Fan Fiction ❯ "I was born, six-gun in my hand . . ." ❯ "She's got eyes of the bluest skies . . ." ( Chapter 1 )

“I was born, six-gun in my hand. Behind a gun I make my final stand.” - Bad Company, Bad Company

 

“She's got eyes of the blues skies as if they thought of rain, I'd hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain.” - Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns & Roses

 

 

The far border of my memory is the Reap Festival sixteen years ago (at least sixteen by my reckoning, though in the world centuries if not millennia have passed). Everything before that is a dream - or may as well be. It's all nothing but a series of images in a silver fog. No feelings, no happiness, just a beautiful painting hanging on a gravestone. Yet, for all the obscurity of those memories, that Reap Festival remains fixed in my mind in stunning clarity.

 

In my little corner of the world, there is an annual week-long festival called Reap Time. It is every child's favorite time of the year, purely because it was made for the children of my land, Ilead, Land of the Hawk and the Bear. Reap Festival in my village of Asran was incredibly fun, or at least I remember it being as such. Every night of the week of Reap there are feasts and parties in the square, and no child is made to go to bed. Each day there are entertainments - puppet shows, skits, competitions and the like - and prizes are handed out as often as candies. It is a celebration of the bounty given us by the Gods, God and the man Jesus. Yet, for the all the joy of the festival, everybody's favorite night is the last, Reap Night.

 

On Reap Night, all the children gather in the town square at sundown, dressed in any costume imaginable, and then follows a night of frolic. Governed only by themselves, the children wander around the village, often as not getting into trouble, and knock on the doors of the houses and demand “Come reap” of the answering adult. Candies and other treats are placed in waiting bags and buckets, and the child trots merrily on to the next house.

 

That year I went as a Shade. Armed with a wooden sword painted silver, and cloaked so heavily my face was hidden in shadow, I prowled the night with gusto. That Reap Night was spent gathering goodies and scaring others - and I enjoyed every minute of it. I gathered the most candy amongst my friends, won the costume competition in the square, got seventh in the riddling competition and won a pumpkin pie for my carved pumpkin head.

 

But after a week of late nights, parties and all around hell-raising, not even sugar and fun kept any child awake any later than a few hours after Reaping came to an end. All of us, my year-mates and I, were asleep before eleven o' the clock, and the older children were in bed an hour later. I remember dreaming of shadows (Shades) chasing me through the darkness of a forest, then blinding yellow light all around that made me cringe, but it turned into thirteen glass balls (a Rainbow), seven of which went dark and disappeared, and then following those orbs to a castle that tried to swallow me with teeth of golden spikes. It was being swallowed that made me wake up, and at exactly twenty-three minutes after twelve o' the clock, I sat up in bed and immediately threw myself to the ground in fear.

 

My first thought was that my father was playing a Reap Time trick on me, sneaking around outside my window. I scrambled to my feet to yell at him and found someone else entirely looking in my window. The face was handsome enough, but the expression was cruel. His teeth had been sharpened into points and were obvious as he grinned. The most terrifying thing about him, however, were his eyes - or lack thereof. Instead of colored orbs, he had empty sockets. While I watched, cloaked in the shadows, a strange light kindled in his head and grew to fill the voids where his eyes should have been. Yellow light, like tongues of flame, shone into my domicile, and I could sense his gaze as it swept around my room. His grin widened, and a bit of blood dribbled down his chin.

 

I surely would have been spotted, frozen by the window as I was, but my father had no difficulty acting. He threw open the bedroom door and ran to the window, closing the curtains with a screamed curse as he shoved me down on my bed. Outside, we could hear the people as they walked away. A dead man's cackle faded into the distance - not the last time I would hear that sound - and I knew it was the monster with the fire in his eyes. He knew I was around, though he wasn't exactly sure where, and I knew he was looking for me.

 

I was still staring blankly at the window, waiting for the feeling that I was now prey to seep in, when my Reap Night costume was tossed in front of me. “Get dressed,” my father ordered, his voice rough with what I now know to be tears. Still in a state of confusion bordering on shock, I donned my Reap costume again and obediently followed my father to the kitchen where my mother waited. Crying, she put a bag of food and personal belongings in my hand. My father came next, putting a pendant around my neck and giving me a hug. “Keep your hood up,” he ordered. “Run as far and fast as you can, and take your friend Merak with you. And Zeke if you think you can keep him quiet. Don't stop and don't worry about getting lost. We'll find you if you do. Do you understand?”

 

How clear that memory is, nodding my assent while all along my brain was screaming No! I don't understand! Don't send me into the dark with a monster waiting! But it didn't matter. Before my mouth could betray my confusion I had been hugged, kissed and pushed out the back door. Determined to remember the faces of my father and mother, I did what I was told, and swift and silent as the Shade I was costumed as, I went first to Merak's house, then to Zeke's.

 

Merak and Zeke and I had been friends for the majority of our lives. Zeke and I had grown up together, most of our teeth marks were on the same toys, and when Merak came to Asran he quickly joined our little troop. Earlier that night we'd gone Reaping together, and here we were again, back in our costumes and clutching bags, but the joy was gone. Silently we ran out of the village and into the surrounding forest.

 

We followed the trails we knew at first, then I remembered my father's advice. I led them away from the trails and into the gehrach, the dark places, where we never dared to go before. Still, I was hesitant to stray too far from my home, and that may have been what cost us.

 

At some point in our flight I had picked up a sturdy branch to use as a walking stick. Merak and Zeke had followed my example. We were so by trying to get lost without getting lost that we didn't notice the rustle of more than our feet and walking sticks. It was only when we paused for me to tighten my boot laces that we caught the distinctive crackle of quiet footsteps in the underbrush and the scent of freshly crushed pine needles. And a strange humming that set our teeth on edge.

 

Merak and Zeke froze, eyes darting around, searching the forest for the threat. I cleared my throat and whispered in the secret tongue all Asran children are taught since birth. “Asea on ven gehrach, pen charyou edan!” Don't look into the gehrach for your fathers' sakes!

 

Zeke obeyed instantly, quietly humming a tune as he watched me tie my boot laces. Merak was a little slower, but eventually he too looked away from the forest. “Ka'kurao, Vega,” Zeke whispered, doing his best not to look into the forest. They're surrounding us.

 

I finished with my laces, nodding stiffly. “Turshava rer.” Prepare to run. Back on my feet, I led them a few steps further into the forest, then yelled “Run!”

 

Since birth we'd all been trained in survival skills and the basics of martial arts. Because of this, even as children we were no pushovers. We sprinted off in different directions and plunged into the gehrach. It was dark but surprisingly open in the forest, and every ragged breath I drew in was thick with pine. Behind me, I could hear the approach of my would-be captors, not footsteps but a strange painfully musical hum, and the crackling as they brushed through the forest. And with every step they were getting closer.

 

It was becoming increasingly obvious I couldn't outrun them, so I did the first thing that came to my mind. When I spotted a suitable tree, I hauled myself up into the branches and hid in the shadows cast by the leaves.

 

Some time passed that seemed like an eternity to my addled brain, but may have only been a few minutes. I was calming down, even considering going back to Asran for help, when I saw them. True Shades, frightening creatures with no faces. The instant they entered the area around my tree, the leaves wilted, the branches bent under their own weight, the sounds of night animals stopped, and everything faded to gray. My fingers forgot their strength and I nearly fell. As it was, I wrapped my arms and legs around my branch and tried to remember warm days as the frozen air forced its way into my lungs.

 

Soon more people came and joined the Shades. It was obvious none of them felt comfortable in their company either, save one. The fire-eyed man, the wizard, was still grinning with his pointed teeth, one clawed hand almost absently running over a glass orb in his clutches. While I watched, the ball came alight, purple light spilling into the darkness of the gehrach and illuminating the Shades, shining through their heavy robes and revealing some smouldering shapeless darkness underneath. Yet again I nearly fell, but it wasn't because of the Shades' power. The light from the orb was wrong in some profound but indefinable way, yet it was beautiful as well. Alluring. I nearly launched myself out of the tree to get closer to it, to peer into its depths and see what was to be seen, or maybe even to touch it.

 

It was the voice of my father that saved me. A memory of him was dredged up by the sight of the ball. A story and a warning. “Long ago, in a time before the Grandmothers, when Old Mother herself was still young, there was a rainbow,” he'd said. “Wizards sought to contain it and own it and keep the power for themselves. Each color was encased in a glass orb, and all thirteen orbs went into the hands of the wizards, but by entrapping the rainbow, they also changed it. Made it wrong. Now the rainbow shows evil and guides us to it. Some show other worlds, and some show our thoughts, and some show what has been and others what may be. Most of the orbs were destroyed through the ages, but a few still exist. If you ever think you've found one, stay away, for your mother's sake.”

 

Now I knew what that orb was: the Wizard's Rainbow, or at least part of it. It wasn't the worst and most powerful, the Black Thirteen, thanks be to God and the man Jesus, but any part of the Rainbow was more than an Il'duri child could handle. I probably would have stayed in that tree even if the men and Shades knew where I was, but apparently while telling the wizard where I was, the Rainbow told him how to get me down.

 

He didn't say a word, didn't have to really. All he did was signal a pair of men forward. The men who were holding Zeke and Merak. Without a sound, he seized Zeke's hair, bared my friend's throat, and put a knife to it.

 

I was moving before I realized it, armed only with my walking stick. Coupled with the speed of my fall, the strength of my swing would have crushed the wizard's skull despite my small size, but it wasn't enough to break the Rainbow. My walking stick shattered into splinters on the purple orb, and I fell to the ground. The wizard signaled one of the Shades forward who seized me and lifted me off the ground like I was nothing but a feather, and once those cold hands touched me I couldn't move. I only watched as two more Shades took hold of my friends.

 

“We have what we came for,” the wizard said with an air of finality. “Come reap.”

 

Sixteen years ago to the day, I was stolen from my family and all that I knew. I was six years old.