The Seduction of Sir Calek

An Orphans and the Egg story; The Seductions

In the twilight beginning to dim the small room Sir Calek Morsten, knight itinerant of the Order of Rhenos, stiffly pulled off heavy riding boots caked in half dried mud. The boots were followed by his dank socks stiff and mottled with grime. He hunched over grunting a bit, as older men do, struggling with the last sock that seemed to be pasted to his skin.

Sitting back up red faced on a simple but comfortable bed he ran his knobby hands over a faded and worn, but clean, grey quilt. The thick appendages moved in slow wide sweeps while he twisted his neck in an attempt to decipher the heraldry embroidered upon it in bronze and teal.

It had gone ambiguous with wear and neglect. I can relate old friend. He smirked at what may have been a manticore when new but now looked like a childishly drawn image of a surprised old man in a pile of… well, shit, made more comical with its look of surprise akin to being kicked in the nuts. Chuckling, again he thought, I can relate old friend.

His passively cynical mien resumed as he studied the ambiguous image. It was just some donation, a forgotten bit, from some noble that had passed through this backwater some unknown time ago.

Despite being in the middle of nowhere it seemed all men of note in Rhenos passed this way at some point, many leaving cast away mementos, such as this, lying about the unassertive keep.

It was clean, dry and in a warmish room. To him now it was a luxury.

On the tiny side table there was a battered copper ewer, a chipped earthenware mug and a tattered leather log book that he was tasked with maintaining. He pushed the logbook aside to put down the dirk and meagre coin pouch from his belt.

Lifting the earthenware mug he peered into it with a slightly disappointed look before he took a long draw of the plonk wine.

The throbbing of his feet drew his gaze down to them. They looked as bad as they felt after the long march. Blotched with filth was a charnel house of raw blisters, angry bunions, dark webs of dead veins and crooked toes capped with mangled nails roughly trimmed by his dirk.

He was grateful no infection had come. Perhaps the crone that advised him to stuff yarrow in his boots was right. Surely, it had helped with the odour. 

He was not used to walking that much anymore. Cavalry had been his way of it for the last twenty years, or so, not marching for days on end on a neglected twisting track through bogs of knee-deep muck or pushing through thick boscage amongst tangles of ankle snatching roots.

Despite being considered hale for his age of fifty and seven, the four decades of these endeavours were taking their toll. Moments of comfort, such as this had become sacred.

Slowly placing his feet, one by one, into a well-used copper basin half-filled with steaming water, he wiggled his toes about. Leagues of the brutal march dispersed as a burgeoning cloud of grey funk dissolved off of them. He breathed a long ahhhh.

 Lying on his back his thick fingers twiddled a pendant tethered about his neck by a blood red leather cord snaking through the tufts of grey hair of his chest. A chest littered with pink and scarlet scars and tattoos turned to ambiguous blue splotches.

It was a double-bladed axe carved of crystal, a periapt of Thalgrom, the blue skinned hero god of old. Scratches and patina showed its age. He studied it briefly. Memories of the old friend who had given it to him. One of the few men who had been a true friend. A man who was possibly one of the last Thalgromic priests. His friend’s words marched through his thoughts.

WITHOUT FEAR, WITHOUT HOPE, WE FIGHT AS WE MUST

Blowing out a long breath through pursed lips his gaze went unfocused at the cobwebs that skulked across the dark roughhewn beams of the ceiling. 

"She was a fine mount." he quietly said to himself a bit teary eyed.

He reflected on the dappled grey mare he had recently lost. Her attentiveness and nimble mind, he admitted, was a crutch. Indeed, she knew him well, his temperament and his needs, likely better than he knew himself. It was a crutch he needed these days.

Commands were rarely issued as he had navigated the life of an itinerant knight, a patrolman really. Just him and his steed together. The hard travel, the constant risk of life and the tensions of being judge, jury and executioner that his position demanded of him.

Niama, that was her name, was also a confidant and a councillor. Her arrival had been a blessing as he entered his golden years. The one boon fate had given him since his grand blunder long ago.

Not that he deserved it to begin with. Definitely not after she had been wasted by a stupid accident crossing a stream a stupid accident he could have and should have avoided.

A horse with a broken leg was a hard fact he never had enjoyed. Often people were easier to put down.

Niama had stood at attention on three hooves showing an awareness, almost a resignation, as her barding, tack, saddle and other trappings were transferred to the squire’s steed.

She had stood devotedly with only a slight stamp and a whicker as the aged knight expertly slipped the long narrow blade of his dirk into her loyal heart. A skill he had learned from Edugent nomads on the Jalair Steppes long ago but had never performed. Theoretically, if done properly with a shaving sharp blade, the horse never feels the steady insertion. Either it worked or Niama was that stoic. He suspected the latter and hoped for the former.

Regardless, he had pragmatically faced the reality and did what needed doing. It was one of the most challenging murders of the hundreds he had committed.

Or, was it one of thousands? Yes, it was thousands really.

There was not else to do than leave her to the six-legged weasel-like frilfths and the other scavengers of these tangles.

Thus, began the walk. Seven days of a wet and weary trek. If it wasn't mud it was jumbles of cobble and those damnable roots. Few words beyond curses were spoken between he and his squire. 

They had arrived at Hawkhorn on the Shalloeweep four days late; beaten, bedraggled and ready for hearth and ale. 

Instead, they were given a cold blunt unwelcome from Captain Ustel who had been serving here as a penance. The livid aristocratic upstart almost threatened Calek. The knight’s cool confidence and a raised eyebrow had shunted that threat. The four extra days had made Ustel as irascible as the badger on his banner. This all made Sir Calek smirk, inside of course.

Coaly, his worthless squire, had given Sir Calek a blaming and contemptuous glare before turning in, doing not a flick of a squire’s duties.

His squire, the first he had had in many years was a second son of a bankrupt noble house run by a widow that was a known, in essence, as a whore of the elite. An oversized lad of fourteen and about sharp as a fern, had little respect for his Master. Hatred was the next natural step. The youth could not and would never be a threat to Sir Calek not for a few more decades anyway.

None of this ruffled Calek. He was accustomed to such treatment. At times he found it liberating.

Officially the Captain Ustel had no livery to speak such to even a low rank knight of Rhenos. Most knights would have Ustel's badge or maybe even his blocky head for such disrespect.

One is treated differently when one is The Brazen Coward.

Thirty-two years of doggedly loyal service and still, there it was.

As it should be.

He, The Brazen Coward, was more than less responsible for thousands of his country men's deaths, brave soldiers each one of them, wasted in a foolish attempt at glory. Responsible for the loss of a major battle in a major war where his great king lost prime holdings, thousands of lives and much more. 

So, he would take it like he took his assignment to this petty holding on the fringe of the cursed Sthnaud marshes to be a monitor until another unfortunate soul was found. Likely this would be his tomb.

His last days would be spent lording over frogs and rooks. He would take that. It was likely more than he deserved.

Thirty-two years of shame and self-loathing had come to fruition.

Before that particular dreadful war there had been glory and fame for Etrion the Triumphant, the magnificent, the virtuoso and other monikers he had known then. All were masks for the vain and selfish person he had been. 

A mighty warrior, more of a gladiator really, that should never have played with war. Instead war had played with him.

Senseless war for irrelevant causes and petty championing for men too weak to back their privilege. A miasma of brutal inanity broken with long pointless, miserable waiting. Unlike most, he had been denied the comradery and commiseration that most soldiers shared.

This had been his life.

He, or rather Etrion, had, by invitation, sired a bastard for an influential cuckold vizier. He had been and still was one of the most adroit swordsmen of the lands. These two facts were why he lived to this day.

From a distance, like a fetishist, he had seen that faultless bastard grow into a decent soldier and an honourable man. Idiosyncrasies such as a strong preference for sky blue, a hatred of mussels and being drawn to cartography were all aspects they shared.

More poignantly, the bastard was much more substantial in character than his predatory court haunting father.

Finally, even poetically, in a tragic sense, Sir Calek was nearby when it came time for the bastard, his son who never knew Calek was his father, to die in a war the vizier was responsible for starting.

It was on the battlefield in this, another senseless war, that it happened. Not one hundred strides from where Sir Calek desperately had held his own astride a mount. This time in a battle of victory.

He had watched his son from a distance curbed from any depth, only meeting in the formal ways of soldiery even then merely aligned but of different tact. He knew his son saw him as The Brazen Coward.

He had been proud of ‘his’ boy/man even though he had not a stitch of involvement in his doomed prodigy’s life or death.

Now his tawny big boned grand-daughter, at a feisty fourteen years old and fatherless, had caught his attention when fate allowed. He watched this granddaughter with restraint.

Fate now seemed to have ended any chance of seeing her grow before he died.

The window under the great eave let in the last puff of daylight before lavender twilight completely swept across the room casting inky shadows.

“At least the wine is strong” he whispered as he relaxed into that sinking buzz presaging a deep sleep. The heart lightened.

 A broad band of yellow spread across the ceiling as he heard the door hinges whinge with its slow opening.  A shadow of a rabbit like one would make with one’s hand hopped across the warm hued field wobbling as the flame shifted with the candle carrier’s movement.

The wobbling stopped as she apparently set down the candle.

He was too relaxed to look at the visitor. 

"I brought a candle for the master." Purred a soft feminine voice that started at a high octave and dropped low into a vibration that matched his floating sensation, like a slow smooth ripple on smoother dark water. 

Another shadow appeared by the hare. A fox. A chase went around as he heard her breathing increase in pace. The details became more distinct. The fox’s sharp teeth and lolling tongue, the hare’s twitching ears and fluffy tail were in sharp profile. An hawk flew over the seen and disappeared. Loop

He found himself raptly contemplating how such shadow hand puppetry was possible.  Such trivial things rarely entered his consideration.

He did not expect anyone, not like this. There was only Coaly, his squire, Gither, the keep’s codger and the two drudges, adolescent miscreants, that likely should be at this remote outpost. Not a woman amongst them.

The fox caught the rabbit.

His mind queried:They were at least two days from the nearest village.

The resident hounds had been quiet.

Who else would want to be in this forsaken shite smear of land?

Why would they bring me a candle? 

Another shadow creature began to form behind the fox. This was a serpent that struck the fox from behind. Then with its fangs sunk into the fox’s neck it flipped like a flaked rope and wrapped about the fox.

His mind ticked through the considerations like a chef flipping through a long-referenced recipe log.

The fox twitched in its death throws. The serpent engulfed the fox.

The bird returned grasping the serpent in a flash and the scene ended. 

These were logical points but he felt so good in that buzz between sleep and awake, the sensation that this sweet silky voice harmonized with, that any of them would do.

The velvety voice came again and spun coyly on "It is much nicer in the dark. Don't you think? " 

"Yes." Calek heard himself mumble. 

With a puff sound, near darkness came. 

" Yes…much better… Right?” she intoned.

“Yes.” He heard himself reply reflexively. Then feeling foolish about responding thus.

“I will hear your secrets better in these shadows. I like shadows. Don’t you?" the voice continued resonating with that floating sensation.

What exactly are you talking about?Calek almost queried. 

"Oh, I'm talking about your redemption Etrion… the Virtuoso." 

He had not heard his old name for a long time. Wait! He thought. Redemption? What do you know … of me… from so long ago?

None the less he was intrigued, unaware of the long suppressed deep longing for redemption that tugged at that thread of his fate.

This felt seductive and dangerous or, perhaps, just mocking and capricious, he could not tell. It was ambiguously off.

“Hah!” she exclaimed in a sudden bright-eyed burst that made him jump.

With a broad toothy smile of even white teeth, a moon crescent that starkly contrasted with the black skin, lips and even gums that were already blending with the deepened twilight, she shouted, “You are a legend!” Then she returned to her susurrations, “Even if you are an underdog.

Plus… I know you truly have honour worthy of the task at hand and… even at your age, a sword arm that will likely be useful.”

The former made his heart soar a bit whilst the latter made it sink. In the end he was still a mercenary, a tool to be applied by greater forces than himself.

She purred on. “It will be very pleasant for me to serve you this way. You have suffered so much. One of your talents, your breadth of experience. The humility you have shown enduring this for, well generations really.

Do you know why I am here? Of course not, silly. How could you?

I could tell you. Do you want to know?" 

I'm more interested in redemption. He thought. Nor do I like too many questions too fast. His thoughts followed as his discrimination of the situation continued. He still floated half conscious. He tried to wake up fully but could not.

Overall, despite the sensing of furtive threats and the obfuscation, he felt unreasonably good about her being here now.

What could be more pleasant really?

Deeper inside a prudent voice still protested with diminishing effect. He knew he was ensorcelled but, without question, that was fine for now.

How could this not be going someplace better than he could dream of?

 She was standing against him now.

More specifically, her legs were straddling his left leg on his thigh just above the knee. Dewy heat pulsed from the warmth of her sex, her naked skin, intoxicatingly seeping through his wool breeches.

The aroma of lotus and jasmine became prominent, powerfully stirring deep memories. It was the perfume of his first and only love decades ago when romance was really just a baroque masturbation Still he was affected on a deep level by strong feelings long forgotten.

Hrumphing, he lifted himself on his elbows from the position he had sunk into. Not bothering to strain his aged eyes with an attempt at seeing into these deep shadows he looked without focus into the unseen. Then he spoke with an inflection of confusion to his groggy mien. “Why me? Who are you? What is this about now, young… young maiden?”

 He felt her slide back and down a titch till the nest of her vulva was on his knobby knee.

Leaning forward her hips bucked slightly with a swirl, all its focus at their contact point.  She exhaled sharply briefly digging nails into his thighs.

The glowing crescent of white teeth on pervasive black receded as she arched her neck back. Her chin disappeared behind her shoulders as she continued.

Sliding her hands up his thighs then hips while arching her back astern until her head near rested upon her buttocks and her long hair draped sumptuously along his shins then upon his abused and now waterlogged feet lifting from the tepid basin.

Catching a scant of light to presenting in the murky shadow, her firm heavy breasts strained forward holding Sir Calek engrossed. Yet the anatomy was askew, distorted.

Then, as she whispered a long soft moan in those hypnogogic tones through pursed lips, her hips began to slowly gyrate in a crass manner against his knee spreading heat and damp. 

The dirty desperation was stimulating even as its tawdry nature revulsed him.

I will have none of it! He vowed. Indeed, if under most any other circumstance the stalwart knight would have triumphed.

Alas, this night it was a goddess playing cat to his mouse.

Just as a prick of discrimination came to him that aroma of long-ago love played on him.  

The whole of her movements seemed unnatural from the way she bent at odd angles to the shifting proportions of her body.

Using a wartime coping hack, he ticked his spirit list that he was ensorcelled. Then moved on to managing the challenges at hand as best he could.

He ‘managed’ to raise his head, doing little more than forming a display of pigeon hued stubble on folded chins below his heavy gray moustaches. His weathered hawkish nose and tired red rimmed eyes were above these same moustaches looking as curious as they did weary. Long thinning hairs swept back over his scalp were still sweat plastered against his scalp from the long days under a skullcap.

He was the image of an overworked old man ready for sleep.

In the shadows he could see her hunched shoulders forming alluring hollows aside her supple neck. As she pressed down on him, he could feel her sharp nails on his hips, up his ribs and onto his chest teasing between pain and tickling.

It made him snap his teeth.

To his wonderment it seemed like maybe she had angel wings. 

His thoughts floated in the caresses. This feels amazing. What are the odds? Why me? 

"Yes… it feels… so good. Doesn't… it? There… were no odds.” She spoke in spurts between lustful pants. “I… chose… you. Of all mortals now…you are my one and only choice.”

She berserked into a brief and terrifying orgasmic frenzy, losing all semblance of a humanoid shape. A writhing mass of translucent gloom.

Sir Calek was paralyzed.

She quickly coalesced into her initial form.

“This… is your redemption.” She continued whilst jamming atop Sir Calek, her clarion eyes seeing far off into realms no mortal shall ever know.

With a distant voice she let forth, “Our progeny will… more than… right… your missteps of pride. It should… feel goood." 

She was right. He felt safe to accept this.

Progeny! Again, his beguilement stumbled on her dodgy insinuations. I have no progeny. This progeny?

She giggled as she jumped back with the agility of an acrobat. Then continued loud and slow as if he were a simpleton. “No silly… We… You and I… will make a progeny, a child, a beautiful baby.” She said leaning in with a beaming smile and winking hard.

He realized she was simultaneously saying it with the in universal simple sign by slowly poking her index finger in and out of a circle made by her other index finger and thumb.

 He sat upright immediately with his eyes wide open and raised eyebrows. He advised himself, Best not go against a goddess or demon or whatever spirit this may be.

It had been a long while but he would do his warriors best. 

With a surge of passion, he had not felt since youth, that he had never expected to feel again, he pulled her forward pressing her tightly against him. She glommed in, step locking the two into a deep writhing kiss.

Unnaturally fast she removed his breeches.

They resumed skin to skin. As his arms wrapped around her back he felt the soft stiff feathers of her wings. A sense of privilege and gratitude to her attentions bloomed through him. 

An angel! Oh, grace and gratitude all to…to all the holy ones. He tried to continue the orison but could not summon the words well under his bodies growing anticipation. So, mote it be!

Later…

He awoke in a blissful groggy state from what he thought was sure to have been a dream. Or, perhaps his old heart had stopped and that was a strange heaven. He chided himself as he let his eyes adjust.

The aroma of bacon came from the kitchen. His squire was doing something right. This day was getting better already.

He felt his left hand being pulled. Through the dim light and fuzzy grog, he passively followed his appendage to watch it be put upon the soft warm belly of the black angel next to him. The belly was swollen and taught. 

"He is kicking. Feel it? " the silken voice purred excitedly. 

 Sir Calek did feel it kick.

He pulled his hand away as terror gripped his heart.

In a thresh of bedding he sat up, instinctively first looking for his blade. There it was nearby hanging by his head board.

Then he looked at the woman moving next to him but just a shade in the dark. She was shrouded in a slow swirl of shadowy wisps.

Impossible this is a dream…or…my hell of the afterworld. He thought. What is happening here?  A succubus? He had heard many a tale in his life of travel and adventure. Demons were not unheard of. He knew enough to know perhaps he was unqualified to judge what was an angel or a demon. For indeed, either type of being, in its superiority, could manipulate a mere mortal, such as himself, into believing what they may.

An angel, assumedly, would not lie. A demon quite naturally might lie. If a demon did lie, one can most reasonably assume it would claim to be an angel over any claim to be a demon. Although it could claim to be about anything.

“Stop it now!” she cruelly barked.

Quite naturally his thoughts stopped. He knew that ‘his thoughts’ was what she meant. This realization alone hit hard and he crumpled inside.

“Listen mortal worm.” She lowered her voice as she put her hands on his shoulders and her mound back across his thigh. “You need not question a thing. In fact, I prefer you didn’t think!”

Ensorcelled! He knew it was true. He felt his conviction, his autonomy slipping. Whatever this is, I can submit a bit. What harm in a dip into pleasures long abandoned. There is no guarantee of a tomorrow at my age nor my occupation. I leave no heirs to shame.

He swirled down a vortex of justifications that came forth from an ethos he did not believe.  However, they were somehow his now and he would be redeemed and a child would come of it to…, there they were a this then…my mind bungles…

The confusion was his clue. Nothing holy would do such.

“Wouldn’t it?” she queried then grunted obscenely.

He jumped up and fumbled looking about for his matches and the handlamp. 

The woman was giggling in a mocking tone. 

"Oh, you need to see? " she said with seemingly innocent concern. 

The room coruscated with gathering motes of light and brightened. 

He first noticed a shabby pair of angel wings with shoulder straps that lay on the floor.

These props seemed even more mundane and tasteless as they contrasted with the adjacent spectacle.

Shadows coalesced on the bed with the vague shape of a pregnant woman on her knees with legs spread. She reached up to grab an ancient iron spike, corroded and worn to a shape more akin to a twig. It was stabbed into a spot in midair slightly above supporting the full weight of the tar black woman.  

Whispers of too many voices swirled around the room. To Sir Calek it seemed to be all the lies he had ever told or heard. 

Thin black liquid began to dribble from her swollen vulva. The apparently soon to be mother bore down smiling and grunting beatifically looking up with her gloating black eyes through dark tousled bangs. 

A long black tongue protruded like a leech folding back on itself between glistening now ebony teeth.

Sir Calek felt revulsion, a sense of dread. Was this dream continuing into nightmares? Was this Hell?

 "Don't be alarmed. I know this is a little strange but believe me it leads to your redemption." She continued between discomforting ecstatic gasps.

A little strange? No! His mind swam. This felt foul. This cannot be good. What have I done?

He contemplated grabbing his sword and running her through.

The thought of killing a birthing mother, even an obviously corrupt one, was too much for the knight. 

"See I knew you would pull through. This is a special child. This one is for you. You can raise him and teach him. Pour into him all that you were and that you should have been before you made that dreadful mistake. When you let your pride rule and thousands lost their lives." she solemnly stated with calm her gaze boring deep into him as a glistening black skinned crown began forcing its way out. 

She kept him locked in her numbingly calm gaze.

Held such he began to notice flickers of far reaching consciousness in those eyes. This was a goddess and he suspected which one it may be. This suspicion made him all the more uncomfortable. Therefore, even more so than the demon or angel. He was but a pawn or less.

He must do his best to not be destroyed or worse. There is no choice in this but surrender.

Looking up from his thoughts he saw her eyes measuring him.

Again, Calek felt more like a mouse facing a cat than a soon to be father. 

"It is true. I am a goddess.” She said and broke the gaze while she shifted her hips about.

“Don't fear me for I have a purpose for you. Therefore, it would do me no favour to hurt you. You have done the most important part already. Next comes, what you would call, the long part but and I believe for you, the enjoyable part. The part that will give your miserable life some ‘meaning’.” She grabbed him suddenly and near pulled him over as she bore down with a guttural shudder.

“You might say I love you but that would be petty. If you actually understood how important this is… urraaaaghhhh… the import of your participation with me. You are part of the changing world. This son of ours you will raise and teach the way of blades.

You shall love and protect him as your own. Finally, when his destiny calls you shall let him go. This time will be when my servant comes. You will know her by her eyes for they are eyes of smoke.”

He stood against the bed hugging her as she leaned into him on her knees with her screaming grunting drooling snotty face buried into his chest.

In a fickle veer she calmly straightened to continued her speech.

"Who are you?" he demanded, with his voice in a low growl, having to hear what he feared to be true.

"I will do something I rarely do… Etrion. Something I am well known for not doing

“You have puzzled out who I am. It is true. I am the Mother of Lies.

Here is proof of it then; in my great need of you I have been honest.” With barely an indication by her a squirming infant, black as ink, plopped out with a gush of more black fluids onto the linens. Like morning fog, the fluids began to dissipate.

The infant was undersized and thin.

The umbilical spiralling from her distended vagina was wrapped tightly around the baby's neck. The babe writhed silently in obvious distress.

Despite its dubious origins, Calek felt deep concern for the baby. It was but a helpless infant.

 She slipped into a convincing whiny goodwife impersonation with the most sarcastic facial accompaniments. "Are you not going to help him? He is your son. He needs you. See what a bad mother I am." She flopped onto her back and picked up his warrior’s pendant, ignoring her child and casually ejected the black placenta.

The infant struggled with a mortality it had known so briefly.

Studying the pendant, she gave a snorting laugh of derision. When Calek looked she caught his eye, mugged at him defiantly and flung it out the window. 

The newborn writhed, still gasping.

She picked up the tattered keep’s logbook and began to casually leaf through it tearing out pages and disappearing them into dissolving wisps of shadow. 

Calek rushed up and tended to the baby with a frantic but delicate dedication until he had freed it from the coils. With great uncertainty he drew his dirk and cut the cord and did his best to tie the stiff slimy cord into a knot.

Wrapping the snuffling bobbing baby in his dirty linen shirt he backed away from her with a scowl as he moved closer to his sword on the wall. 

She looked at him with exaggerated disbelief then motioned for him to bring the babe, which he did. Immediately after he placed it on her breast the infant bobbed its head imploringly until it hit a nipple. It began to greedily suck with brief gasping pauses.

 She evoked a long sshhhh that subtly morphed into quiet words sung in a haunting whisper.

"Some call me the Song of the New Moon, the Night Wind or The Lady of the Twisted Tongue. The Oath Breaker and The Thief of Trust.

I was around when Huit was born and I have corrupted his many sons.

Yet, for all my wiles my kin thanks me not.

I have fooled the sun god more than once.

I tricked Ugrilik into forging chains for The Flame.

And for the love of a stone I blinded Pradiki's pet in vain." 

Calek stepped back as her rhythmic words pushed him back in heart sinking awe. His hand going to the periapt of Thalgrom hanging from his neck that was not there.

He was of the small remainder that still seriously revered the old Gods of The Great Court. He had always longed for their return. But not this one he never wanted to face.

Tunini, the Mistress of Shadows and Mother of Lies. 

"Yes, you are right. I am She. Don't be alarmed.

The theologies have never done me justice. They leave out all the gain from my endeavours.

Lies have saved more lives than they have taken.

How many lives have you been responsible for being lost or saved? I know and I will share. It is exactly 7237 to 235. Impressive, even if unbalanced, numbers both ways.

So now you ARE redeemed by this one child.” She looked down upon the nursing babe in adoration.

Something about seeing this villain show motherly affection angered him

“Granted it lives to see its eleventh year. Your path to redemption is simple." 

He had known the approximations of how many had been lost in that battle, still the deep shame of what the numbers said so precisely and bluntly was staggering.

Redemption was all he desired but not like this, being badgered by a Goddess of ill repute.

 

A rooster crowed in the yard outside the window as the dawn light breaking over the predawn mists entered the chamber and his temptress winked out of existence. Leaving a night skinned babe asleep on the bed.

The babe’s sleep was brief and late morning found him tired and desperate from attempting to comfort the newt of an infant, his son. It refused the oat water Gither said should work. Then it became desperate for milk the knight did not have.

This would not do. This innocent must eat.

He spurred his squire’s piebald steed towards the village of Anyar where he could pay or, if need be, commandeer a wet nurse into service.  If any priests of The High Church interfered he would deal with them then. He had heard of a cabal of pagan Vates in the region. Perhaps they could help give advice on raising a… demigod.

No. None could know the truth. He heard himself thinking. Och, already the Mistress of Lies embroils me into the half-truths of obfuscation.

Towards late afternoon Calek had not made the distance he had hoped he would. Rain soaked through his heavy riding cloak into his filthy gambeson.

The wet spring’s muck and mire still haunted him.

The horse was mud caked and unenthused. Coaly’s gelding was already of mediocre grade and working with him challenged one’s patience. The young horse was not only stubborn but rather daft.

The drizzle of the day had finally subsided and shafts of sunlight played hues of rose and saffron on the cloud edges.

A brief respite before it got worse. The old cavalier could see a storm wall coming in from the dank Marshes of Srangel to the west.

This slow pace added to the anxiety fostered by the now listless and softly bleating child.

He could make out the low thatch of a crofters’ stead behind hedgerows and coppiced stands of hawthorn. Cow bells clanked in the distance. 

He could try to push on to Anyar knowing it would cost the life of the mount in the end.

There would be no way to keep his son dry in the oncoming deluge. 

Beyond anything the babe needed milk.

He weighed his options, pushing his reason through the fog of exhaustion.

Cow bells meant cows. Cows meant milk. This was a blessing and only minutes away. 

Erwelk, the crofters’ second eldest son, was accommodating, albeit, thrown off by a knight visiting. It was awhile until he had composed himself to inform Calek that he dreamed of soldiering someday.

The knight could already see the naive lad lying dead in arrow ridden felt armour or with his skull crushed by a destrier on the battlefield. Laying a wasted life whose last meal was filthy water and a handful of rye kerns.

He did absolutely nothing to encourage the simple young man’s dreams. 

Indeed, as he went about he exaggeratingly highlighted the benefits of a crofter’s life. Honest work, caring for your family, your family caring for you. Actually holding your grand child. Creating a safe, loving home. Things he wished he had known.

The practical matters of his visit were tended to by Erwelk’s younger cousin, Miranka who was initially reluctant to interact with the stranger but quickly responded with clear headed and competent support when the infant began screaming. 

Erwelk claimed to be honoured to be of service. Despite the young man’s pride in his stead Calek could sense the unease of having him and a black as night skinned baby in their hovel. 

Even the tongue and inside of the mouth of the babe was black. The only break from black on the wee thing were the whites of its eyes. For even its irises were black.

Soon the inkling, as Sir Calek began to call it, now slept swaddled in Miranka’s lap sated on warm fresh milk sucked from a soaked rag.

Calek brooded pacing in front of the hearth.

Erwelk busied himself mending some leather tack at the heavy walnut table with constant glances at Calek's sword and scabbard hanging on a chair back. Calek could almost see the ridiculous visions of battle heroics filling the bumpkins head.

The rest of their family had gone to Anyar with a wain full of cider and cheeses. They would return in a day or two. The only sounds were the drizzle outside and plops as a large pot of gruel and whey for the piglets’ morning feed simmered on the hearth. 

As the four busied about the bucolic scene, ebullient sounds began issuing through the door. A mass of water flooded under the door. It flowed abnormally upward to form into an undulating mass. This, in turn, resolved into the form of the opulent figure of a naked comely woman made of naught but water. The fiery light of hearth and candle reflected from her in shards contrasting with her bluish translucent watery curves. Her hair itself was a waterfall around a heart shaped face dominated by eyes with intent and ancient wisdom. 

The three people stood transfixed. 

"I have been sent for this child" her voice bubbled out like a capricious brook.

With no indication, she suddenly flowed towards Miranka. 

Snapping out of his trance Calek, moved with the speed and grace he was still known for. He grabbed his sword from the chair and smoothly flicked away the scabbard on his way as he moved between the being and the young startled Miranka who clutched the babe.

"No! This is my son!" He yelled, and salvation, he thought.

He also wondered how a sword could hurt water. 

"Yes, you were used as a stud in a most egregious manner by one with no honour.

This child must live despite that. I am only here to ensure this happens.” Her voice steadied to the authority of an ocean wave. Steady, strong and unquestionable.

"With what authority can you claim to have rights over the child's fate?" Calek said with a challenging conviction that showed his belief in his divinely given right.

The two young crofters watched and listened paralyzed with growing fear.

“She promised you redemption, did she not?

Be secure in knowing it will come. But not if You keep this child.” She eyed his blade. “You CAN NOT stop me from my task.

Hear now! There are ancient Dark Entities, many of them, that are more vile than even his own mother. These Dark Entities do not wish this child to realize his destiny.

Entities you could never protect him from.  

He goes to a safe place. If Fate wills it, you will see him again.

As far as authority goes, I have been sent by one who answers to few others in the Higher Realms. The Crone of the Seas, Great Mother of Rivers and Maiden of the Spring. The Triple goddess Matama herself! 

So now you can understand there is no stopping me from my duties." she said stepping close. Close enough he could feel her cool humidity.

Stepping back, he cleaved a broad stroke at her midriff. He knew it was a bad idea as soon as he executed it. As he expected the blade slashed ineffectively through her torso which reconnected, like water does. The lack of resistance threw off his balance for a split second. Only he noticed.

She seemed nonplussed as if she had expected it. 

"Don't push me to violence. I abhor it." She said with a hint of menace as she flowed closer. 

"How do I know any of this is true? I'm beginning to not trust the deities themselves." He blurted in wide eyed concern, his sword held at impotently ready. 

Suddenly Calek felt powerless and used, deflated. He knew that he was defeated. All his war craft was obsolete facing this adversary.

His renewed hope brought on by the prospect of being a father, of having someone to love and someone to love him was gone.

He plummeted back into his dejected self-loathing he had wallowed in for decades.

After a long silent pause, he picked up the sleeping baby and handed it, now wrapped in a fleece, to the entity. 

Taking the bundle in one arm with a mother’s familiarity, her other arm she raised towards Calek she spoke. "One more thing, this child is so sacrosanct and its hunters so capable that none but you can know of him for any and all other mortals it is forbidden." She spoke slow and steady the words sending a wash of doom to flood Calek as he realized what was likely to come.

“This exception is a boon due by your relation.” She continued in a serious tone. 

"They are innocent. They should be rewarded for their hospitality. They ..." His words diminished as he gestured to the two young crofters. There was no stopping any of this. He may as well be that chair. His grey-haired head bowed in capitulation. He meekly tossed his blade to the ground and turned away.

"Go now Sir Calek. Go do your best in what life you have remaining. Know already your redemption is real and complete." She softly spoke now, like a gentle rain.  

Without a word Calek opened the door downcast with slumped shoulders. 

"Calek?" 

"What now?" the welling frustration of loss came through in his voice. He did not turn around.

"I’m sorry about this. I'm sorry about your squire. But no others can know." 

He closed the door behind him stepping into the dark and the rain.

His periapt, the one he had just searched for after his rapist had tossed it from the window, he plucked from under his gambeson and tossed it far into the night and mud. He didn’t deserve it any more than Erwelk.

The words a long-lost friend came again for the second time tonight.

WITHOUT FEAR, WITHOUT HOPE, WE FIGHT, AS WE MUST.

Or not…he thought.