Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams

(Short Story -XXXII.) *Samii the Storyteller*

Forgotten Dreams of Eternity: Lost Odyssey: Thousand Years of Dreams

Copyright © 2011 Sky_Knight

(Short Story -XXXII.)

*Samii the Storyteller*

Samii was an outstanding storyteller, one of the best official reciters of the national history there had ever been.

And he was far and away the most popular of the storytellers in the country's army.

Samii was not a soldier himself, but he always moved with the troops, and always with the units on the most hotly contest battle lines.

Whenever a battle ended and Samii came back to town, his head was filled with countless stories -stories of soldiers who had performed heroic deeds on the battlefield, stories of soldiers who had faced the enemy galiantly, stories of soldiers who had saved their buddies, stories of soldiers who had used their bodies as shields to protect their unit's position., stories of daring soldiers who had broken into the enemy camp single-handedly, stories of soldiers who had fought fairly to the end against the most devious of enemies.

It was Samii's job as a storyteller to depict events on the battlefield for the people of the town.

That year, Kaim was always by his side It was Kaim's mission, as a particularly capable mercenary, to accompany Samii to the front and make sure that nothing happened to this nationally beloved storyteller.

Samii liked Kaim from the moment they teamed up.

Not only did they appear to be about the same age, but with the eye of an outstanding storyteller, Samii was able to perceive the long past -the too long past -that this quiet warrior carried with him.

Samii said, "I could tell the minute I saw you that you had more military experience than any of the others in the regular army. Your head is packed with even more battlefield stories than mine.

Am I right? The only difference between you and me is that you can't put yours into words as well as I can. Am I right?"

Samii spoke in the professional reciter's ringing, rhythmic tones.

"Come on Kaim, tell me something. I don't care if it's a scrap of a scrap. Just give me a hint of something you've seen on the battlefield, and leave the rest to me. I'll turn it into a terrific story."

This was probably true, Kaim thought.

If Kaim were to put himself in Samii's hands, his never-ending life would surely be extolled in the form of a never-ending narrative poem.

And this was precisely why Kaim merely shook his head in silence.

The townspeople knew nothing of the actual battlefield -how soldiers fought on the front, how they killed their enemies, or how they themselves died in action. The people could only imagine these things upon hearing them celebrated in Samii's stories.

Conversely, the soldiers fighting on the front had no way of knowing how their stories were being told in the town.

The only ones who knew both sides were Samii himself and his bodyguard Kaim, who clung to him like a shadow.

As soon as he returned from the battlefield to the town, without even pausing to catch his breath, Samii would head directly to the square in front of the castle gate. The people would be waiting for him there -not just the residents of the capital where the castle was located but many who had traveled for days from distant villages to get there.

They were hungering for his stories. They wanted to know how their husbands and sons and fathers and lovers and friends had fought and died on the battlefield.