A Tailor's Son (Valadfar)

Valadfar is a world full of heroes. Magic wielding mages,
demonic dark lords, brave knights and brutal barbarians; but we
mustn’t forget the everyday man on the street. People like the bakers
that wake up long before dawn to tend the ovens and make the bread,
candlestick makers covered in wax and the tailor. Yes, the humble
tailor, master of stitch and twine. But what would happen to this most
humble of craftsman, this most gentle of man, if the world crossed his
path with a darkness to rival even that of the demon Rinwid. That is
what this story will tell. The year has moved on since the time of the
Dragon Lords return to Neeska, and the Brilanka calendar now sits on
the page of 128ab, the month of Wastelar, the first month of winter.
Sitting in the dark alone and frightened Harold wrote upon the
darkened candle lit parchment. If he was to be asked, he could not be as
precise as to tell you the time, for he did not know it. All he knew was
that it was late. The last bells heard from the tower of the newly
constructed cathedral before the rain drowned out the reverberations
of the bells had sounded midnight.

Midnight had come to be known to the people of
Neeskmouth as the witching hour. At first, it had been called this from
the rumours of shadows, living darkness which supposedly hid demons
from the end of the Dragons return. But when these stories faded the
title of the witching hour remained in the common tongue. The phrase
had gained weight as the city stopped its celebrations of freedom and
fell into depravity. Its population boomed above what could be
supported by the current infrastructure. It forced those at the bottom
of the barrel to do whatever they could to put food in their bellies and
clothes on their backs. Now the witching hour was the time of
muggers, pinch-pricks, and even the constables themselves, who were
supposedly charged as protectors from the previous but were just as, if
not more so, corrupt. It all made going out after sunset a living
nightmare. Although numerous, it was not for any of those reasons
that Harold’s quill shook in his hand. The weather did little to help to
settle his skin from its vibrations, his flesh seemed to attempt to crawl
away from his body with outstretched hairs, and although that might
make an onlooker think it was the cold that caused him to shake so, it
was not that. At least not purely, he had a fear in his belly so powerful
that his heart raced like the hooves of a post masters horse at full
gallop. The night sky was thick with smoke, a small curse that the end
of the war with the Poles had brought. The golden age that descended
onto the city, as the treaties were signed, had brought with it an
industrial growth that spread with the speed of a forest fire and with
any fire comes smoke. The choking clouds poured from the newly built
factories by the harbour and flowed inland on a strong westerly wind
that blew from the sea. This almost nightly occurrence cast the moon
to be hidden behind a deep blanket of smog so the only light outside
was from the newly installed Dwarfen gas lamps. They struggled that
night to stay alight, the downpour the gods had seen fit to tarnish the
sky with threatened to dowse them. The rain clouds swirled as they
moved across the sky. There was barely a break in them letting through
starlight as the wind, so vicious in its path, pushed the rain hard and
bullied it to fall more severe on Harold’s shutters. With each creak and
slam of the aged windows, Harold’s heart missed a beat, for you see he
couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if the creature came
looking for him. Even with the strong oak, brought in from the newly
grown forest at the edges of the Scorched Lands, pressed tightly in the
doorframe there was a draft creeping in. The breeze as it crept in under
the frame and rattled around the room made Harold’s fire dance and
flicker. The shadows it casts across all four walls seemed intent to taunt
him, adding to his panic-ridden state. The rhythmic gloom turned a hat
rack into a shadowy assassin and back again with each pass of light.
With each flash under the door Harold was forced to stop breathing
and listen, just to make sure that he couldn’t hear footsteps outside.
This goes some way to show the pure terror he felt as he sat alone. He
worried that the thing would come for him, so much so that even the
lack of footsteps worried him. What if it was someone intentionally
making no noise outside the door? The paranoia drove him mad and
that was why he felt the need to record the passing of the last few days.
He had unwillingly become the antagonist for a grim fairytale, one that
as the day grew to a close he could not seem to escape.