommon. They lived alone in ensorcelled castles, weaving their arcane enchantments in isolation. They did not come aknocking at weavers' cotts in the dead of winter. The idea of Koomb with his bright eyes and gentle smile being a mage made her giggle.
    Her good humor made the work go faster and at day's end she had nearly finished the weaving. Two more rows the next day, then she would fashion the woven leather into a tunic. She told Koomb at supper.
    Koomb's pleasure at the news relaxed him and he shared more stories of his boyhood. Nellan had no stories to tell in return; her odd eyes had kept people and interesting gossip away. She let Koomb talk on in his easy amusing manner. Her confusion of the morning had passed and she took pleasure in his company, but every time she laughed at his tales she felt a little stab of dread. Tomorrow he would leave.
    She hadn't laughed for a long while before he came; she didn't think she would laugh again after tomorrow. His coming had made clear how bleak her life had been.
    If only I didn’t have these god-cursed eyes, she thought, he would not matter so. But she did have them, and they didn't frighten him.
    They lapsed into a companionable silence. His openness gave her the courage to hope, and she sat staring at the fire, running the words she wanted to say over and over in her mind. Finally she blurted, "The village needs a healer. Could you not stay?"
    He spoke gently and his eyes were sad, as though he knew why she had asked. "No, Nellan. I cannot."
    She felt the heat rise in her face. She wouldn't beg. "It's late and I have much work tomorrow. Good night." Nellan climbed the ladder to the loft stiffly, knowing he watched her.
    The dreams returned that night. The skin of the fat man rose up empty from the ground where it lay like a cast off garment, and reached out beseechingly to her, the loose flesh hanging in folds. She scrambled away from the horror, but for every step she took back, it took two forward. It was going to catch her, smother her. It was almost upon her. She fell, screaming as it grasped for her foot.
    She awoke to find Koomb shaking her.
    "You cried out --"
    The terror didn't fade with waking. "What is it? That skin! What does it want from me?"
    Koomb's reaction shocked her out of her hysteria. Anger distorted his features. He jumped down from the loft, strode to the loom and began shaking it.
    "Leave off!" he snarled. "You cursed son of a troll, she is none of yours!" And he began to shout incomprehensible words in a voice that made her hair stand on end.
    She saw then that he wasn't shaking the loom. He held it steady, but the weaving jumped and jerked, like a beast raging against confinement. Koomb's muscles bunched and sweat stained his thin shirt as he struggled with the heaving of the thing on the loom. Slowly its movement decreased until it remained still.
    Koomb stopped shouting and his shoulders slumped. After a few moments of silence he lifted his gaze to where she still sat, staring, huddled in the loft. He lifted his hand, beckoning her down. "Come. It's over for now. Come down by the fire."
    She came down the ladder but kept well apart from both Koomb and the loom. "What is that thing? What have you brought into my house?"
    Koomb glanced away as though searching for a way to avoid the truth, then he looked Nellan in the eyes. "It's the skin of Wrandolc."
    "Wrandolc! But he's immortal!"
    "No, not immortal. Somehow he ensorcelled himself, or perhaps the rumors of his troll blood are true. Whichever it is, if after his death enough of his body remains intact, he will regenerate and return to life."
    She cast a panicked glance at the weaving. "Then why have you preserved his skin and brought it here? Get rid of it! Throw it into the fire!"
    Koomb held up his hand, stopping her. "Wrandolc extorted his wealth from the Four Domains with the threat of five Curses. For these many years the princes have been well and truly caught. At Wrandolc's True Death the Curses would be freed upon the Domains and anyone who dared end Wrandolc's life would be responsible for the devastation of all he held dear. Or if Wrandolc's death weren't complete, and his body not utterly destroyed, he'd regenerate, and turn the Curses upon whomever had dared threaten him. So the Domains have paid for their safety and Wrandolc thought himself secure --"
    "Then you've freed the Curses!"
    "No. He hasn't yet truly died; his skin is here, and it contains his skill and power, but he can do little to exercise it. It has a kind of life, and as long as it does the Domains are safe from the Curses."
    "But why have me make a tunic from that abomination?"
    "I cannot allow the Curses to remain a threat. The tunic will be whole enough to give me the power to eliminate them, and as I wear it the effect of my movement on the weave of the garment will prevent Wrandolc from regenerating."
    He planned to wear it. Gods! Just weaving the thing gave her headaches and nightmares. What would wearing it everyday do to him?
    "Will you finish it?" He asked.
    The thought of touching it again revolted her. But he had asked. A mage powerful enough to defeat Wrandolc could, no doubt, have compelled her, but he asked.
    She nodded and moved toward the loom.
    Gratitude showed in his face, and relief, but she saw the oppressing loneliness that lay beneath. His life as a mage must be as solitary as mine has been, she thought. It will be more solitary still when he takes up this quest.
    He reached for her hand as she crossed the room.    "It can wait till morning," he said, moving close behind her.
    She turned to gaze up at him and laughed tightly. "Do you really think I could sleep now?"
    "I wasn't thinking of sleep," he said quietly, and brushed her cheek with his lips. Then he stepped back a little, giving her the freedom to refuse.
    No one had offered her affection since her mother had died. With his caress the hunger for a human touch flooded in, and the horror of the last few minutes faded. And who would embrace him, once he wore that thing? There was no question of denial.   She put her arms around him and moved with him to his pallet by the fire.
    All the next morning Nellan worked on the tunic, while blushing memories of the night before twisted with thoughts of what her life would return to when Koomb departed. Tight efforts to hold back tears chased soft unconscious smiles across her face. He couldn't stay; she would not ask him, and there was no place for her in what he must do. But she thought there might be a way he could help her have a normal life. A life where others would look her in the eyes and smile.
    By mid-day she had finished and she handed the completed tunic to him.
    "It's perfect," Koomb said, shrugging to test the fit across the shoulders. "Thank you." His gaze said more than his words as he kissed her forehead and nose and mouth. "Thank you," he murmured again, and pulled her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head. A moment later he reluctantly pushed her back.
    She was sorry to leave his arms, and glad to move away from the tunic. Nellan stared down at her tightly clasped fingers. "You must leave now?" Her tone made it more statement than question, but he answered anyway.
    "Yes."
    Nellan looked once more at Koomb. Now was the time to ask. She spoke quickly, afraid he might stop her.
    "I don't want to live alone any longer. I know you can't stay, I don't expect it. But you have Power. Please, make my eyes the same so people won't fear me."
    Grief furrowed his brow. "I cannot."
    "I helped you! Will you not help me?"
    "Sorcery on living things requires constant attention. I could change your eyes, but in a short time they would again be as they are now."
    "But the skin...?"
    "In time the magic on it too will fade, and Wrandolc will truly die, thus my haste. Before that happens I must use the power that remains in it to eliminate the Curses."
    She slumped on her stool. "There is no help for me then."
    Koomb thought for a moment. "Yes, I think there is."
    * * *
    "Then he magicked my looms and my wheel so they would teach me their secrets. I didn't waste his gift, and as I learned, people sought me out for my weaving. Merchants and princes had no care for the colors of my eyes when I could give them the finest cloth in the land, and they invited me to weave and teach in their fine homes and castles. Koomb made it possible for me to live among people... and then he left." The old woman stopped speaking and looked away.
    I glanced over at the loom in the corner. "So that's why no one can equal your work. You use enchanted looms."
    "No, not for many years. When I had learned all they had to teach, the magic left them. My skill is all my own, and will be, for what little time is left to me."
    "Then you kept some of their secrets to yourself?"
    "No, no. I taught my apprentices well. When they left me their cloth was as fine as mine."
    "But Nellan Cloth, its reputation --"
    "Reputation is as much a thing of wagging tongues as skill. Pride should come from what you do, not what people say of you. Like Koomb. He was a man to be respected before ever a song was sung or his tale told."
    We were silent. There were no secrets to learn, no enchanted looms. I had traveled far, leaving behind family and friends, to search out the finest weaver in the Four Domains and there was nothing she could teach me. It was too hard and empty a thought to accept and my mind returned to Nellan's story.    "What of Koomb and his tunic?"
    "I know no more than what the bards say. If you believe them, he and the tunic were consumed when he destroyed the Fifth Curse with magefire."
    The next morning I repaid Nellan's hospitality by chopping firewood. I felt the muscles of my back contract and stretch with each swing of the axe, and the cool, quiet morning air was punctuated with the crack of splitting wood. I let the rhythm of the axe take me like the rhythm of the shuttle being thrown, and when the wood was stacked I found that Nellan's tale had woven a new pattern of understanding in me.
    Inside, she was warping her loom. I waited until she looked up, then I petitioned again to apprentice to her.    "... You have more to teach me than weaving," I trailed to an end, sounding awkward in my own ears.
    I expected her refusal to be as firm as her body was frail. She'd been adamant for her solitude the day before, and I had little hope of being accepted at the second asking. But instead of a frown, a smile crinkled around the direct look in her eyes.
    "I'll think about it. Today you can help me warp the loom. Tomorrow, we'll see."

    - END -