Wolf Awert - The Reign of Magic

Roddick was the eldest of the Ramsmen. It was he whom the eyes of the men sought when the group faced a decision, and he who spoke the first word. Roddick crouched down before the child and looked at the amulet. All he saw was a simple wooden disk, thicker in the middle and covered all over with fine carvings. Although the child had apparently sucked on the wood for a while, he could see no traces of wear, save for a few spit stains. Whatever wood this was, it must be very hard. And it did not come from around here.

The Ramsmen were people of the land. Roddick, who knew every plant and every animal in the area, weighed the wood gently in his hand. It was too heavy for its size, the tint unfamiliar and the grain foreign. His gaze did not find the familiar rings of a transversely cut piece of wood. Instead, it followed beautiful swirls that wound around several eyes of rest. The carvings were rich, if simple, but not of the kind made by people sitting by the fire in the evening when the day’s work was done. Nearly all Ramsmen wore a pendant around the neck, and Roddick himself did too. He had cut his from the heel bone of a Mulch, the first beast he had slain by himself. He called it his amulet, even believed a little in his talisman. But it was by no means a real amulet. To create a real amulet, one needed magical powers. Only the village’s Reeve owned a true amulet and openly wore it upon his jerkin as a sign of his powers. He who owned an amulet was of high standing and destined to rule over the people. Always it was a master of magic, though he would rarely have to prove his powers. Perhaps even Esara, who was known to have mysterious powers, called an amulet her own. But if she did, she kept it secret, like she did so many other things.

Even more puzzling than the disk itself was the woven band it hung from. Roddick could make out eight carefully greased cords, braided in a complicated pattern to form a skein. They ended in a star-shaped knot in front of the wood, their soft points reaching over the upper edge like a protective hand. Roddick had heard of the skilful way the Water-Men artfully knotted string into figurines. He had never seen any such thing, though, nor did he understand the reason behind it. Art, however, does not develop without purpose, even if that purpose takes time to become apparent. The knot looked like an open blossom with eight curved petals encompassing a small, hemispherical butte.

Roddick lifted the knot’s star-shaped petals a little and discovered beneath a single, almost invisible string that ran from the butte into the wooden disk. It looked as though one could tear the wood with one sharp pull from its band. He carefully tugged at the string to test its resilience. It moved a little and cut into the skin of his fingertips. Roddick understood neither the wood nor the band, and neither had he ever seen a plant which, when spun into a thread, produced an unbreakable string. In his hands lay something that was not of his world.

He took the wooden disc gently from the boy’s hands and hid it under the child’s shirt. Finding a child in the wilderness was unusual enough and would cause a lot of excitement in the village. Roddick saw no reason to fan the flames with the mystery of a strange amulet. The Ramsmen followed Roddick because he knew what to do, and his wise words could convince even those in doubt and those who wavered. But now, the leader of the Ramsmen made sure not to let even one word slip. Sometimes, the most important things in life were better left unnoticed.

The men who had found the boy were no men of big words, and they brought the child into their village. He did not resist. Only his gaze seemed to be tethered to a point somewhere in the far distance.

There was a saying in Earthland that rumors were the only thing faster than the wind, and so the men were not surprised to find that they were already expected when they returned home. The last light of the evening sun shone upon their families, who had gathered in small groups in front of their houses and watched them arrive. The wind had abated and readied itself, like every evening, to blow back down from the hills to the valley from which it had risen during the day.

Roddick let the boy ride on his shoulders and walked down the wide, heavily trodden path that led to the center of the village and connected the well with the village square. The villagers stepped out from the shadows of their huts and followed Roddick and his Ramsmen on their way to the Judgment Tree, where the other half of the village population had already assembled under the lead of the Reeve.

Roddick walked slowly towards the great tree whose massive outer branches were so heavy they had come to rest on the ground. The cattle were banned from this place and driven off with kicks and bats if they accidentally found themselves beneath it, for the village square with its Tree of the Court was a holy place and a public place, where decisions were made that determined the future of the whole village.

Roddick walked the last steps alone. The other Ramsmen stood back in reverence, as did the villagers. Roddick knew that a boy of four was already too old to touch the heart of a woman who had to tend to a new infant every year, and too young to help any family with the work. They would have to talk for a long time this evening, for no family found it easy to feed another hungry mouth. To add a fifth to four children meant less milk, less bread and less cheese for every one of the four others. And often, there were not four children, but eight or even ten. But Roddick was convinced the village, under the leadership of the Reeve, would find a solution in the end.

On the way down into the vale the boy had stopped listening out, and was now looking around in interest. His eyes glinted from beneath his fair hair and rested for a moment on a bony middle-aged woman who did not stand with the others on the village square but seemed to be almost invisible in the shadow of a house. The moment Roddick handed over the child to the Reeve, she walked out into the brownish-yellow light of the evening sun.

“Give him to me; I will take care of him.”

A murmur rose from the group, of relief and disapproval at once. The arrival of a child of foreign blood was no matter for rash decisions. Everyone knew that rashness was an important decision’s worst enemy. Did not custom demand to let the Ramsmen speak first and to hear all the details and circumstances of their discovery? Did not tradition command that they consider and discuss? The villagers looked at the woman who now stood calmly by the Reeve, and not all looks were friendly. When strange things happened to the village, even the mundane became a public affair that concerned everybody and had to be discussed by all. And besides – who had ever heard of a truth-teller raising a child?

The Reeve raised his hand and the murmur died down. His eyes met with the truth-teller’s, pierced the child, passed over Roddick the Ramsman and wandered over the group of villagers, until his glance returned to the boy and finally came to rest. It was he, the Reeve, who was responsible for giving everyone the place which by tradition and the magical order of this land was his to be.

For the stranger, such a place had yet to be found. To commence the acceptance of the foreign child into the village community by breaking custom and tradition meant disregarding order, and on top of that, it was a bad omen for the future. The Reeve therefore hesitated to give in to Esara’s wish. But he was also a clever man and knew that sometimes something became desirable only when someone else desired it as well. So with a clear voice he asked into the night: “Is there anyone aside from Esara the truth-teller who lays claim to this child?”

Before anyone could even open their mouth, Esara said calmly and resolutely: “No, there is no one in this village who will lay claim to this boy. The ken of Today and Tomorrow and the band that weaves them together is mine. ”