Tales of Greater Zesipia

The Hermit: Part One

He materializes, conscious, but struggling to understand his condition.

Where am I?

He opens his eyes and blinks. It is dark, nighttime.

He feels drenched and windswept. A storm dominates with a deafening clamour. Lightening interrupts and punctuates his confusion.

He inhales an unpleasant stale musky smell.

An examination of his torso causes him to jump back. Thick fur saturated from the rain runs the length of his arm. A gnarled paw with wicked long talons are where—his foggy memory suggests—hands, fingers, and nails once lived. The assaulting wet dog scent radiates from him.

Who am I? Or better, what am I?

He screams but—instead of a recognizable sound—a low resonating growl ripples from deep inside his chest. He flinches, surprised by his new inhumane voice.

I'm scared. What's happening?

He inhales and simultaneously detects more scents beyond his own stench. With uncanny precision his snout pinpoints each individual source to a level of accuracy he previously could not. The immediate smell of heavy rain is fresh. Beyond, something acrid and stale, which he identifies as salt. A full-bodied organic fragrance belongs to vegetables ripening in the earth. Livestock stewing in a nearby pen are fetid and sweaty. Dried manure burns, smokey and thick.

People live here.

His fear subsides, and he focuses his vision again. Small homes stretch along a mucky road to either side of him. A town he reasons, yet he does not remember how he arrived here. A familiarity strikes him, yet he cannot articulate its name.

Wait, what now am I smelling?

A sweet, yet earthy scent overpowers, and triggers an urge to feed. While he cannot identify what it is, he feels it to be food. He lurches forward, nose in the air, tracking it. Each footfall, light and elegant, accelerates him into a dash. Impulse navigates him along the streets, around corners, and through laneways towards an unknown destination. With the darkness of the night, roar of the storm, and new found agility, he slips undetected through the town.

A few minutes pass and he approaches a mud brick home. His pace slows.

I've been here before.

It is an unremarkable building; a roof, a door, and holes that serve as windows. Awnings drape across the yard to provide cover from the intense sun in the daytime.

His hunger rumbles inside him, yet does not originate from his stomach or mouth. The craving is foreign to him—as is everything else. Instinct directs him into the yard and around back. Light emanates from a window on the backside of the building, which he approaches to peer inside.

A low lit lantern reveals a boy sleeping on a straw pallet. His hair matted and skin caked with filth. He is unaware of both the raging storm and intruder at the window.

Stop. I know this boy. He argues with the unseen force that has driven him here, but it is a contest he cannot win.

As if his own witness, he watches himself climb into the window, contorting his body and sliding through the small opening. He hesitates once inside; the boy having not reacted to his movements.

No, no. Please. I can't do this. Don't make me do this! But his hooked paw reluctantly reaches out to the boy's shoulder. It makes contact and the boy bolts awake, screaming.

* * *

A callous cracking cascades across the night sky. Lightening punctures the darkness, illuminating the planes with flickering grotesque shadows, before finding its target on the ground. Rain drenches the grasslands, forming aimless streams along the earth, unable to absorb the downpour.

The dwarf knows it is dangerous to be outside in this storm, yet he cannot hide in his hut. The flooding groundwater has certainly destroyed his meagre crops. His only source of food will be the snares he set around his home. They should have caught some rodents upon which he could survive, yet if he does not act, they too could wash away.

He crawls through the grass to stay low and avoid attracting lightening. Even he, with the diminutive height of a dwarf, is at risk across the vast and flat savanna. His body dredges sludge and mud as he slithers across the ground, dragging a burlap sack.

His vision is useless, impaired from the darkness and chaos of the storm, though he can still find the first snare using intuition. It is under a lone tree not a far distance from his home. Movement from a mongoose caught in the trap's wire gives him a reason to smile. He gets to his feet, rushes towards the tree, grabs the animal and, mercifully, snaps its neck. He slips it into his sack.

The dwarf takes a deep breath, regains his composure, and surveys the plains, attempting to recall the location of the next snare.

A searing blast, blinding flash, and deafening crash interrupts his reflection and throws him backwards several metres. He lands on his back and his head smacks against a rock, causing him to go blank.

* * *

The dwarf regains consciousness still lying on his back. The intense storm continues to hammer the savanna. His vision is blurry, but he can see the lone tree is now ablaze. He deduces lightening struck this tree and flung him airborne.

A ringing in his ear, from the impact to his head, does not drown out the curious and prominent sound of a child crying. The flame from the burning tree reveals a human boy, whom he does not recognize, standing above and looking down at him. The presence of anyone, let alone a child, is unnatural for the dwarf. He lives alone. The closest town, Ashakada, is over five kilometres away and he has not seen another person for several years.

What's a child doing out here? At night? In this storm? Where did he come from?

His head throbs, and he sits up, grunting.

"Why... Where..." The dwarf struggles to speak to the boy as he is long out of practice.

The boy continues to cry but says nothing.

Woozily, the dwarf stands and stabilizes himself next to the boy who is just taller than him. He smiles at the boy in hopes to calm him. It is without merit and the boy continues to sob.

A rustling movement across the plains, only five or six metres ahead of them, alerts the dwarf. Before he can see what caused it, the fire extinguishes and they are both in darkness.

The boy stops crying.

"Who... there?" he yells out into the emptiness. "This child... yours?"

The boy leaps towards the dwarf and clings to him, muscles locked and trembling.

A growl comes from the tall grass, but the dwarf is still blind.

Is there something out there? Am I imagining things?

He pushes the boy aside, draws his dagger, and scans his surroundings. Lightening briefly breaks the black, yet reveals nothing tangible.

"Come," he says with urgency to the boy.

The dwarf extends his hand to the boy, who does not hesitate to take it, and leads him away.