Tyzmon: The Last BladeHunter [1st ½, Act 1]

1st ½, Act 1: Introduction

Mysteries of the Valley (1st ½)

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Act 1

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All the players shall be brought to the stage…

Introduction

Sol hung in the sky, more than half-way down, a promise of night, and to confirm it, Luna rushed ahead acquiring the nightly hue of midnight blue. 'Twas early evening, some stars twinkling, and Venus, of course. Later, Mars would make his crimson self known, a rusty, distant light…

Tyzmon took a deep breath. He was alive and you knew he was alive. Alive. Alive and breathing. He decided to try to get a look around. The pain in his abdomen was receding to a dull throb and he no longer felt he was nailed, through his guts, to the ground.

How bad was the wound, he wondered. Apparently not bad enough: he was conscious. He could hear nothing but flinched, twice – bending to look – once for the pain, and once for fear that he'd made a loud noise and would bring an enemy to finish the job.

Did he cry out in pain? He couldn't be sure. But still, nothing, no movement, no other sounds. In his own head the surf was banging against him and carrying him partially out and back and dropping him again upon the shore to writhe in agony.

But the reality was much simpler. He was barely moving and alone in an empty field. Alone, that is, except for the bodies. Later, he'd stumble over them as he made his way out of the field, out of the past and into the present, and into a new kind of war. We may think he was dreaming; we may think he was hallucinating; we may even go so far as to think, or say we think, he was lying – and maybe he was – but the tale, so bold and full of action, demands to be repeated. And if I fail to keep your attention, if I fail to give a full account, if I fail you, dear reader, the failing is mine and mine alone: because the way these events made their way into my head, so that I could relay them to you, does not excuse a retelling that lacks polish and fails to keep the interest of the audience – or indeed, annoys the audience and turns it against the storyteller himself and forces a new kind of embellishment: The lie that I do not know the story at all.

He could hear his own breathing…

He could hear his own breathing, now that was something. It was the first sensation after what felt like the mid-point between a kind of nauseous whirling in a giant oil-topped coffee cup and oblivion, nothingness itself; an unpleasant dream without any real shapes or sounds.

As he stood, he felt better and was surprised to find there was no blood on him. He'd fallen onto a tree branch and that, I suppose, explained the pain earlier. Still, Tyzmon opened his cloaking robe from the hidden clasp at the front and began a self-inspection for injuries which apparently ended satisfactorily, as he next closed the clasp, adjusted his clothing and began to look around for his gear.

This is a problem, because he was suddenly confused and his memory was blank. He was a child in the teachings and was raising his hand eagerly as the wizard perused the towheaded students and finally settled upon the young Tyzmon who couldn't remember what he was going to say. At all. Or even what the question had been. Now, half a billion years later and a few billion steps taken on older legs, he could remember that question, but his own current circumstances evaded him, swam like shiny, dazzling fish, avoiding his grasp, but worse, even confusing his very eyes as he tried to catch the merest glimpse of them.

He straightened, blinked his eyes and tried to get a fix on his position. “Start fresh.” he said aloud. A battlefield, it was a thought. “I am in the middle of a battlefield.” “I am uninjured.” “There are no people or animals near.”