Chapter XXX: Mr. Lamm
Teeth and lips and tongue met earth.
Fingers and their nails, palms wet under soil, then a palm was clenched, pulled, hoisted.
Eyes met a sky like the bluest ocean, the light piercing the face like a thousand needles, the cold naked skin warmed by the noonday sun.
“Clothes: take ‘em.”
Around the grave of Grimnar, Kurt, Etzel,Verity, Embla and the fallen Weever, an empty excavated ditch remained.
“Don’t take too much time now. Others are waiting for you, princess.”
The orange haired lady looked up to a man on a tall black horse.
She took the white garments from his hand, then dressed herself.
“Drink. It’s from the Great Oak spring. Sweetest you’ve ever tasted.” The man held out a horn, and she wet her lips and throat.
Indeed, it was the most refreshing drink she had ever sipped, inebriating her as if it was a strong wine.
She spoke: “Last I remember...I was dead. But...he took me, carried me off. Didn’t know I had gone...”
“He?” asked the man.
“Yes. Grimnar.”
“Ah...I knew you might be acquainted. A good friend of mine, the big man. Look, this one’s for you. You know how to ride?”
A horse with a blueish coat appeared behind the lady.
“Blueboy, he’s called," said the man.
“Blueboy...I know that name...and you, sir?” She looked into the face of the young man under a wide brimmed black hat.
“Me? Come on, I’m not here to chit-chat. Time to get moving.”
Embla mounted the horse and there under the blue of heaven and between fruit budding cactus and pines and cedar granting them brush strokes of shade, all along the rolling dusty hills bursting with fields of orange poppies and sandy shores sprouting purple verbena, and pale green manzanitas, dangling from tangles of leaf and stem in the chapparal, they covered all of Subohemia Island till it met a land bridge across the ocean, and on shore they rode until twilight, spending the night at an inn by the mainland beach.
In the morning they broke their fast with eggs and meat and beans and tortilla flat bread, thanking the inn master for his hospitality: he was passed a horn of the sweet water, and looking a bit dazed after drinking it said, “Say, do you know a John Ormsvard by any chance? He used to breed horses just like yours. Huge, imposing creatures. Elegant too.”
“You’re looking at him, sir,” said John tipping his hat.
“No...don’t mock me...he died years ago. And he was far older than you...”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,sir. Me and the lady will be off now. Heading to Great Oak.”
“Great Oak? Now I know you are a liar. That town was destroyed by wastelings 100 years ago.
My grandfather owned an inn there, managed to flee to Oceania by some miracle...”
“Ah,so have things calmed down a bit since then?”
“A bit?? You guys must be foreigners...but your accent...sounds local...”
“We’ve been out of town for a while, so to speak. Didn’t know it was 100 years though...”
The inn keeper shook his head and said, “Fine, tell me this. If you are really a young-looking John Ormsvard, what was his son’s name?”
“His son...well, if you mean Kurt Eisenforst...-”
“-Of course I mean him! The legend. Well, everyone knows him, so tell me, where did he go to school? Most don’t know that one...”
“Temek High...” said John, "Paid his tuition myself."
“Alright, alright, you at least know a bit about the character you’re portraying. And this drink...you say it’s ‘water’...”
“The sweetest water; from the spring of the Great Oak. You might be surprised at what you find there, Mr. Lamm.”
“Damn it all...if there is more of this so-called water, I’ll close up shop and meet you guys there myself...by car of course.
Not one for horses personally.”
The three headed out together then, Mr. Lamm driving through the quaint streets, passing little grocery stores and beach side homes, the saline air whipping their noses, the cool wind of a young summer following them out into the hills, winding as he drove far ahead of the two horse riders, till evening began to set in, and in a valley at the end of their winding hill, they met a stream beside low stout oaks.
Mr. Lamm parked his car, John and Embla dismounting, the horses running off into the hills.
“The stream is sweetest a further ways on; come," said John.
They walked along the oaks, up past jack rabbits, and raccoons, deer and coyote, mastodons and saber tooths, all curiously standing still and watching the humans on their stroll.
The stream spilled over tall red slabs, inscribed in a runic script as they reached the broadest oak yet.
They were sheltered and embraced by the great oak, John setting up camp and striking a fire with stones beside the creek.
“I’ll see if the others are around...they were here last time...” John left Embla and Mr. Lamm by the fire, and there they slept, waking in the morning to drink from the river though it was not as sweet as John’s horn.
They waited till noon again, before Mr.Lamm said, “I think I’ll head back...taking forever.”
Embla placed her hand on his shoulder saying, “Wait a bit. What’s the hurry?”
“The hurry? The hurry? I’ve got a business to run! I’ve got things to do!”
“Do you really, Hendrik?”
“Hendrik? That’s my grandpa...I mean...” She looked at him with a stern look.
“I mean...alright. It’s not me, yeah. I’m Hendrik...but, how can it be?? He died! I remember...saw it happen.
No one lives more than a hundred years unless they have ettin blood anyhow, and he never touched the stuff!!”
“ It was because you didn’t touch the pulver-stuff which Azza let loose on our world; because you resisted the ettins and vaighlings when they came to twist everything: the land, the people, smashing what they called taboos, but what was the foundation of life here.
Now, we all died. So many people died and are dying. I’ve seen awful futures, outcomes of mankind.
More than one. And there are many endings that end in which we follow the Unghost to the Eldermark...but never one where he is not defeated by King Rammbock.”
“King Ramm-what?”
“-Bock...he is the one who saved us. He brought us back from the dead because we took on his armor to fight the trolls, the ettins and most importantly, fight against ourselves...”
“I see,” said Hendrik. “But tell me this...how do you know that all of this isn’t just another possible future...maybe it’s just a prediction, a vision, another dream you are having...how do you know that Azza isn’t distorting reality or something??”
Embla shook her head. “I can’t give you proof...”
“No?”
“No...but I know. I know this is peace here by the water and I know John will come back and I know...”
“What?”
“I know I’ll see him again.”
“See who again?” spoke a low rumbling voice behind her.
A great man in white, his beard green, his face red, tears running hot, stood by the great oak.
Embla ran to him. They embraced, the lady and the ancient fool of the woods, Grimnar fighting back his tears.
“Don’t cry, damnit...” said Embla. “I only saw you in a dream, and...”
“It wasn’t a dream, Embla,” said Kurt Eisenforst stepping under the oak,“our shadows were present in all the pasts, presents and futures, our souls. You’ll know soon enough what our current futures hold."
“How much more is there?” said Hendrik.
“How much more what?” said Kurt.
“How much more...road ahead. I was told there was some more of that sweet water,” Hendrik said licking his lips.
John nodded. “Not much more. Come, we’ll head out.”
The company of five left the Great Oak, ambling over the switchback hills and through thicker woods of pine and cedar and palms fanning their way.
The brown earth grew greener, the hills flatter, and the sun dimmed under a blanket of storm murk clouds.
The rolling hills became peppered with a light snow, the stream now running off behind the grassy hills.
Thunder sounded; a light wind met their faces.
They pulled closer to one another, Kurt’s great blade shortening itself to only its seven-stick candelabra.
“Come,come,” said Kurt. “We’re close to the sweet water."
They walked downhill and towards a wooded area.
There the stream moved slowly, uncannily so as if it had been commanded to retard by an invisible force.
A man with dark hair and a strong handsome face waved hello from his encampment by the stream.
“Hendrik! It’s been years!” Etzel shook hands with the Chappies owner speaking highly of his steak and potatoes and rum.
A young woman in a green dress emerged from Etzel’s tent next. “Verity! I remember you...” said Hendrik blushing.
“Hello, Hendrik,” she said bowing.
“So, is this where we stop?” asked Hendrik after a few minutes of chatting.
“No, you impatient bastard!” said John incredulously.
“Take a look, over the trees there on the hill. There is the source of it all.”
“I see...well it’s only a house, right? A purple house?” asked Hendrik.
“Come on...” said John signaling to the others. They carried up again uphill, up stoney steps shining with a silvery substance.
Thunder sounded again, as Hendrik said, “And the sky is purple here too!”
Walking down the steps were two men carrying shovels. “Lots of graves to dig...and dig up,” said one with blonde hair.
The other, pale and gaunt nodded. “More and more that need excavation...just like yours: dug you guys out of that hole and what are they thanks we get?”
“Hendrik, this this is my cousin, Erich, and his friend, Arnulf,” said Verity.
“We’re not friends,” they said in unison.
“Look, we work for the Queen and King. He’s home if you want to say hello,” said Arnulf before the two walked off into the trees.
“The King,” said Hendrik, "he means, Rammbock, right?”
“See for yourself,” said John. At the top of the hill, a woman in a purple gown and headscarf stood beside the house.
Behind the house was revealed a tree, a mile high red sequoia masked by a sweeping fog.
Above it floated a fortress in the shape of a heart: truly it beat and pumped blood; a magnificent flame lit over its highest tower.
At the feet of the woman, the mother of Rammbock, were six children, five dressed in white and one in green.
They looked up to the lady with the fondest expressions, obedient and beaming with love; for they had given their lives for each other in the darkest days earth had ever known, and given their lives for a future that they thought may never come. The children waited outside for a moment and the woman’s command, and there stepped out a man clad in white and carrying a book in his hand, his beard silvery his face young and warm, a quickore crown upon his head.
“Come, come, children, you have been on a long journey, and I know you are all weary. Let me read you a story that you will quite enjoy.”
The children followed him and the lady inside the house, the snow falling on the hills, thunder rumbling from a distant land, and not only did those children listen to the man’s tale, but I did as well, as an errandghost of the King.
It was Rammbock’s words and my experience observing and watching the trials of Kurt, Etzel, Verity and Embla and their friends and family that I have relayed to you all, so that your children and children’s children may know of the terrible and mighty deeds that happened in those days and so that you may ever honor their glorious names and filial loyalty to our gracious, charitable and omnipotent king.
The End