CWW: The Instrument (Part 1)

Posted by Heath on January 16th, 2009 @ 12:29 am, filed in CWW, Creative Works, Writing

(Creative Work Weekends:  On Fridays The Heathernet will feature a completed or in progress work of creative writing. Constructive feedback and ideas/prompts for more CWWs are always appreciated in the comments.)

Read: The Instrument (Part 1)

The flames were a jail cell for his gaze and they held his thoughts deep in their dancing tongues of fire. The evening was clear and cool and Meralock’s winter fur was unpacked and laying across his shoulders as he sat still by the small fire. The pack bag of rations was untied and propped up on a rock beside him but the dried meat inside was undisturbed and attracting the attention of a few hardy gnats. Somewhere in the darkness his horse pawed at the ground by his tethering tree; this too went unnoticed. Meralock remained locked in the hypnosis of the flickering blaze.

He was forcing himself to think this pile of smoldering logs was no different than any other, set with the care of a warrior seasoned by many nights camped out on worn out patches of grass just out of sight from worn out trails through the dust. The silhouette of charcoal and timbers however was unmistakably similar to the smoking shambles of his brother’s house he had discovered just six miles down the path seven hours ago.

His hands were still caked in ash with red and raw fingers peering through cracks in the soot and the smell, the stench of burnt flesh was seared onto his skin and hair. Meralock found his fool brother crushed under the heavy timbers of his barn with little of either his body or the body of the lamb he had tried to save not turned to coal. He buried Faligaard in the family plot nestled in the farmlands now untended by any of their clan. No one had seen anything except for the fire, no one had heard anything but the alarm and an explosion, and the footsteps of the responding rescuers had beaten the ground clean of any trails. Already aloof to the people of Fueradale, Meralock turned from Faligaard’s grave and set off without a word in search of answers.

There were no answers in the crackle of the flames but the arrhythmic flickering calmed his soul and cleaned his mind of the clamoring thoughts that followed him out of town. He had pushed his horse to its limits in search of smoke and marauder’s flags on the horizon. Dismounted and crashed headlong into the brush to chase imagined bandits. Finally, when both creatures had too much travel underfoot he walked his horse with slumped shoulders and a stumbling gait back to this site, a favorite spot for those both exiting and entering Fueradale with a nearby fishing pond and boundless rabbits. Not a muscle moved after the setting of the fire until, on the cool night breezes, distant music wafted down onto the crumbled man’s ears.

Meralock could hear two lines of melody haunting and rich in tone but filled with a light woodwind air. One line floated above the other at a mid-high pitch while the other quietly supported mid-low. The tune was reaching and hopeful, like something you would exalt from the top of a mountain. Meralock could not deny his mind the pastoral images the music conjured, he could not deny the innocence and wonder he remembered. The last notes of the music sounded and as it died away in a sweet sustain Meralock let himself breathe out with it. Then, in the silence, footsteps sounded on the trail. 

To be continued…