Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 7 – The Witch

Note: I debated about this part quite a bit as it's the first time we take a small departure from Oan's point of view. I am not 100% happy how this turned (at least in terms of word composition and style). I stumbled at parts of it even though, it's not really that long of a piece. I'll be interested to see the reaction to this.

Disc 1
Track 7: Lie, Lie, Lie – Serj Tankian

“Take my hand and lets end it all.”

The whispers of winter had already turned to shouts in the steady breezes of the mountains. One such brisk current sped down from the highest peak called Kekur in the old kingdom of Marek, swept past the Great Hall of Metahischo where Tarek Grandar sat upon his throne in the final days of the last age and over the rocky landscape where once a great race of mountain dwellers ruled, down to the base of foothills where an ancient cave’s mouth opened to swallow it up.

The wind’s icy tongue licked up the spine of the witch, her nude body shivered. She tossed her head back, her long dark curls that reached to her waist fell about her as she cooed in surprise.

“Ohhh, I remember that cold breath, I do, I do,” She purred. “I wish it touched further down and in, I do, I do. Quell that cursed fire it would, it would. Hmmm. I remember that touch.”

She continued to mumble in a variety of languages mixed with grunts and purrs. The witch was perched upon an ancient wooden stool, her small breasts pressed against the cold oak of a door hung seemingly in stone at the back of the cave. Along the walls were glowing blue orbs that illuminated the cave as if the light of day reached that far back.

Across the top, three diamond-shapes were cut into the wood and lined up across the width of the door. Each diamond was filled with a pane of glass, the one on the far right was tinted red, one in the middle blue and the left was green. The glass diamonds were at eye-level for a normal-sized person, but the witch was short and the top of her head only reached the bottom of each diamond.

Even with the stool, she stood upon her tiptoes to peer in the green-tinted glass. Her only reward was the reflection of her eyes of the same color. Yet, she had been there all morning and as the days passed she spent more time pressed against the door waiting for any sort of vision from the opposite side of the door. She knew there was another world where children awaited gifts all year from a fat, bearded elf in celebration of the birth of some god. She felt like those children – giddy and expectant – waiting for anything to appear.

Yet, there were only her eyes staring back at her and behind that the stone of the mountain. The door was still like a sweet wine or some other nasty habit that she couldn’t kick. She needed it, the promise of its magic and of another start, another world. She needed it to block out the damp longing pulling at her loins. He was calling for her, calling to use her, and despite all her powers she could not deny the pull much longer. Soon all the women east of the Belnor would feel the pulsing throb between their legs and the insane notion to run west, to not allow any barrier stop them, even death.

Thus, the witch’s days in this world were growing short, her time to open that door again. But she dare not open it till the door’s will spoke it. A stiff penalty awaited the unwanted, unrequested visitor of the realm inbetween.

For over an age, she had not so much guarded the door, but had been its steward in its tucked away lair at the base of the mountain. For most of that time, she had dropped by every few seasons to gauge its welfare before setting off again into the world. She’d peek into the green window, sometimes witness one great wonder or another. Sometimes there was nothing, but more often than not there was some vision or another giving little bits of wisdom.

The last few seasons had been different. She dwelled closer and closer to the door checking on it more often. Then her visits were daily and finally at the beginning of summer she took permanent residence in the cave. But the door was silent, the green pane of glass still. She dare not look in any other. The blue and the red were not made for her kind.

The witch eased back on her heels resigned that no sign was swirling behind the door today. She dropped off the stool, her bare feet avoiding every sharp spot on the rough stone floor without thought. Above her, bats slept the slumber of the dead. There was no furniture in the cave, nothing to indicate that it was her home except for a small roll of clothes. From the top of the pile, she grabbed a silk green robe that she pulled shut but did not tie.

Far away, another wind started and swiftly found its way down the mountain as she neared the cave’s opening. It gushed in, blowing her robe open. She cooed again wildly letting out an unhindered cackle. Then a shadow appeared at the front of the cave, and her smile grew wider.

“Here for days upon days, I’ve waited for something from beyond that green pane,” The witch’s voice was strong and clear. Her smile grew wider. “Come my brother, come, I shall build a fire and you can tell me what it is that you dream. I shall listen with great interest, I vow to that my dear.”

She held out her hand and one just as small and frail clasped on.

Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 6 – Kekur

Note: There's no doubt that this is less disturbing than the last part, but I found it nearly as interesting to write. I hope it doesn't slow down too much from the last couple eye-opening parts.

Disc 1
Track 6: Burn the Witch – Queens of the Stoneage

“There they are, the mob it cries for blood, to twist the tale into fire wood, fan the flames with a little lie.”


In the days before Tarek Grandar took the sword Lunar north to peak of Mount Bela and pierced the heavens spilling forth the waters of the Belnor that split the world between east and west, there were seven great kingdoms.

Nocnil, the kingdom of sand dwellers living in the Sorna, Marek, the men and dwarves of the northern mountains, the sister kingdoms of Isa and Besa that walked the thin line of love and hate with each other throughout eons of time in the south, Atlan on the eastern coast of the great abyss, and the mythical Arna folk west of the Sorna whose existence had always been debated among the rest of the kingdoms.

Last, there was Rion, rulers of the lands just south of the mountains and masters of iron and sword craft. Each great family of the kingdom had a sword, a fine sword, customized to their line. It was an honor for every firstborn son to be presented with the sword of his family to carry on the line. The ceremony for the presenting of each sword lasted over a day. The people of Rion loved swords more as symbols of power than as weapons to gain it.

The master swordsman was a small, mystical man that forged seven great swords to be distributed to the kings of each kingdom. There is a great tale concerning a man named Werhane that was sent west with one of these swords to find Arna, but that is a tale for another time and another place. Each sword was professed to be indestructible, except in a bit of irony each sword would crumble if met in battle with any of its brethren. It was ploy by this little sword master to ensure peace.

Long after this sword master had moved on from this world, a man lusting for more power than the great sword of Rion came to the throne of the kingdom. He desired a sword greater than any other, a power greater than any of his peers in the other six kingdoms. It’s a funny thing about power. There is always a way to get more for those looking for it. This king found it in ancient pagan lore and conjured up a black sword that shook the world.

Rion fell in his wake as he unleashed terrible beasts from the underworld. With his eventual death, the knowledge of sword making and any desire to relearn the art were lost. Those left from the great kingdom were split into two groups. The leaders of the two groups were brothers sworn against each other.

One brother, named Dinar, had been a close confidant of the power-hungry king. He fell into worship of the man after his death and the splitting of the world by Tarek Grandar. He gained followers that wore dark robes to cover up the mangling of their features in some bizarre, dark rite. In those early days, they found a hidden passage across the Belnor and disappeared into myth.

The other brother, Aldroubi, renounced the old king and his brother. He and those that followed him refused all ironwork and devolved into a tribe of hunters and gatherers. The only remnant from their once great kingdom was the swords of their fathers, of their families. They were kept hidden and guarded by a strange man. Whenever one generation of a line passed, the man would appear and present the sword of the family to the next in line. It became tradition for the next of kin to view the sword once to remember the grandeur of their family and then send it back with the man to keep safe. Never once in nearly a thousand season cycles had a man of the Aldroubi touched the steal of a sword.

The history lived on through the tongues of the elders of the Aldroubi. Oan grew up listening to the tales by blazing campfires. He had been told more, maybe more than any elder knew, by the witch. As he watched the men of his tribe file toward the fire in pairs as dawn kissed the sky, he knew very well what was happening.

They marched side by side with wooden spears in their outside hands and round wooden shields held against their chests in their other arms. There was a short hill leading up to the fire where Oan and Nestor stood exhausted from the night’s tale. The Aldroubi formed a circle around the hill, the numbers in this camp equaling maybe two hundred. At the end of the procession, a small man, no more than four feet tall, stood a long bundle braced against his chest.

The man wore a green cape and a white, sleeved shirt that billowed out. His gray trousers stopped just below his knees where there was one neat fold. He wore no shoes or boots and his feet appeared dirty and torn. His eyes were a sightless, milky white. His blindness did not stop him from ascending the hill and standing directly before Oan. The bundle wrapped in no more than an old brown cloak was clutched with tiny hands that did not seem strong enough to handle the weight.

He spoke then in the high pitch voice of a child even though his dirty brown hair was thinned by age.

“I dream of a field of white roses where a breeze, warm and moist, blows eternal. I sit upon a hill overlooking this valley with a lion and a dragon, paw in claw in hand. I see green eyes that smile with no lips. I live, I breathe and days go by.”

The man stopped, staring blankly into Oan’s bare chest. It took a moment for Oan to realize that the little man was waiting a response.

“I do not read dreams, small one.” Oan said.

The man’s forehead wrinkled and then he smiled revealing a mouth of gleaming white teeth.

“Life’s a dream, then we awake,” He chirped and dropped to his knees placing the bundle at Oan’s feet. “I have been dreaming for a very long time. I’ve had more dreams than I can remember, but I remember you very clear. A man just finished being a boy, tall with long dark hair and broad shoulders. His skin dark brown from days under the sun; his blood cold; his heart stone, a man destined for the great battle. A man carrying three blades.”

“Three blades?”

“I dream of a river of fire burning with no end. A gold throne soaked in blood and a million glowing eyes peering from every shadow. Death, sorrow, paw and claw and hand. Agony rolling like thunder on the wind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like a flood they’ll come, digging and clawing and pouring upon the soil an endless wave of pain.”

“Who?”

“Salama’s offspring!” Nestor’s voice was distant, heard almost as an echo. The little man twitched toward it and sneered.

“I dream of you holding the sword that shines, the sword that glows and one other.”

“The sword of my fathers.”

“No, you are not a son of Rion. You’re blood flows from the mountain.”

“What?”

“You are an heir of the Marek. Men made hard by the stone of the mountains, men that carried axes and picks, not swords. There was but two swords carried by a king of Marek. There was Lunar that the last king of Marek, Tarek Grandar, forged from the face of old moon. And there was. …”

“Kekur.”

“Yes. Kekur. One of the seven great swords made as gift by the swordmaster of Rion to the seven great kingdoms of old.”

“Are you he?”

“I once had a dream I was.”

“I don’t understand you.”

The man didn’t answer instead he started to unwrap the bundle. Oan saw the hilt, grooved for large hands and the design of a great mountain peak etched into the iron.

“Perhaps, the most unique of the seven great blades, Kekur, named from the highest mountaintop in the Kingdom of Marek, is a marriage of stone and steel. The great swordmaster toiled for many seasons getting the two to forge together. When he did, he rejoiced but found he could not lift the blade up. It was too heavy for him, too heavy for most.”

The man removed the rest of the covering displaying the blade that was nearly four feet long and striped with sections of steal and a white stone sharpened to perfection. There was a chip in one of the stone sections, a chip that could never be fixed. That too is a story for another day, another time.

“I present Kekur, prize of the Marek.”

Oan felt Nestor gazing over his shoulder. Oan dropped to his knees viewing its grandeur and smelling its history.

“I thank you for this glimpse. Please go now and take. …”

“Oh, you may not send this back with me son of the Marek. The son’s Rion have cursed off blades, perhaps for too long, but the son, nay the King of Marek, may not refuse Kekur. It is a gift not to be denied.”

“I am no King.”

“Perhaps not, but I dream of you holding this sword. It is time for that dream to awake.”

With that, the short man arose and turned away leaving Oan on his knees before the ancient sword. He did not have the courage yet to touch it. A question then came to his mind only seconds before it hit his lips.

“Who am I?”

The short man stopped, but did not turn around. Instead, he tilted his head back as if to view the sky.

“That was not in my dream.”

“Who am I?”

“I dream of the witch. Holed up in her cave, peaking through the glass of that secret door. Her green eyes have seen much more than my blind ones. Paw and and claw and hand, and if anyone knows who you are, it’s the witch.”

The little man started walking again and as he reached the bottom of the hills he seemed to fade a little and the farther he walked the more of him disappeared. Then he was gone.

“The witch,” Oan whispered staring at the blade. “Gods, I thought I was done with her.”

He reached down, recovered the sword in the brown cloak and lifted it. The blade was nearly too much for him, he used both arms to haul it down the hill with Nestor following. The Aldroubi had left, knowing that their message was clear. It was time for Oan and Nestor to leave.

“Where are we to go?” Nestor asked while Oan packed up a few things from his tent. The Aldroubi left two fine horses waiting for them there.

“To see the witch.” Oan answered and that was all he said from then till they left the camp and had rode for nearly the entire day.

Nestor seemed shaken by the news and did not speak either.

Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 5 – Noce

Note: I'm going to let this part speak for itself.

Disc 1
Track 5: No You Girls – Franz Ferdinand

“Oh how the girl feels.”

“Noce is a day’s walk from my tower. I tore away the sleeves of my robe taking one to wrap around my forehead and the other on my mangled hand. The blood had stopped flowing by the time I awoke. The wounds were almost like brands the cattle herders use to mark their livestock, seared and black. Yet the wind and the sand nicked and gnawed away the open sores and peaking bone. I had to cover them. There was also the streaks of black and green, poison no doubt, starting to appear along my veins near my hand and no doubt on my face. I could not bear to watch the poison slowly eat its way to my heart, my brain or whatever part of my body it most desired to consume.

“I arrived delirious in Noce under the cover of a night sky where clouds blotted out Old Moon’s face and New Moon’s curve was nothing more than a wavy blue apparition. No men were posted on the outer walls, but I feared I saw glowing eyes blinking in the shadows of the sentry towers. Yet no alarm sounded as I entered the iron gates that served as the main entrance to the huge sandstone city. One of the gates was sagging badly on its hinge digging into the stone street.

“The city streets were dead, the all-night market closed, the taverns empty. Every corner where one would expect to find life no matter the time of the day was silent, desolate. All there was was sand, and, of course, the occasional corpse dried and hollow eyed. On the wind there were moans carried from the great coliseum where men of the watch are tested against each other, against beasts, against themselves to prove their worth. Atop the coliseum, the twenty-four pyres of Tarak Grandar were lit spewing forth ugly red flames and black smoke into the night sky. The pyres were there to celebrate the casting of Salama into the sand once a year. That night they were welcoming the evil back to the world.

“Behind me, I heard the slapping of bare heals on the stone streets and I sank back into a shadow. Sprinting down the middle of the street, a girl, probably just getting to the age where she put away dolls, but well before her parents would have started arranging a marriage, came with wild steps. Her thin legs looked about ready to topple, her common dress was torn and tattered. Her feet, I saw them well enough as she strode pass, were cut and bruised. She’d been running for a day I believe. She was a girl from an outer village, probably a farmer’s daughter, pulled to the city by an urge, which I had not yet fully realized.

“When the girl had passed, I continued on toward the coliseum not sure what sort of scene lay ahead of me, but sure that the minutes of my life were numbered down.

“The coliseum is a great ring, my boy, with outer walls that reach high into the sky, but there are many ways into and onto the great building without going into the great entrances that lead to the spectators’ seating. For instance, there’s a hidden ladder along the east wall that leads up to the pyres. That’s where I made my way. I counted on that whoever lit the pyres had dropped back down after the task.

“From high above, I was witness to the whole grotesque show. Below a black throne was cast a top a pile of bones. To the side were twelve smaller thrones where men, at least I think they were men, sat with dark hoods covering, if the tales be true, faces burned and painted since childbirth. On the great throne in the middle, the demon sat. Around him was a mass grave of men, but not all of them were dead. Many were alive, screaming and gurgling and calling out in agony. From high above, I could see things crawling among the bodies, but at that point my eye did not want to believe the horror.

“Leading to the throne was a line of women. Every woman in and near the city without the will power to fall upon a sword or cut her wrists was in the line that led to the spectators seating and wrapped around and around the coliseum. I believe I saw the girl from the street at the end of the line.

“The womam at the front of the line, I recognized well enough. Her gray hair hung at curls to her side. I could recall how her callused hands rested upon my chest night after night when I was not stationed on the tower. She was my wife. Behind her my son’s wife who had failed in a birth not more than a season earlier, stood.

“My wife, Quinta her name be, came before the throne swooning like a girl in the spring of her life instead of the fall. See my boy, the women don’t see the disgusting, ashen man that we see. Nay, I believe they see the epitome of man before them. They’re drawn to him like calves to the pasture. Quinta bowed before him and he stood up and disrobed. To my eyes, his body was scarred and sagging with blotches of red showing through his dark skin.

“She dropped to her back, legs spread open. The demon came to her then tearing away her clothes with his four hands, not caring if bits of flesh were clawed away as well. He fouled her then in great heaping thrusts that must have split and tore apart her insides. He licked down her neck (a forked-tongue now part of his being) leaving a black burn mark. His ripped at her breasts with long, sharp nails, pulled away at her hair and bit into her flesh. All the while, thrusting and pumping with no care for her pain. But she did not wail. Instead, she responded with moans of pleasure, but her eyes showed her terror, her agony. She didn’t want it, but couldn’t help herself, couldn’t resist. The other women in line watched jealous, greedy for their turn, a turn soon enough to come.

“It ended as such acts do with him casting her aside like a child discarding an old toy. Her pain wasn’t over. Nay, the worst was to come. As the demon moved onto another of my kin, a great round belly started to form on my long barren wife. She was pregnant, but the pace of growth was unnatural. Within moments, she was to full term. Then one of the robed men arose, came to her and spread her legs out. I could hear her scream and wretch. I was there for our son’s birth and the pain sounded a thousand times worse.

“I couldn’t see it all, thank heavens, from my vantage, but I saw enough. What came from her was not human. It was all legs and claws, black and red with a great gap where two rows of small sharp teeth glistened. When the birthing was over, the robed man took the offspring over to the pile of men and released it. The little beast jumped from the hands of its momentary captor to the neck of a man not yet dead and began to feed. Great streaks of blood shot out and one final wail came from the poor man.

“I vomited and my knees gave out. I couldn’t bear to watch it. The women were slaves to this demon, his own personal harem to breed an army of monsters. The worst of it, my Quinta, blood-soaked and ravaged arose after the birth bowed to her new master and started hobbling toward the back of the line. She would go through it again and again till her womb was too used and tired then she’d be fed to her offspring. I doubt she lasted long at her age. But the young girls, like the one I saw running in the street, it chills me to think the number of beasts she’ll bare before she’s released from her terrible bond.

“I didn’t stay to watch anymore. As I said, I think the demon knew I’d come and see and wanted me to get away. He pleasured in pain and knew that my shame was a pain much greater than death.

“I ran boy with fear and shame in my heart. I ran with poison eating away at my arm and face. For weeks I ran, stopping only when I collapsed from my delirium. I recall little, thank heavens for that, until I hit the waters and heard the voices underneath. The waters froze the poison and drew it out. I can feel that now, but the shame, the fear are still there boy. I know he’ll be coming with a great army. I know the women here will soon start to feel his pull. A great evil is upon the world and part of me wishes very much you’d left me to die in the Belnor.

“While my honor bemoans me to correct this wrong, my will weakens. I hope, nay, I pray never to see that demon again. But I can see it in your eyes now that you won’t allow me that blessing. You’re the type to stand and fight. Maybe you’re curse will be our blessing. I doubt it very much, but a good man doesn’t back down. I can feel you’re a good man indeed, Oan Stoneheart.

“I’ll pray we’re victorious. I will, I will.”

With that his story ended as both moons returned to the underworld and the sky lightened in the east.