Rubrum Arcane

Red: Act II

She was going down to the valley, to replace a wheel on Vri's dray. Malen's fool of a horse had bucked two days earlier, splitting it in half.

Back when Red had been younger, the old man had made the trips to the village, but with time she had become useful enough to do the errands for him. With the years passing by, he had become too old to travel up and down. It was however quite nice, Red thought, because that meant that she could be free of him for a few hours.

The villagers in Aen always came to the old man and asked for help. He was the only one who was not a botcher, at least when it came to wood carving and carpentry. Repairing wheels, replacing rotten house fundaments, building hay racks and all the other things that the villagers could not do or had any time for. Something he loved, however, was sitting by himself, carving furniture and other things that he thought had soul. Stubborn and old as he was, and young and clumsy as Red was, it gave them at least enough to survive.

She had continued her lone journey, in the brow of the woods, alongside the quiet road cloaked in mist. The little road was open and used, it had been made by men and had a simple purpose. It was dead, likewise naked, Red thought. She loved that little gathering of pines, standing guard on the side. She called it a forest, even though it was not, because it was the only thing near a real forest she had ever been in. On the horizon, down in the other valleys, around the mountains and on the flat lands miles away, you could see the real woods. Thick and long and wide, like the ocean. And just like the ocean, the pine-forests were just another myth to her. Still she loved the little gathering of trees. She never wandered the road, instead she walked under the crowns of the old kings, that swayed with dark green coats in the wind. The pine needles under her feet. Passing around the big lumps of rock, covered by moss of green and white. Looking at the white flowers around the shadowed trunks. To hear the life of birds and if she was lucky spot some little critter. She adored it more than anything else.

At first, when Red was younger, it had scared her. But soon the old road scared her even more. After she had found the courage to stride in under the whispering crowns, it felt more sheltering and fair than anything else. Even though it radiated that enchanting and soul-dwelling presence, that all ancient things possess.

It did not take that long to reach the valley where the wooden houses stood wry and askew, like crooked old men. The valley was not very big, so they had to build toward the sky. Two, sometimes three floors. Some twiggy and long. Others broader and built in strange shapes. For the children, it was life's whim; To jump between rooftops and climb up to their hiding places, eating anything they had managed to steal from the little market place.

The only cats that were, hid there on the roofs as well. From the superstitious idiots down there on the ground. Red knew that, for she had been up there, feeding one of them; the one-eyed old cat, with a coat of black and grey, and a broken tail. She had seen plenty more of them. The cats were demons, according to the elders, and was clubbed to death on the spot if they got hold of them. Red preferred demons to people, then.

This evening you could not see the village through the thick mist, even if you were to stand a stone's throw away from it. After having shifted the bag between the right and left shoulder, until her arms were about to come off, she saw the first houses rise through the thickness. The sound of working people who were in the midst of everyday life, sounded stronger for each step now. Soon, she was surrounded by houses and cottages, and the first folks began to appear. Like diffuse shadows, lacking detail. Vri's house was well past the marketplace. The nave of the world, at least if one would ask the villagers.

Red could not see what they were selling today, or if any of the traveling merchants had anything exciting to impose on the poor fellows who happened to pass by. There were not many travelers who came here, for Aen was not along the main road, but instead on the heights of the Hillands, near the mountains, to the West. Or could it be the Northwest? Red did not remember. In any case, the merchants, who managed their way here, seldom had anything of interest to sell.