Hand of Fire (The Master of the Tane) (19 page)

CHAPTER SIX

             
Holding a tray in one hand, Resdin reached up and knocked on the large oak door. He was an average looking man just under six feet tall with a slender look that masked great physical strength. Long brown hair glided down his back and steel gray eyes pierced the darkness around him. He wore a goatee that he often pulled into a point giving him a villainous look that he relished. He always wore black. From his loose fitting long sleeved shirt down to his tight leather pants and boots, it was always black.

  
              A faint sound from behind the door answered and Resdin pushed his way in. He entered a very large bedroom shrouded in gloomy darkness. The only light to break through the shadows came from the few candles that dotted the walls and a tiny streak of sunlight that snuck through the thick, velvet drapes covering the only window at the far side of the room next to the bed. The bed was an extravagant piece of art constructed of sturdy oak posts that had been carved to depict different ways of torture and death, making it beautiful and hideous all at once. The other furnishings were few and simple including a small desk and chair on the left wall, a bedside table and a chest at the foot of the bed.

  
              Resdin quickly made his way to the left side of the bed where lay an old, feeble looking man swallowed up in large down coverings and pillows. His hair was long and white and sat in a knotted mass giving the appearance of so many tangled spider webs. His eyes were black as tar and burned with a power that would be unexpected in a man of his physical decline. The only other distinguishing feature about him was the unusual, out of place tightness and smoothness of his skin, which seemed to be pulled around mere bone.

  
              “I brought your tea master,” Resdin said as he set the tray on the bedside table.

  
              “Well hurry up!” the old man snapped with a voice that sounded of crinkling parchment. Resdin quickly poured a cup and handed it to the old man who, in between sips, asked, “Have you done as I have commanded?”

  
              “Yes master. All will be set into motion when you are ready.”

  
              “Good. Soon my strength will return and all will occur as I have willed it.” Setting the cup back on the tray the old man moved as if to sit up. “Come, help me to the window.”

  
              Immediately, Resdin grasped the man’s frail arm and helped him move slowly from the bed. Pulling back the drapes, he and the old man were greeted by the stark bareness of a land long deprived of life giving necessities. Here and there old, dead trees dotted the barren landscape in a knotted mass of bent and twisted limbs as if their deaths had come about by some horrible torment. The land itself appeared to have choked on some awful venom bent on pure and ultimate destruction. Not even a weed survived the destructive force that plagued the ground.

  
              The old man peered through the clear glass and stared long at the far off mountains. With satisfaction and a look of distant foresight he caught Resdin’s arm and muttered, “They will come soon and I will be their god.” He chuckled to himself before collapsing into a coughing fit that forced Resdin to carry him back to his bed.

*     *     *

                 The tiny canoe pitched dangerously as the Waseeni boy anxiously yanked at the rope trying to pull it from the water. Finally, a small cage emerged from the murky depths crammed with three giant crayfish clawing each other in desperation as they tried to escape their doom. The boy smiled as he dumped his catch into the wooden box that sat in the center of his craft adding to the two others he had retrieved earlier from another trap.

“Mother will be happy to see these,” he said cheerfully letting the cage drop with a splash back into the water before moving on.

Teek was a typical Waseeni boy with medium length, blond hair contrasted sharply against sun-darkened skin and dark, brown eyes. He was very thin and wiry making him extremely agile and quick when circumstances required. The only clothes he wore was a simple cloth that covered his loins and a headband of braided Teague leaves to keep his hair from falling into his eyes. The swamp was not as hot this time of year, which lent relief from the swarms of bugs and the blistering heat that was typical in the summer time. In the winter, the temperature was almost pleasant—almost.

  
              Teek pushed his canoe quickly through the swamp and around the trees that jutted from the waters like giant sentinels guarding the area from intruders. He was anxious to get home and finish his chores so he could reach his old friend’s hut before dark. He had passed many nights at the feet of old Father Twee as he told of his great adventures in the outside world. He never tired of hearing those stories and the strange things that were found outside the swampland that was his home.

  
              It wasn’t long before he reached the foot of the tree that held his family’s hut. The hut was built like all Waseeni dwellings, nestled in the lower branches of a Teague tree. The Teague, which also lent their name to the region, were the only trees that survived in the swamplands. They were extremely large and tall with trunk widths so immense that it took twenty Waseeni clasped hand in hand to completely surround one. The lower branches that stuck out from the trunk approximately thirty feet from the water, afforded the Waseeni ample protection from what lurked in the swamp’s depths.

             
Tying off his canoe, Teek emptied the box of crayfish into a bucket that hung from a trap door under their home, and then quickly ascended the rope ladder that dangled loosely just above the water. As he entered the hut he was greeted by shrieks of laughter from his two younger sisters and his baby brother who rushed him in delight and knocked him to the ground.

  
              “Hi Teek, we missed you,” Eeni, the youngest of the girls, said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed with all her strength.

  
              “Did you catch anything today?” his other sister, Jina, asked from her seat on his stomach while his brother, the youngest, knelt by his head.

  
              “Yes I did you little monkeys and if you’ll get off of me I’ll pull them up so we can eat.”

             
The girls quickly scrambled off jumping up and down with excitement as Teek began to lift himself from the floor before being stopped by two small hands that grasped his arm. He looked down into his little brother’s dark brown eyes, which stared up at him with a frightened look. “Did you see any monsters out there?”

  
              Teek looked over at his mother sitting by the window weaving a reed mat and shrugged. “No, Bink, I didn’t see any monsters,” he said with a smile while rubbing the boys blond hair. “And don’t you worry about anything because your big brother Teek is here to protect you. Now, how about some dinner?”

  
              Bink’s face brightened immediately and he joined in with his jumping sisters. “All right you three,” Rani said putting down her mat and rising to her feet. “Go wash yourselves and leave Teek alone so he can bring up our dinner and we can eat.” The little ones rushed to the corner of the hut where a small bucket held some fresh water while Teek opened the trap door in the center of the floor.

  
              “I wish you would stop telling your brother those stories you hear from Twee,” Rani whispered to Teek while helping him pull up the bucket of crayfish. “You know how they scare him.”

  
              “I’m sorry mother,” Teek answered bringing the container through the trap door. “I won’t tell him any more, I promise.”

  
              “Please don’t. It’s bad enough having you running all over the place worrying your poor mother to death.” Teek smiled at her as she put her arm around him and gave him a quick squeeze. “Now let’s see what you brought us today.”

  
              The small feast was prepared in quick order and all sat down around the open trap door and dug in noisily, throwing the empty shells through the hole in the floor. Teek ate quickly, anxious to be done and then on his way to see his friend, Father Twee, and listen to the wondrous adventures the old man shared from his youth.

Finishing his last bit of crayfish, Teek tossed it through the trap door. Rushing to the window, he emptied the water bucket that hung outside into the drinking barrel that sat on the floor and then replaced the bucket to collect any rain or dew that dripped from the gutters during the night.

                 After lighting the sap candle his mother made to illuminate the hut at night, Teek grabbed his blowgun and was starting with his good-byes when his mother stopped him. “Where do you think you are going?”

  
              “To Father Twee’s,” Teek replied standing impatiently by the door. “He promised to tell me more of his adventures the next time I came by.”

  
              “Not tonight, Teek,” Rani said with an almost disappointed look. “I’d like you to stay home tonight, with us.”

  
              “But mother,” Teek protested.

  
              “Please, Teek,” Rani cut in with a sigh. “I would prefer it if you stayed in tonight with your family. You’ve been gone all day and I know your sisters and brother would like to spend some time with you. Tomorrow you can visit with Twee after you’ve checked and moved the traps.”

  
              Teek studied the floor intently. “All right,” he finally muttered and then sat down heavily on his mat by the door.

  
              Immediately, he was assailed with flying arms and legs as his siblings jumped on him with giggles of delight. Teek tried to ignore them for as long as he could not wanting to let go of his disappointment at being kept home, but was finally overcome when Jina and Eeni decided they needed to cheer him up by tickling. It wasn’t long before they were all rolling around on the ground in fits of hysterical laughter.

  
              “All right now, that’s enough,” Rani said trying to control her own giggles. “You rascals leave your brother alone and come finish your meals. It’s not often we eat this well.” They all raced back to their crayfish and began to devour the last remaining morsels trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

  
              Teek picked himself up off the floor and moved to the window by the candle where he peered out, searching the dark waters of the swamp below. A slight puff of wind brushed his face bringing with it a moth that fluttered around the candle’s flame in a dance of delight. Teek watched it with envy.
To be free like a moth
, he thought,
and fly where the wind would take you. That is the life for me, not this dull existence we carve out in the swamps, but real life and adventure. What tales would you tell me, little moth? What have you seen? What is out there to be discovered?

  
              The moth landed on the candle near the flame and was instantly charred. Teek stared sadly at the dying insect as the flame consumed its body.

  
              “What are you staring at?” Teek jumped almost knocking the candle out the window. “I’m sorry,” Rani said stifling a laugh. “What are you so involved in over here?”

  
              Teek smiled with a quickly reddening face as he placed the candle back in its place on the window ledge. “Just thinking.”

  
              “Well, it must be something pretty important for me to have startled you so,” Rani chuckled.

  
              “No, not really,” Teek sighed, suddenly becoming serious. “What was it like when you went on your journey, mother?”

  
              “Oh Teek, is that what you’ve been pondering about over here? I’ve told you that story a hundred times. You could probably tell it to me better than I to you.”

  
              “I know mother but maybe you forgot something that you’ll remember this time.” Teek stared at her hopefully, begging with his eyes for her to tell him the story again. Rani hesitated for a moment not wanting to encourage her son’s craving for adventure but she was no match against his pleading eyes that so often won her over. She could remember a time not so long ago when wanderlust had filled her with the same excitement and wonder, but the hard realities of life had soon snuffed out any thoughts of the outside world from her mind. Her whole life was wrapped up in her children now. No longer did she have time for the dreams of her youth and she realized that Teek would be forced into the same doldrums of life sooner than he realized. Let him have the thrilling fantasies and adventures while the day still shown brightly on his childhood.