The Legends of old Lies

3 - Soft Wool

The new awakening came slowly. First it was a confused dream that tore at her nerves. Stones that broke out of a wall and threatened to bury her underneath before they crumbled to dust just before they hit and rustled down on her. A veil that formed flitting, whispering shadows as she staggered through it. Her hands stretched out in disorientated blindness until she held a crown in front of her and stroked something that stuck to it and dripped down. Then someone reached for her. For the chain around her neck. She fell back, plunged into nothingness and again walls followed her, breaking into many small pieces above her.

The dream disappeared, seeped into the ground of dry exhaustion.

There was something soft on which she lay. Something that smelled nice and nestled against her body. Rustling and mellow clanking were in the air. The clatter of wood on wood and fabric moving past her.

Tender light fluttered across her closed eyes and something warm brushed her cheeks.

Only hesitantly, interrupted by heavy blinking, she opened her eyes. Almost as if she feared being crushed again. But then what she saw was the low wood-panelled ceiling of a room. A strip of sunshine stole its way through the gap in a curtain and gently tickled her skin.

Weighed down by exhaustion, she began to stir. She raised her hands, stretched them aloft and then held them over her face. Slowly she ran them along her cheeks, then her neck. When fabric rustled near her ears again, she stopped and turned her head to the side.

A woman came towards her but stopped when their eyes met.

She wore an apron over a plain dress and held a spoon with sauce still glistening on it.

"Ah!" the woman said. She turned away from the blinking deceased and called out, "She's awake!" As she immediately turned to her anew, there was curiosity and suspicion in equal measure in her eyes.

Somewhere a door was opened, and heavier footsteps approached.

"She's awake!" repeated a man with about the same look on his face. He scratched his bearded chin. "And can she speak?"

It took a moment before the tired dead woman realised that the words had been addressed to her.

Her mouth opened. Not a word but a croak climbed from her aching throat.

"Maybe she can't speak." the woman considered with a furrowed brow, swinging her spoon to underline her concerns.

"Nonsense!" came from the man who folded his arms.

"Or she hit her head."

"Nonse... Maybe."

Again, a pitiful attempt at speech slipped out. As if her vocal cords were only slowly awakening with a groan. Something formed on her tongue. It slid across it like sticky bad and bitter honey and then almost rumbled over her lips.

"What?"

The other two looked towards her so perplexed, as if they really did not expect to hear a word at all from her.

"What happened?" the man dared to complete her question. "You shouldn't walk in the area around Greyrock. Has always been fragile ground. But since they diverted the river, the caves and passages are flooded and what doesn't turn to mud, collapses."

"Grey...rock..." croaked the voice that seemed as foreign to the owner as it did to the other two.

"Close to Lutejan." he added along the name of a city she knew just to well.

A sea of flames came to her mind. Lifeless bodies burnt beyond recognition. Suddenly it didn't smell like wool, mushrooms, wood or soup. Suddenly it smelled of destruction and burns.

Her already ash-bleached face exchanged any remnant of breathed colour for deeper green and she felt her stomach clench. She toppled onto her side and hot, sour bile hissed through her throat over her tongue onto the floor and the feet of the two humans. The man backed away appalled. The woman shook her head, snorting, and muttered something that was like gibberish to howling ears.

"How..." she braced herself slightly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "How is..."

She faltered. Who was she supposed to ask about? Who should she be worried about?

"Are you from the city?" the man asked inquiringly. "Or is that where you were going?"

Irritated and still wearing the green around her nose like a wreath, she looked at him. Both of them. The woman carried a bucket over. Neither of them seemed worried or concerned. No one wore sadness, despair or fear on their faces. The news of what had happened must have spread long ago. If it had not even been seen over a long distance. The huge cloud that stretched into the sky like a black column and darkened the day as if it had become night.

Nausea rose in her again. The woman was already holding the bucket so she could jump to her at any time. But instead of surrendering to the floor, she pushed herself swingingly off the narrow bed padded with sheepskins and woollen blankets, to get staggeringly to her feet. No one stopped her as she wobbled with the speed of a possessed woman towards the door, tore it open and rumbled out.

Fresh air hit her. It was daylight again. The sky was clear except for a few white clouds and in front of her the first blooming spring flowers were scatterd in a meadow between the houses on the edge of a small rural village.

When she had died, the trees had just lost their leaves. She had walked over fallen dry leaves and thought she could already smell winter in her nose.

Something was not as it should be. Her knees gave way and again bile forced its way down her throat. The hostess had fetched the bucket in vain. This time it hit the inner courtyard and a small freshly planted flower tub.