Part One: Shadows in the Ettinland
Chapter I: Ear, Eye and Oak
The calendar on the wall reckoned it as the 100th year of ettin rule of Earth.
Upon a quiet hill, a man sat on his backyard porch, smoking an oaken pipe.
He wore a black wide brimmed hat, his vest and pants matching the same color. His hair was a brownish red; his skin olive; eyes a dark brown.
He was Kurt Eisenforst and Kurt Eisenforst was certain of one thing and one thing only: he was being watched.
For many years he had possessed a sharp sense for prying eyes and whispering intruders.
By whom though was watching him that cool summer eve, he was uncertain.
This watcher was certainly not the egg-shaped eye made of silvery quickore that he kept in his breast pocket.
The Eye, he knew well, watched him whenever it pleased.
It told him so. The mouth of the Eye, however remote it was to his home, spoke to him, whispering on certain dreary nights.
Its words were a strange comfort in the bleakest of days to have it speak to him of John and the terrible world beyond his hilltop cabin.
No, he knew he was being watched by something less material than the brazen egg-eye in his pocket.
It was a something he could not determine; and, as benign as it may have been (and he was not certain of that fact) he could possibly rest more easily if that watching-something revealed itself in a more public manner. Whenever the watcher appeared, he sensed its quiet breathing, its stinking smell like burnt hair, even its small human-like shadow leaping across the oaken walls of his den in the fireplace glow. Most troubling, it reminded him of a childhood memory, though the memory could have been a dream he falsely remembered one hundred years since: a dream of a lady standing before a white noonday sun rising through a purple sky; of rolling hills sheathed in a hoary snowfall; frost smattered citrus orchards tucked away behind oak and red willow; and the watching-thing’s little shadow.
Then, another shadow, and a third and a finally a crowd surrounded him and the lady. All the while near Kurt and his watchers, a schoolhouse swallowed in flames collapsed.
Weary of the dream, he would awake, brow sweating, and speak to the Eye pressed to his breast, asking a question with an obvious answer like: “Why am I still here?” And from within his ear he would receive a buzzed whisper from the bleeding Eye’s master that would prick his skin with goosebumps, answering: “He gave me to you.”
The sorrowsome black ear also burdened him with voices more than a mile away, and from every space in between (however selectively it may have listened in). Indeed, there were no other homes terribly near his cabin. Though it required a moment of meditative quietude, his accursed ear was acutely tuned to every fowlish chirp, arboreal rustle and bit of gossip at many great distances from wherever he might have been. The pulver-ear cast its net upon the whole of Great Oak County. It was, ironically, that abominable ear, that unwanted and despised disfigurement, which had assisted him in more than one perilous situation, he begrudgingly acknowledged. And queerly, it was never always so clear how much of what he heard came from a distant locality or from some hidden place he had no eyes for.
The Ear and the Eye blurred the distinction for him: both were transmitters, linking him to strange things; watching things; things such as the little watching shadow from the snowy orchard, and the whispering buzz of the Eye.
There were other hidden things moreover that the Eye provided him an audience to: things that he did not fully comprehend; things which cackled and ululated poisoned tongues manifesting their crooked whims to him; things he would soon learn of more intimately.
The Eye in particular (when it chose to answer him) provided breaking news from the counties and countries outside Great Oak.
Kurt was privileged in this regard; information from Great Oak’s Outland was only legally uttered from the tongues of ettin-thane cronies, broadcast on telescreens in town squares. This privilege of Kurt’s to learn of life beyond the County Zone was not reliably prompt: at most he heard from the Eye only on a weekly basis. Sometimes it went silent for months. When he turned fifty, it said nothing for half a decade.
+++++
On May 13th of the centennial, Kurt rode his black stallion Canute on his weekday post delivery route.
His final stop of the day was an elephant-sized post box that stood in front of the steely black fence compassing the Von Herrenhausen ranch. The Von Herrenhausens were one the wealthiest and politically influential noble thane-clans in Great Oak County and across the Greater United Super-county of Azza, abbreviated as the GUSA. Divided into North, South, East and West, the Herrenhausen-Wests were granted a title to the Great Oak Ranch before the Taboo-Smashing Wars a century prior.
Their patriarch, Martin Von Herrenhausen-West was granted the title of Sheriff from the head of the Governing Council of Rural County Zones, Margrave Arnulf von Bloodfirth, ten years after the county was established as an R.C.Z.
As sheriff, this meant that all imports, all murder investigations, and all approvals to exit the R.C.Z. were first sanctioned by Sherrif Martin’s office; officially at least. For the most part, Martin Von Herrenhausen did not impede the everyday going-ons of his citizens, even if they acted in any manner deemed unlawful by the ettins. People were not so ignorant regarding the relationship the Von Herrenhausens had with the ettins, but so long as the county folk had bread and wine at dinner and a contraband telescreen, all suspicious dealings with foreign powers were shrugged-off. A few decades into the R.C.Z.’s establishment and most knew better than to publicly criticize the ettins. God forbid one call Martin Herrenhausen’s daughter a wasteling-lover in public like in the old days. Too much “rabble rousing” called for the attention of General Orbaulker and that sallow,long armed oddity was far less charming than the Sheriff.
“He’s comin’...he’s comin’,” said scratchy little voices to Kurt’s ear. Kurt ignored those voices, the best he could. Of course, they were hoping to steer him into despair. He had grown better at turning them off for the most part, but when they reminded him of Orbaulker or the Groomslayer, he wondered how much longer he could endure from their cacophonous taunting.
Kurt’s jaw clenched as he reached the wall keeping fast the von Herrenhausen estate and its innumerable acres. Nauseous in the presence of its watchtowers, he trotted Canute up to the mailbox chute. Tatters of memories fluttered in his mind's eye as he tuned in to the far-off voices of the Von Herrenhausen clan. He smelt a ferric reek. The ranch wall looked to be a black tombstone towering into the dark nothingness above. A small hole opened at its base. "He's comin'...hide here..."
Post delivered.
The noonday sun shone a blinding white on the black gate.
Kurt pulled his hat’s brim over his eyes. The hat was his shield; a memento of John.
Kurt and Canute rode off, the voices, the images chasing after them in vain. Canute was quicker.
Returning to the winding dirt road home, his pulver-ear heard Martin Von distantly murmur from half a century past: “It was unavoidable, John. You knew the risk.”
He squeezed Canute’s reigns, spurred the black horse, and flew from that internal fortress of despair.
He had done his job. Onwards now.
+++++
That evening, returning to the hilltop cabin, a pipe procured Kurt sat himself on a pinewood rocking chair he and John had built when he was still in grade school.
He looked out to an orange sliver of sky being eaten away by brightening stars and the navy blue mountains of Mockwitch (that foul creature John had told him many a story of).
Kurt brushed his black ear with his pipe free hand. He heard a rapid trill like a fly drowning. It had remained at a low frequency but then heightened to a wasp nest’s bursting frenzied swarm.
The Ease of Unease returned to him.
At last, he figured, he would receive some valuable news from the mouth of the Eye.
The excruciating din of buzzing ceased its shrill attack.
Then clearly, the voice came, repeating an oft-heard phrase in his 70 years since John had left him:
“Kurt Eisenforst, you must make your decision.”
He closed his own eyes as the Eye in his breast pocket opened wide; bleeding hot; watching him.
As it spoke to him, Kurt visualized a glimmering lump of ore emerge from the darkness, floating in his mind’s eye’s chaos.
Its bleeding slit glowed, coloring the nothingness all about them in a dull red light.
The Eye’s twin materialized beside it; then, a crocodilian head bloomed; its neck budded a broad fish scaled torso, shining in the same silver of the eyes; two clawed arms burst from the body; finally, a tail wriggled forth, propping up the upper body instead of hind legs. The crocodilian’s jaws opened. It spoke: "Watch me as I watch you. See me as I see you. I am the ghost of the primordial viper. You may call me the Weever.”
This Weever Kurt had first glimpsed in a corner of his mind during his last hours with John.
“It’s time, Kurt,” said John's voice echoing in the void. “Time to leave this doomed County. Time to face the Wildermark.”
The Weever’s voice cut in: “There are mile long lines at Apegift booths outside the County. Orbaulker will soon usher the last of the old-men inside. The rest will be hunted by ettins.”
“I see,” said Kurt.
The Weever’s eyes widened, the red glow bursting from its bleeding slits. “You see? No, the Eye sees. Do not forget who is watching, listening, breathing from your pocket!”
The Weever magnified itself into a great gray tower of scale and teeth eclipsing Kurt, who looked like a sparrow swallowed by a thunderhead.
“My forelegs were cast into the chasm of the Eldermark; My body torn asunder by warring devils; I was weak, for I lacked the heart of a man. Only he could awaken me from my slumber, The king. His name was Rammbock…the Lord of Or-man. He harnessed my imperfection and sent me to the task of purification within that ancient Earth. Now I am in need of such a man’s heart again. For I am the slayer of the enemies of man. No living fiend of Rammbock’s can withstand my attack, when I am whole.”
“But you know,as you see so much,” said Kurt in a murmur,“that if I step past the County gate…that if Sheriff Martin hears tell of my leaving…when he tells Orbaulker...then you will never be made whole again...”
The Weever snarled. “A prediction not based without precedent, man. There is more I have witnessed that men have long forgotten. There: Look now and remember!” The Weever pointed a talon to the materializing mountains of Mockwitch. “Behold! At its peak is rooted a slayer made of Quickore; its strike is like a bite of mine. Ettins may not approach it without trembling: the wolf’s head saber Deathbrand!”
Kurt felt again suffocated from the imposing figure of the towering Weever. How was its task for him any different than those of the apegift-booths? No. He knew the difference. What a careless thought; a thought John would scold him for.
All his inner thoughts were spoken aloud in that realm: the Weever’s disgust was apparent.
It had more reminding to do.
The Weever faded from the chaos.
Kurt observed himself to be a child again. A bright-faced handsome lad he was: rusty red thick hair, his smile unbridled.
He was meeting someone new, one whose name millions across the county lines spoke of. Clad in a half dressed military uniform, a man’s bald head and dark full moon spectacles reflected the red lamp swaying from the low ceiling over that cramped little closet of a place, those close quarters even for little Kurt.
“So. Your Mama named you Kurt, huh?” He tussled the boy’s red mane and grinned from behind his thick drooping mustache. “No…no it can’t do. Not here. Not never.”
The man wrenched up Kurt’s little chin with a thumb and sighed. “From now on, you’re Carolus Jr… Junior! What else would a son of mine have the honor of being called?” Carolus Eisenforst cast a desultory smile then turned around to a little oaken dresser behind him, rummaging through its clinking contents.
Kurt did not have the words to respond. He admired his father’s reputation: known as a self-made thane; the big boss of the yucca tree desert bordering the Wildermark and unafraid to deal with its ettin inhabitants; irresistible to women; simply put: a man men wished they could be. “I’ve got a little gift for you, Junior.” Carolus turned around from the dresser, his black spectacles glaring down at his son.
“Turn your ear to me. The ear you like least.”
He grinned, holding out his palm. In it was an oblong shaped object with a black metallic sheen. Kurt eyed the object, still without adequate words to respond. “Yes, Junior: a gift! So that you may truly become my son…see, I don’t believe in this whole unconditional parentage thing. The ettins have it right…you must become that which is great! So, that you may truly become my son, if that is why you are here, you must accept a physical change as well.”
“What is it?” asked the little boy quietly. “What is it?” repeated Carolus mockingly. “It’s the future! Everyone will have new parts. The ones that won’t will die and wither away! This stuff is called pulver and your Pa-pa has a lot of it. It will make you stronger, smarter, and you’ll live a lot longer. Most people have to go through those ape-booths to get this way; but not your Pa-pa! He takes what he wants and doesn’t listen to nobody!”
“Can it help my mom?” Kurt asked looking away from the gorilla of a man.
Carolus ignored the question. “Having a stronger body is the only way to be a man, and only a man can fight alongside the Taboo-Smashers...That’s what you are here for,right? To fight with your Pa-pa?”
“Y-yes,sir.”
“Louder.”
“Yes,sir!”
“Louder!!”
“Yes,sir!!!”
Carolus clicked open a blade from his breast pocket.
“Pulver sugical knife. As good as what Eugenius Geissler uses for his operations over in Subohemia-”
“-Yes! Sir!!!” A hand twice as wide as Kurt’s own face struck his little cheek.
He saw a fuzz of green stars dance before him, hearing only a sharp buzz.
He would have sobbed if he wasn’t so dazed.
“As I was saying before you spoke out of turn, old-age will be gone; and you will have incredible strength....Yes,sir?...Good. Now give me that ear. Pa-pa's got a better one for you.”
Kurt remembered well his terrified face in the gleaming blade right before his childhood was stolen.
+++++
At that same age of seven, with his new ear-equipping him with espionage prowess, he was made a scout in the Order of Azza: a paramilitary group at war with apes and the apeland.
Carolus was in charge of a regiment of boys, a hundred plus he had fathered or adopted, communicating to their pulver-ears from hidden command posts.
“FIRE! FIRE! HELLFIRE, FIRE! At that schoolhouse fire your arquebus, dammit! Fire! Or I’ll blow a hole in your skulls!” said Carolus, screaming in their ears. The boys complied. But arquebus fire was returned. Of the hundred boys, a mass grave was dug for the greater part of them. It was on that snowy day among the orange groves, when John would find Kurt lying in his grave.
John was a captain in a local militia protecting those homes outside the Rural County Zone from the onslaught of the Order of Azza and Carolus’s sons. Kurt could not fathom why that old, hard-ass killer saved him from the grave; adopted him; allowed him to move into the Rural County Zone and into his own home safe from the wrath of Carolus. He went to public school and was made John’s apprentince, learning the arts of carpentry, hunting, agriculture, equestrianism; by the time Kurt was thirty, he believed the world order, though not perfect, was set on the right track. Sheriff Martin personally offered him an interview to be the bodyguard of his beautiful daughter Verity Von. Few other men besides John Ormsvard did Martin von Herrenhausen trust and Martin was one of even fewer that John trusted.
Kurt trusted only John.
Kurt’s path in life seemed set in stone. He could not foresee, blinded by his bout of good fortune, what would become of John Ormsvard on March 25th, celebrating his 30th birthday and John’s 70th. John never told Kurt how he had become the Eye of the Weever's beholder, but this detail was sensitive enough to conceal until Kurt's 30th birthday eve.
“Kurt. The day I found you in that hole, I found something else. Something that led me to you...there is no other way to describe it...but it belongs to a creature...”
John spoke to the young man in his fireplace den.
“A creature?” repeated Kurt.
“Yeah...I couldn’t believe it then...still can’t. I can’t explain it well either...”
John pulled the Weever’s Eye from his breast pocket. Kurt marvelled at the silvery brilliance of its material, unknown to most men.
“I have a friend that lives up North; name is Grimnar. He is a giant of a man, perhaps a true giant if you can believe it...helped us county folk during the war. We need his help again, Kurt. Things aren’t going well here...it’s all coming apart. Martin has helped us get County exit passes. We’re leaving tonight.”
“Leaving??” Kurt first thought of his steady life, his upcoming interview at the ranch. He thought of Carolus and the danger that awaited them outside the gates...how could they be leaving??
“There is no re-entry with exit passes,” said Kurt stiffly. John nodded. “We’re not coming back, Kurt...Martin will help us in the meantime.” John handed him an official County exit pass, Kurt’s face plastered next to the GUSA triple headed eagle.
“Then,” John continued, “we meet Grimnar, and he will help us relocate around the Sequoias. Nice little town up there from what I hear; quiet; slow.” Kurt turned the exit pass overleaf and asked, "So we move there...meet Grimnar, and then what?”
“And then we return that Eye to its rightful owner, the creature. Kurt, it is mighty powerful; powerful enough to rid this land of all its problems...the ettins...hell, if things work out, we can move back to the County even...if you want to, that is...afterwards you’ll be able to move wherever you please.”
John placed the Eye in Kurt’s hand. “Happy Birthday, Kurt.”
“...Thank you, John...I still don’t quite understand, but...I trust you.”
John nodded. “It’s one part of five, this is its Eye. Grimnar has another part, the tail. He can help us find the others. Once the parts all come together, the creature will be complete and I suppose Grimnar can explain the rest...but this Eye, you’ll need it more than me, I reckon. It can watch out for danger, frighten off spooks, even speak to you if you listen closely enough.”
John turned to his fireplace mantel. There were two portraits there: One of a young woman, laughing, jumping from a boulder into a lake, and another of himself in a black smoking suit beside a lady in a white gown. He kissed the portraits individually and mouthed a word Kurt did not catch.
Kurt and John rode off on the grandparents of Canute, the coal coated horses Glamor and Whip. Under a dim harvest moon they galloped, down Temek Hill; across the farmland of Great Oak; its hidden glens round the foothills of mountains high and low; the yellow moon wavering in the little reflective still waters of creeks and streams; between little groves sprouting in intermittent patches. Nearing the exit pass border, the riders heard a train whistle. Kurt smiled. He felt secure with John and was exhilarated by the nighttime ride.
A long golden arquebus slung over his shoulder, the Eye in his pocket, he was confident that John’s estimation of their returning before the Summer’s end was assured and all troubles that John warned of would be dispensed of between the two of them, Grimnar and the elusive Eye-creature. Reaching the border, their passes were approved by a lonesome security guard who eyed them both nervously.
Kurt disregarded the man’s reaction: for the first time in twenty-three years, he and John were outside the Rural County Zone.
It was a liberating feeling for Kurt, yet they had not gone out even a mile from the border crossing when they were halted at an old oak beside a little creek.
Two dozen O.A. commandos surrounded Kurt and John, hand cannons drawn. Sheriff Martin stood among them,clad in the same black Order of Azza uniform. Martin looked slightly uncomfortable but spoke in an unapologetic tone to John: “I have to do what’s best for my family. You understand, John.” John shook his head, murmuring in disappointment. “Traitor.” “...I’m a patriot. The country has changed, Ormsvard. Sad you can’t change with Her. But She offers second chances...I’ve done my best to cut a deal for your capital crime of desertion.”
“Desertion! You signed the exit passes!”
Martin lowered his head.
“It was unavoidable, John...You knew the risk.”
A loud, bright voice cried over Martin’s excuses: “That’s enough, Marty!”
The commandos parted their formation.
John sat up tall on Glamor. Kurt was eyeing him for any signal to strike the armed men. The loud voice spoke again. “Ooh-ah-ooh-ah. Me see apes. One, two mangy apes.”
“Erich von Herrenhausen. The Groomslayer,” said John, shaking his head in disbelief. The Groomslayer was taller than the others by a few heads: a huge man clad in a black skintight uniform.
His face was handsome a wave of white hair balanced upon his youthful visage.
Kurt’s brown eyes met the cool blue ones of the Groomslayer, but averted his gaze: the man seemed so uncanny, striking an indescribable fear in Kurt as if he had just been spotted by a dragon with a genius intellect.
The Groomslayer then fixed his sight to John and smiled. “You. I’ve come personally for you, old ape. Not because I find you to be terribly important, but rather it’s that I take great pleasure in ape hunting. Especially apes that dared rebel against us gods.
Still, we were gracious with you apes: You had your little farmland to wither and die in, you know, but breaking law merits consequences. My cousin Marty was diligent in informing the high command that an old ape general of the insurrectionists had been planning to leave the County Zone at this very hour. In fact, he explained that he had encouraged this little mission of yours…he has a quota to maintain of course: five deserter executions per month is it still, Marty?”
“Yes, my Groomslayer,” said Martin flatly.
The Groomslayer looked to Kurt and said, “I am too gracious a leader to you apes. The day is fast approaching when your savage world will be eclipsed by the Order of Azza. So, who shall be first?"
John looked to Kurt,saying, “Remember you’ve got it now. Your road will continue with or without me.”
Kurt grabbed his arquebus and swung it towards the commandos. In the blink of an eye, the Groomslayer had moved ten yards up to Kurt’s arquebus, pacing invisibly as if his feet had not left the ground. He gripped the arquebus barrel, squeezing it into a melted consistency, before Kurt had drawn a second firearm from his side holster.
The arquebus fired; firecracker-like rounds exploding in the Groomslayer’s face. The commandos returned fire. Another blink of the eye movement from the Groomslayer, as Kurt heard him growl: “I…did not…say…fire!”
The Groomslayer turned his back from the troops, his face unscathed.
The commandos were missing; their boots remaining in position. A dark liquid puddled about the boots, steam rising forth. The commando’s weapons too had fallen into the depths of the steaming puddles. The Groomslayer’s body and face were smeared in the liquid. John spat in the Groomslayer’s face. There was a fiery hatred in the Groomslayer’s eye. “Never forget this, ape. Ah...Azza speaks to me now...he says...he wants you...desires you... But the other one, the old ape...he’s mine.”
With a fist like a hammer, the Groomslayer let it fall upon John.
Kurt screamed, rushing forward. He was restrained by Martin Von, behind him, with incredible strength for a man of seventy, his chin lock applied loosely to Kurt throat, fading fast from consciousness.
The Groomslayer finished killing. He kicked the body into a ditch below the oak.
“This apegift will grant me twenty years of success. Be a good boy, now, Marty. Or I might ask him to make an apegift out of you...”
“Yes, my Lord.”
The Groomslayer departed, entering a tall black winged obelisk behind the oak. It levitated for a moment before accelerating skywards and disappearing behind the harvest moon.
Kurt woke a day later in a small pulver barred cell under the watch of a Von Herrenhausen Ranch guard.
What followed was a year of 20 hour work days of orchard picking and field ploughing. His possessions confiscated included the Weever’s Eye.
On his last day of penal labor, Martin personally came to him on the field.
“I did all I could for you two... John would understand...don’t hate me.…I wish I could help more…my little girl has one of these too.”
Martin held out the Eye shining dimly in the dying sun of that day.
“They took her from me...took Verity...So, go home…your horses are waiting. Go home…and be safe. I have a job waiting for you with good pay if you want it…” Kurt said nothing. He returned to the cabin on Temek Hill on his 31st birthday. He was numb to all emotion, even a year after the night by the Old Oak, and with Glamor and Whip returned, the Eye, his weapons. All his possessions were the same, all except John's assuring presence.
Kurt soon forgot about his plans with John. He ignored the voice in his pulver-ear that said, “Remember what he gave you…” He ignored the little shadow that watched him on the wall, curious and sad. He tried to forget. He accepted the postman position offered by Martin. But little by little, the Weever reminded him of his and John’s mission; reminded him that time was running short; that soon there would be no second chances. 107 years old again, Kurt’s attention returned to his smoked pipe and the great blue mountain range at his eye level. The Weever was gone. It had said all it needed to. It had left him with all the memories it could possibly stir in him. In the still of that cool evening, Kurt Eisenforst wept for the first time since John was murdered.