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Birth Pains
They called me the dead one. To them I was only a ghost, those village masses
that drank the words of the Necromancer like wine. I was the cursed one, a wraith with
breath yet between his lips. There was no question in their minds of my final fate.
I did not question either. I knew what manner of man I faced. The Necromancer is
young – my age. But if his father were a viper and his mother a dragon he could not be
more cunning and black at heart.
Two and ten days ago he stood in the marketplace and held a torch in the dawn.
There was a pallid streak in the east, faint luminous green lying along the distant hills.
But the dome of sky was still black as he cried aloud, the glow of fire on his face.
“People of Starn! I have had a dream…a dream… a dream!”
I was at the well, my cloak over my shoulders. I gripped the wet, sinewy rope and
drew my bucket to the top. Icy water dashed my legs. I waited to hear what he would say.
Shutters began to open in the candlelit houses and men came to stand at their
doors.
“Who speaks?” one called.
“Ruben the Diviner speaks. I have seen the future. Listen!”
Ruben turned swiftly in a circle, the flames above his head blazing. He faced me
and I chilled at his eyes. Eyes that draw their light from an inner furnace. Eyes that catch
and hold.
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“Infidel! I have held council with the spirits about you.” Abruptly he left off
speaking to me and turned with authority to the gathering crowd around. “I curse Conrad
with death! No human hand will shed his blood. The blasphemed gods will strike him
dead in wrath!”
His message delivered, the Necromancer whipped his torch down onto the street.
It smoldered in the dust. With powerful stride he left the villagers behind and disappeared
into the darkness of his home. We saw no more of him for many days.
From that morning on, the people shrank from my very shadow in the street. Men
would not step on the mark of my boots in the dust. They called me the dead one. I
worshipped Almighty God alone.
The heat grew. The winds were strong but brought no rain. I lay in bed one night
and listened to the rushing, a sound like the sweep of phantom flames. Ashes scattered
across the floor, uncovering the glow of smoldering coals beneath. My weapons rattled
on the stone hearth. Sleep fled.
What is a wizard’s curse to me? But Ruben is going to kill me. His sword will
fulfill the prophecy. I know it.
Life is beautiful. I only want to live.
It was dark and thoughts raced. I could almost feel the cold of my father’s body
against mine. Remembrance took hold of me.
He had died of plague.
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Last year was a black winter in Stern. The stench of death was strong. Tears ran
and fell, and froze, for it was bitterly cold. We gave up our lambs for sacrifice.
Father’s last words were of burial.
“The cave. Near my hometown, Conrad. Lay me by the bones of my forebears.”
So on a howling night of snow flying and ghouls’ breath in the wind, I set out
with my father’s body in my arms.
It was a walk of twenty miles. I slept in a hollow of snow with the corpse. The last
warmth had left his stagnant blood, but the body shielded me from the whipping snow.
The cold was intense, malicious, a silent stalking enemy. By the time I had buried my
father in the icicled cave beside the bones of men long dead, I was near as cold as the
body I laid to rest.
I fought hard against death. It seemed gaping, black, a void of pain and darkness
too endless to bear.
I want to live!
My body numbed, I floundered through dim despair toward the nearby village. A
wandering shepherd picked me up from the drifts and carried me to his home. In the
warmth, my slow pulse throbbed to new life.
The cold had spared me.
Now, in high summer, I feared again for my life.
I had left my village alone, the last of my family lying dead in my arms. I returned
to it with a God-friend, with a leaning, clinging love for the One whom I had learned. I
defied the Necromancer, the witchcraft, the gods.
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Ruben’s hatred for me began the day that I preached in the marketplace. In the
flaming twilight of that waning day, he slaughtered cattle on the village alter, stamping
out my heresy in a holocaust. I watched him and my heart ached.
Standing at the foot of the altar, Ruben turned toward me. His glutted dagger
drooled blood. The smell of fire and burning flesh defiled the air.
“Fool!” he said. “I will cut out your heart on this alter someday.”
But now he had thought of a different plan…
I heard the creak of a board, a rattle, a breath. Memories faded away, morning fog
before the wind. I came fully awake and strained to see. The tip of a blade gleamed at my
shuttered window, groping for the latch.
Lighting a torch by the smoking embers, I gripped my weapons. At the flash of
fire the noises stopped and again all was silent but the wind. I did not sleep again. Twice
that night a dagger and a man’s hand worked softly at my bolted window. Twice I called
a challenge which met with only sudden silence. Morning found me still crouching on the
cold hearth stones.
I walked out into the dawn and was wildly glad to be alive. The morning star
crowned the west. There was a faint moon gleam along the horizon, even as the sun
brightened the eastern hills. I tasted the sweet, virgin air of a summer morning. The
wonder of living brought tears. If only I could keep breathing, seeing, smelling…
In the dim stable I fed and watered my stallion. His breath was warm and moist
on my hand. Placidly he stretched his neck over my shoulder, scenting the breeze. But I
was uneasy, alert to every sound. When I finished my work, I fastened the stallion’s head
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and shut the stable door. Walking to the house, I saw a grey-cloaked figure disappear
behind the corner. Long and restless searching revealed nothing.
The days passed. I slept seldom and always wore my sword. The attacks of the
Necromancer became more subtle. One afternoon I stood at the well, drawing a bucket of
precious water for myself and Vakkar, the grey stallion. Behind me stood Keri, the blueeyed girl-child – the only one of the villagers to hear my message. I set down my water
and drew for her. Thanking me, she kissed my cheek. I had no sister; never before had I
felt a child’s lips against my beard. I blessed God for her as I took her hand.
I turned back to my bucket and stooped to pick it up. Then, with a sudden chance
feeling of danger, I turned to see the Necromancer skulking behind the crowd. It was the
first time I had seen his face since he had cried a curse upon me in the village street.
What was he doing here, watching me with cruel eyes? My gaze fell upon the well water
I had drawn. It seemed clouded, discolored. It could have been only the dust, the heatglimmer of that blistering day. I glanced up and Ruben had walked away, moving
northward through the street. He could have stood beside me – close enough to touch the
water…
Water was scarce, but I overturned the bucket and watched shimmering drops
trickle down into the dirt. Then I kissed my hand to Keri and strode away toward home,
forgetting the empty bucket in the dust.
That night I kept a torch burning and paced my dirt floor with ceaseless steps until
dawn. The sound of my feet seemed loud in the stillness. My thoughts were still louder.
I have no hope to live. Unless I strike faster, stronger. Purchase back my life from
stalking death. Put a knife in his back…
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No. I will not, Christ help me.
But I want to live! I long…I long…
That longing was the moaning whisper of my very pulse. I desired life.
I clenched my hands in my hair and tried urgently to think. Then it came upon me,
simple, like warm ruddy firelight in the gloom. The sun was already rising, and I
prepared at once. I clasped on my cloak and wrapped up a loaf of bread. Then I set out
warily in the half light to saddle Vakkar.
The last thing I did was to drink deeply at the well, for I knew not where I would
find water in the dense north forest. Keri was there, drawing for her family. I clutched her
tiny hands and kissed them blindly and somehow whispered farewell. Then I returned to
my home and mounted Vakkar for the journey.
He trotted quietly through the morning light. The warm winds were still strangely
high, and they carried the smells of wood-smoke and wildflowers and dewy heather.
When I reached the woods I dropped to a walk, for there were no paths and the trees grew
close. The old, ivied trunks surrounded me like mute giants, their gnarled bark curling in
strips because of the dryness. Vakkar felt his way with care between the tangled roots. I
glanced continually to east and west, watching for shapes among the solemn trees. Once,
the flash of a brown-winged bird startled me. There seemed to be movements everywhere
throughout the dim forest. Uneasily, I pressed on.
I had not ridden long when Vakkar suddenly snorted and drew back, eyes rolling.
His hoofs scrambled at the brink of a pit, dug deep and wide into the dark earth. At the
bottom I caught the gleam of spear points. Ruben had planned this for me. By the dryness
of the earth, he must have dug this pit days ago.
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How did he know that I would go north?
Gradually my breathing slowed. I had barely escaped his trap.
After that I rode with much caution for fear of snares. Vakkar seemed troubled.
He dripped sweat, trembling as I held him back. When at last we stumbled into a serene
and sunlit clearing, I was too weary in mind and body to continue any further. I tied
Vakkar’s reins to a sapling and crumpled on to the ground, my hand still touching my
sword hilt. My breath came lightly between my lips. Radiant sunlight glimmered on my
eyelids as I lay limply, a dead body in the grass. I slept.
I woke to horror, to a cold edge of sharpened stone against my neck. The
Necromancer stood over me, panting in hideous exultation, readying himself to slay me
like a sacrifice on this altar of vibrant green.
I acted swiftly. Before my mind had even cleared from sleep I had rolled out from
under his blade and was on my feet. He hissed horribly, disappointed of his prey for the
moment. His hand clenched on the sword he held.
“Fool! O fool!”
“How did you get here, Ruben?” I demanded, my sword drawn.
“I watched you! I followed you all this way and you never knew! You enemy! I
will win in the end. Fight me if you dare!”
I backed, reaching for Vakkar’s reins with my left hand as I guarded myself with
my right. The Necromancer saw my movement and leaped like a wolf to intercept it.
“No! You will not escape me again!”
I avoided his sword, and he stood between me and the stallion, swaying like a
snake and waiting to strike. Finally he advanced on me. Our swords touched, withdrew,
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crossed, disengaged. I fought with all my strength and attention, my heart crying out for
life. Sweat poured down me.
Vakkar began to neigh – ceaseless, shrill. He pawed the bark of the sapling and
jerked fiercely at his reins. Smoke stung my nostrils. In the intensity of the fight neither
of us had noticed the glow, the searing heat. The endless expanse of ancient forest was
crumbling all around us. The Necromancer turned his eyes northward and his arm
dropped to his side. I followed his gaze and stood paralyzed.
Faster than a man could run, flames swept over the forest. Driven before the
flying wind, they passed over and left the forest behind them in ashes. They came closer
while we watched, and flaming leaves began to whirl around us in the wind. Tears ran
down my cheeks from the smoke. Ruben stumbled slowly backwards to the edge of the
clearing. There was no where to go. Running was no use before the racing fire.
Then this is the end after all? Why must I die when I was so close?
Then I remembered Vakkar. A man could not outrun the flames, but a swift
stallion might. With unsteady hands, I fumbled to untie his reins. Heat came in scorching
blasts. A flying ember singed my hair and I struck at my head to put out the fire. When
the Necromancer saw that I had grasped at the only escape, he stepped back and faced me
with features of stone.
“You have won in this, Conrad,” he said calmly. “We will meet at the feet of the
goddess in the underworld.” Then he nodded a salute, set his back against a tree and
looked steadily northward.
There was no time to lose. But for some reason I hesitated, holding the screaming
stallion back and looking into the face of the man that hated me. What was death to me,
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after all? A birth – only a birth in dazzling light. But for the man beside me with the
demon eyes…for him the flames would never end.
I reached for life. My sobbing breaths shrieked out for it. But no…
“Ruben,” I said. He looked up. “Take the horse.” I tossed Vakkar’s reins to him
and cast my away sword into the grass. “I want you to live.”
The Necromancer clutched at the reins and scrambled to mount. As soon as he
was on the stallion’s back, Vakkar bolted south toward the village. He galloped wildly
through the smoke, and the curtain of dark vapor closed densely around them.
I sent up a prayer for knowledge to touch that black soul.
Keri will tell him, I thought.
So I stand here and look north. Instead of fear there is wondrous stillness. I wait
for the rush of withering heat, the pain, the falling, the upward sweep, the dropping away
of this finite body – the glorious birth into life that will never end.