Benlunar - Episode 6
Story circles
Take the road up through the mystic mountains
Past the fantastic fishing fields and fountains
Three days through the Titan woods
Whose trees glare down through leafy hoods
Crawl in the darkness of the biting caves
It’s more dangerous the other ways
Then finally find yourself later or sooner
In the hidden valley town Benlunar
“There once was a Princess with 3 brothers. All older than she. The eldest was her father’s favourite, strong and brave. The middle brother was the people’s prince, they loved him for his good looks and charity. The youngest brother was her mother’s favourite, as he was sweet and loving. The princess felt like no one’s favourite, most of the people didn’t even know that the king and queen even had a daughter.
One day, the princess was walking through the forest, alone as usual, when she began to cry. Her tears filled her eyes so much that she could not see where she was going. When she finally stopped crying she realised that she was lost. Whilst trying to find the way out of the forest she came across a Feinhound. He was big and bold with a coat more luxurious than any bird of paradise. The princess knew she should be scared, but she was so sad that she wouldn’t even have minded being eaten. The Feinhound said, “Are you not terrified by my razor teeth?” And the Princess said “No.”
“Are you not afraid of my cutting claws?” Said the Feinhound.
And the Princess said “No.”
“Well do you not tremble at the site of my jaws?” Said the Feinhound.
But still the princess replied, “No”. The Feinhound, practised in the arts of terror, became angry. He had eaten many brave warriors, killed courageous kings and bitten mighty soldiers, yet he could not scare this little princess. She explained to him about her brothers and the Feinhound proposed a deal.
“I can make it so that you are everyone’s favourite.” He said, “I can make you the most loved princess in all the land.” The princess was very happy, but she did not trust the Feinhound.
“If you give me the love of my parents and the people, what must I give you in return?” At this the Feinhound smiled, “Oh nothing,” he said, “just a little patience.” And so the princess agreed and the Feinhound showed her out of the forest and back to her castle.
Over the next few weeks, nothing changed for the princess. She was still ignored by her parents and treated as almost invisible by anyone who met her. The only thing that was different was that the youngest brother had begun to act very strangely. He would shout at his mother, throw things at the walls in a rage and be very rude to everyone he met. Eventually, he became so nasty that his mother told him to leave the castle and live as a monk. It broke her heart to say goodbye to her most loved son, but she could no longer abide the horrible man her sweet boy had become. A few weeks after he left, the middle brother was also forced to leave the castle. He had been visiting an orphanage, when he started insulting the townsfolk, telling them that they were poor and miserable and that he was rich and beautiful. The people pleaded with the prince to stop but he would not. He gave money to criminals and rich landowners and said that they were the only people that deserved it. He stopped funding the orphanage and said that unwanted children should live in the streets. The townspeople turned on the prince after only a few days and forced him out of the town, tying him to a horse and whipping it out of the gates.
The King and Queen were distraught. Two of their beloved sons gone. But at least they had their eldest, they said. The bravest and strongest of the three. But in the weeks that followed her second brother’s exile, the princess also began to notice changes in him. He grew tired and his eyes became desperate. His once broad arms became small and skinny and instead of hunting and riding like he used to, he would only visit a house in town and stay there for days doing nothing. Eventually he never came back to the castle and renounced his title as prince. And so then there was only the princess left. She started to perform her duties as the king and queen’s only child and soon the town saw how wonderful she was. Left with no choice she became strong and brave, as well as sweet, charitable and kind. The King and Queen admitted their love for her and the princess lived very happily.
One day however, she was out riding in the forest when she got separated from her troup. And there, in a tree above her she saw a large and lazy Feinhound.
“Oh my!” she cried, “This cannot be the same beast that agreed to help me all those months ago. Is this what you have been doing instead of fulfilling your promise? Sitting in sunlight and filling your belly? Without your help I was forced to work twice as hard to win the love I desired.” At this the Feinhound grew angry.
“YOU had to work hard?” he said, “I’ll admit that your youngest brother was easy to frighten and become. A few choice words at your mother and he was quickly gone. The middle sibling was tougher but I still bent him to my will. I took his shape and insulted the town and they sent me over the hill. The eldest brother was the hardest, for he was strong and brave. So I became a beauty and made him my love sick slave. I weakened him until he nearly died by refusing his desires to leave my pretty side, after that the way was clear. I hear no thanks but you’re still welcome dear.”
“And where are they now you demon beast?” The princess cried and spat.
“They were just here, we had a feast, why do you think I’m fat?”
When he had finished the story, Ortan looked up and around the main room of the Fox & Octopus Inn and caught Liny’s eye, he held up a finger and she brought over a freshly filled flagon of beer.
“Is he boring you with stories?” She asked Lilian and Kilde as she put down the heavy mug. Lilian was still in the world of the princess and the Feinhound and so had to snap herself back to attention.
“What? Oh… no. We were just hearing about the princess and the Feinhound.” Said Lilian.
“Aaaah that’s a good one.” Replied Liny, “Not as good as the Duke and the duck though.” At the mention of this story Ortan scoffed.
“Aah that’s for little children. There’s no danger, no moral.”
“And what’s the moral of the Princess and the Feinhound then?” Liny snapped. Ortan looked a little stumped,
“Hmm, don’t hurt your family.” Kilde disagreed,
“No it’s be thankful with what you have.” He turned to Lilian to get her opinion, Lilian sensed that they were all waiting for her to offer an interpretation. She thought for a second and said,
“Never trust a promise.” There was a short pause where they all thought about this for a second. Finally, Liny turned to go saying,
“Ooh, that’s a little dark. You don’t get that from the Duke and the duck.” As she walked towards the bar Lilian noticed her parents getting up from their table and motioning her to join them for the journey home. Kilde was also standing up,
“Thank you Ortan, that was a good story, I hadn’t heard that one before.” He finished his drink and walked over to his Mother who had been sitting with Lilian’s parents. Lilian looked back at Ortan.
“Yes, thank you.” She said. Ortan shrugged and sipped his new drink.
“Like I said, it doesn’t really say what the Feinhound looks like. But I think it’s just supposed to be a magical animal.” Lilian got up to leave when Ortan spoke again.
“I think the main message is probably, be careful of creatures you meet in the woods.”
The following morning Lilian got up early. As she had suspected, her arms and legs ached from the training she had undergone the day before. She managed to haul her body out of bed, into some comfortable clothes and out of the house just as the sun was cresting over the valley. When she reached the town centre she turned back to look at the view. She was rarely up this early and marvelled once again at the ever changing beauty of the landscape. The light was dusting the tree tops down in the valley and behind her the mountain shone like a beacon. The sky was clear and blue and it looked as though it was going to be a beautiful day. As they had agreed the day before, Lilian went straight to the Thoreson house and met Mr Attorcop outside on the steps. She was relieved to see him standing there as before going to bed she had worried whether or not their strange friend might have showed up in the night. Attorcop looked happy. For a man who rarely smiled this was a welcome change. He had an extra spring in his step as they approached the mountain path,
“I think you’ll be quite impressed with what I’ve cooked up. If it works, we should have ourselves an assassin by lunchtime.” He started to jog lightly, Lilian ran to keep up. She noticed that the jogging had started earlier today, meaning that she’d be even more tired by the time they reached the shelf, if that was indeed, where they were going. During the run up the sloping path Lilian decided it was time to get to the bottom of the Feinhound mystery.
“Mr Attorcop?” She said between breaths.
“Miss Lausanne?” replied Attorcop.
“Last night Ortan the trapper, told me and my friend a story about a Feinhound?” Lilian was watching her steps as she spoke as the path was beginning to get more rocky.
“Oh yes? Which one?” Attorcop was looking out over the valley, admiring the view.”
“The one about the princess and her three brothers.”
“Oh I like that one.” Said Mr Attorcop, “did he do the rhyme at the end? Some people don’t do the rhyme but honestly without it, what’s the point?” Lilian tried to get him back on topic.
“He did do the rhyme, but, you know what the story doesn’t say? It doesn’t say anything about what a Feinhound looks like… And I was wondering.” Lilian was having trouble speaking between breaths now. Her aching body was screaming at her to stop, but Attorcop’s relentless pace continued. “I was wondering if you knew what a Feinhound looked like?” Attorcop thought for a second. When he spoke, Lilian almost got irritated at how easily his words came, he was not out of breath at all!
“Are you asking because of those hairs you gave me the other day? I should tell you that, I only said they belonged to a Feinhound because that was the most logical explanation. I’ve never actually seen one. No one has.” At these words Lilian faltered and almost tripped up on a loose rock. Her already heavy bones became further leadened with sadness. How would she break the news to Kilde? She thought. Poor Kilde. Hang on, Kilde! The idea rushed into her head so fast it burst straight past her throat and out of her mouth,
“My friend Kilde has seen one! He saw the one who’s fur we found. He said it looked like a big dog but also a cat.”
“Probably a leopard.” Said Mr Attorcop.
“That’s what I said! But he got angry when I did and insisted I was wrong. I mean, we found the fur so it was definitely something strange, right?”
Mr Attorcop thought for a second. By now they had reached the path marker that signalled their break away point for the stony shelf, but before heading down the mountain side Attorcop turned and said,
“As the story suggests, the Feinhound is a magical creature that can take many forms. That’s why people use it as a sort of ‘catch-all’ for anything they can’t explain. The fur you brought me was indeed strange but I’ve worked with hyper reflective materials in the past and for them to appear in the natural world is not uncommon. Inside oyster shells for example. I offhandedly said ‘Feinhound’ because I didn’t know what it was, when I find out that it’s from a large moth I’ll take the necessary steps to classify it. Your friend might have seen something he didn’t understand but to assume it’s unnatural or mythical in nature is, well, childish. There are many creatures in these woods Miss Lausanne, most are content to mind their own business but some are currently drawing plans against us. Which brings me to why we are here today!”
On this Attorcop seemed to close the matter. The finality of his tone and the swift motion of his turn towards the secret path suggested that he no longer wished to chat about ‘childish’ things, as he called them. Lilian resented him for calling Kilde ‘childish’ but even she had to admit that Kilde enjoyed embellishing stories. As the stepped off the stone step path and into the trees to find the animal track, Lilian remembered the time she and Kilde had caught a salamander in the river. She heard him tell 10 different people that story and every time he told it the salamander seemed to grow larger and more ferocious until by the end Kilde was practically having to slay it like a dragon.
Once they reached the circular shelf Attorcop strode into the middle, turned and held out his arms.
“Notice anything different?” He said to Lilian and she stepped onto the layer of rocks and rubble. Lilian squinted in the morning sun, she looked up to see a big bird float across the blue sky, she turned to look back at the trees she even looked down at her feet, everything seemed much the same as the day before, with the exception of the lack of fog.
“No.” Said Lilian, still a little annoyed at the non-existence of the Feinhound.
“Excellent!” Attorcop clapped his hands together in delight, “Then we should be alright. Come, have a look at this, this is an important lesson.” Lilian noticed how Attorcop seemed to be enjoying his new role as ‘teacher’, it reminded her that he probably didn’t have many opportunities to share his knowledge with anyone. As he lead her over to the very edge of the stoney circle, she felt a little sorry for him. It must be a lonely life, she thought. Attorcop beckoned her to crouch down as he pointed to a flat rock on the edge of the circle,
“Look under there,” He said, almost giggling in delight. Lilian did as requested and knelt down to have a look under the rock. She noticed a line of chalk drawn on the stones underneath it. The line seemed to continue round the edge of the circle.
“Took me ages to lift up all the stones around the outside so that the line underneath isn’t broken. It goes all the way around see.” Attorcop moved a little way around the circle and lifted another rock to expose the chalk line underneath it. Lilian wondered why he’d gone to all the trouble.
“The chalk line,” Explained Attorcop, “Is best hidden so as to not alert suspicion. I learned this from a witch in the Swamm marshes. It’s called a protection circle. The brilliance of it is, that anyone can enter the circle as long as they’re not trying to hurt anyone already inside it.”
“What happens if they are trying to hurt whoever’s inside it?” Asked Lilian, intrigued by this new kind of magic.
“Well, that’s what I’m hoping to find out today.” Replied Attorcop.
“You mean you’ve never tried it!?” Lilian almost shouted at him, how could he be so reckless with their safety when they’ve already been attacked once?
“My apologies miss Lausanne, please explain your better plan to me so that I might assist you.” Lilian felt her face go red. She didn’t appreciate the sarcasm but she admitted to herself that Attorcop probably knew more about this than she did.
“You can take a breath Miss Lausanne. I’ve made the deal so everything should be fine.”
Lilian didn’t understand.
“What deal?” She asked. Attorcop beckoned her forward to the centre of the circle and motioned her to put her hands up in a guard position. She realised that they were starting training so she obediently put her hands up to guard against any slaps or punches that were about to come her way. As Attorcop slowly began sparring, lightly aiming various attacks and observing Lilian as she blocked and deflected them, he began to talk.
“There exist many preternatural and scientific arts in this world Miss Lausanne. I’ve shown you some of the uses that can be made of Lunar Essence, the power of essence is derived from the natural world. It’s a sort of accelerated access to the power of nature.”
Lilian batted away a particularly fast punch that was coming for her left cheek,
“Does that mean,” She spoke mid block, “that some people can use the power of essence but without the actual essence?”
“Very astute Miss Lausanne,” Replied Attorcop, crouching low to deliver a blow to Lilian’s stomach, “There are indeed people who can do that, I myself am one of them. The reason I prefer to use essence however is that it is much quicker and more powerful. The cost being that finding and storing essence is very difficult.” Lilian ducked under a high kick and attempted to retaliate with an uppercut to Attorcop’s chin, this was deftly caught and sent sailing past him.
“So everytime you use magic, there’s a cost?” She asked, collecting herself for another round.
“Exactly right. Although, I would say that this is true of everything, wouldn’t you?” Lilian didn’t have time to think about the philosophy behind this statement as she was busy avoiding a flurry of blows from Attorcop’s left side.
“But I suppose,” He continued, barely noticing the exchange, “This is especially true of… magic.” Lilian registered a pause before Attorcop said the word ‘magic’. She almost thought she saw him roll his eyes.
“I don’t like that word.” He said.
“Why not?” Asked Lilian.
“Magic is what you use to impress children and idiots. Magic involves waving your arms around to distract people from what you’re doing with your hands. The word offers no gravity to the powers we deal with. The power to bend and shape the physical world to our needs, it requires a better word. Art is good, for it does require creativity and practise. But it’s still not quite right.” Lilian sensed that Attorcop was going off on another path, so she changed her stance to attack and brought him back to the conversation at hand.
“What was that about a deal?”
“Ah yes,” He said, easily deflecting all of Lilian’s punches. “The power of the protection circle doesn’t just come from the chalk, it has to be sealed with a deal. That’s where the cost of this particular power comes into play.”
“Who do you make the deal with?” Asked Lilian.
“A demon.” At this Lilian faltered and received a sharp jab in the shoulder as punishment for dropping her guard. She ignored the pain as she repeated what she’d just thought she’d heard.
“A demon??”
“Well yes. We’re dealing with witchcraft Miss Lausanne, where did you think witches got their power from? Their superior herbal remedies?” Attorcop was not letting up, he motioned Lilian to put her guard up again and changed up his attacks to ones she hadn’t seen before. A few got through but Lilian quickly learned their counters as she contemplated the existence of demons. Attorcop continued his explanation.
“Witchcraft was developed as a means to protect women from persecution. It’s a noble and ancient art. Thousands of years ago groups of women realised that they could appeal to the charitable nature of certain demons, a race familiar with persecution, and make deals with them in return for power. I happen to have been given the means to contact one of these demons and occasionally will negotiate a deal with her in exchange for power.”
Lilian was still stunned, she was letting more attacks get through her guard because her brain couldn’t handle this new and quite frankly, terrifying information.
“What was the deal? What did you give the demon so that you could make this.” She briefly gestured to the stone circle around her, which she now realised must be some kind of paranormal trap. When she asked the question though, Attorcop paused. Lilian considered trying to punch him in the face but his expression of genuine concern gave her pause.
“That’s the trouble with this one.” He said. “She made me promise to give her something, but she didn’t specify what that thing was or when it would be taken. It’s a little worrying but I’m trying not to think about it.” Lilian’s eyes opened wide,
“You said you’ve made deals like this before though. What do demons usually want?” Attorcop snapped his attention back to her.
“Oh anything really. That’s the problem with dealing with beings that are thousands of years old, they’ve all gone a bit mad. Could be that they want all your fingernail clippings for a year, could be they just want money, not because they use it, but because they think it’s funny for you not to have any. They don’t have any needs so they just ask for things that they think will be fun. I think I caught this one off guard so she just said she’ll take something at some point, no doubt to amuse some whim she feels in the future.”
“Aren’t you scared?” Asked Lilian, remembering Ortan’s story and the fate of the poor Princess.
“Oh not really. Think about it. People lose things all the time. I myself once lost an entire collection of antique salt shakers just because I forgot the box in a carriage. The only difference here is that I know I’m going to lose something, I just don’t know what.”
At that moment an almost imperceptible movement caught Lilian’s eye. It came from the trees behind Attorcop. She craned her neck to see if she could look at what caused the leaves to rustle slightly, but Attorcop realised what she was doing.
“Don’t look.” He dropped his voice down to a whisper. “Just look at me and pretend to keep training.” He made a show of putting his fists up in front of him and jabbing at Lilian, who deflected them by second nature now. To her surprise, although Attorcop knew they were being watched he continued to calmly teach Lilian the basics of self defense.
“Excellent form there Miss Lausanne. Notice the difference of power when you have your feet planted firmly on the ground, that way the punch comes all the way from the ground before connecting with the chins of your enemies. Now the true experts would be able to deflect attacks like these with their eyes closed, such is the power of experience. See now for yourself how difficult it is, that’s it, close your eyes.” Lilian looked at Mr Attorcop, distressed and confused. Was he really expecting her to close her eyes?
“That’s it!” he repeated, loudly. “Close your eyes and deflect my attacks, no peeking now!” his raised eyebrows and tilted head on the word peaking, suggested to Lilian that she should make a show of closing her eyes. As she shut them slowly, just enough so that any observer would think her sight impeded, she began to find the whole situation quite funny. Here she was, pretending to close her eyes whilst on top of a mountain whilst being stalked by a killer and trained by a mad man who made deals with demons like anyone else might buy fish in a market. She suppressed a giggle as that would have given the game away entirely and the whole venture would be a waste. Admittedly it was still hard to deflect the soft slaps and jabs that Attorcop was sending her way, but then again, this was probably a good thing as it helped maintain the illusion. Still, she was sure Attorcop had made her do this just to annoy her. Then, like an alligator emerging from the depths, Lilian saw a hooded figure appear from behind a tree trunk. As soon as she spotted them they began to run. They had chosen their moment to strike and Lilian was witnessing the attack in real time. They had a small distance to cover from the trees to the stone shelf but they did so at lightning speed. Through her eyelashes Lilian could see their blade in their hand, reflecting the light of the sun. She held her breath to see what would happen when they crossed the chalk threshold. They crossed it at maximum speed and Lilian almost gasped in shock as they first put one foot, then the other over the outer rim of stones. Had the contract not worked, she thought. Lilian presumed all was lost, the demon had lied to Attorcop, she was about to call out when something strange began to happen. The birds of prey above them were still circling and spying, the insects were still buzzing about their day, even Mr Attorcop was moving and behaving normally, but the strange, hooded figure began to slow down. Lilian watched as their limbs started to drag as if they had been plunged into a pit of mud and were being told to sprint their way out. Each footstep suspended the stranger in the air for longer and longer and as the knife sprang forward to attack the back of Attorcop’s neck it moved so slowly that Attorcop had time to calmly turn around to face his attacker. Lilian’s eyes were well and truly open by now and she gazed in amazement as the knife slowed more and more until it finally stopped, a hair’s breadth from Attorcop’s exposed throat.