1.1 Judgment, The Keeper of Gods

This is the ongoing tale of “The Keeper of Gods”. A fantasy novel. There is a link to the Prologue at the end of this chapter if you would like to go back, as the story builds upon itself. Hope you enjoy!

The Keeper of Gods

by Ryan Delege

1. The Old Man’s Quest

1.1

“The beast should die.”

Tannos had come to this decision as he knelt and placed the last rock over his murdered dog’s grave. The dog did not deserve to die. His name was Shenn. He had been strong, willful, and companionable like no other. Tannos had a connection with him that surpassed all the other mutts in his lifetime combined. In that moment, it dawned on him that the dog may have very well been one of the last friends he would ever have in this long life of his. Marrannah, his late wife, loved that dog just as much as he did. But she was gone too. She had her own pile of rocks only an arm’s length away.

Once the burial was completed, Tannos stayed kneeling in the grasses and clovers, and he looked to the waning sun taking its last peek over darkening mountains. He stroked his grizzled beard, then passed both hands through his thinning grey hair that had once been nearly black, so many, many years ago. “The beast should die,” he whispered aloud again. “The beast that killed my dog should die…I want it to die.”

If you go to hunt it, you won’t return, argued a voice inside his head. It was Marrannah’s. Funny how her voice always seemed to manifest when Tannos thought recklessly.

Tannos knew that the voice was likely right. He probably wouldn’t come back. He probably would never be buried next to his wife.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he said aloud. There was no reply.

The rest of the day and night was laced with melancholy, a bitter draft that Tannos did not care for. And when Tannos woke the next morning, he was grief-stricken, had poorly slept, and it was all he could do to lie in bed and stare dead-eyed at the pale grey slats that made up his ceiling. A part of him wanted to waste the whole day away just as he was, wallowing in self-pity. Is this how you honor those you loved? he thought woefully. He listened for the familiar sounds of Shenn that he knew would never come, and he sighed a long, sorrowful sigh.

Fortunately, there were still a few embers smoldering inside of him, fueled by an anger that this deplorable creature had forged within him, the creature that killed his poor Shenn. And although it was with great effort and a heavy heart, Tannos did manage to throw away the covers and get two feet planted firmly on the floor. “Get to it then, old man!” he said to himself sternly. And in his mind, this, the smallest of acts, was the true beginning of it all, of what he’d come to think of as his quest.

Like most other mornings, he put his boots on, flung a cloak over his shoulders, and went outside, trudging through the muck of his grounds. He fed the flocks of sheep, chickens, and goats, then returned back to his house to break his fast. A few slices of morning cake and a morsel of charred and peppered shank had been enough to fill Tannos’s belly. After that, he gathered some necessities for the journey ahead: a hatchet, a water skin and wine skin, satchels with bread, cheese, and apples, a couple of stone jars, and a paring knife, organizing them all into a burly grey haversack. As he packed the items, an utter sense of unreality befell him, a sort of disbelief that he was actually going to go through with this mad hunt. He cast the doubt and the estranged sensation aside and moved on.

Next, Tannos went to his bedroom and knelt at the edge of his bed. From underneath, he pulled an old and small wooden chest fortified with iron strappings and opened it gently and with reverence. Inside were keepsakes of his life: a lock of his mother’s hair, his father’s hair, and Marrannah’s hair as well; a small seashell he’d kept from an island he was stranded on for two long years; a red ribbon gifted to him by a woman whose life he had once saved, and many, many more curious objects.

After a moment of purposeful searching, he found the one item in the box that he thought might have a chance to help him on his quest. An item that, if truth be told, he hoped he wouldn’t have to use. He couldn’t yet say how it might help, really; it was just an inkling from his gut that told him he should take it along. He lifted it up and twirled it about in his fingers. It was a magicless object, but one that very much held a powerful effect over him. It was a silver ring fitted specifically to his index finger. Upon its face was the symbol of an order to which he once belonged, a long, long time ago, from a world he felt so removed from that he was left with a queer sense of doubt it had ever been real. Three short swords, side by side, were displayed on its face. He stared at it a while, marveling at its contours as the soapy light from his bedroom window cascaded in, flashing across its tarnished metal and its embossings. Sounds and images of people and places from tucked-away memories gathered in his mind unbidden, and a ghosted sensation of holding a spear came to his palm. He couldn’t help but grin at it all, despite the perilous nature of those earlier years of his life, left buried for so long.

“My life got much simpler when I took you off my finger, old friend,” he said to the ring as he studied it with uncertain eyes. “And I fear if I should ever put you back on, it will all start up again.”

He did not put the ring on. Instead, he fetched a piece of leather string, looped the ring upon it, and tied it around his neck. He returned to the box and spent a little more time going through its contents, touching and holding much of what was in there — a button, a tiny jar of sand, a cork from a wine bottle, an arrowhead — reaching for the memories of how he’d come across them, some good, some bad. Once he was satisfied, he shut the box and pushed it back under the bed.

With the haversack slung over his shoulder, Tannos grabbed his good walking stick, always kept leaning by his front door. He left his house, locking the door behind him. The click of the locking mechanism was short yet it rang with finality to him, appropriate considering he had the vague suspicion he wasn’t coming back. He hid the key on top of an inner ledge along the eaves and walked away.

A cool breeze played through the trees that morning, causing the branches to sigh and whisper, and the wind seemed to almost guide Tannos to the hill around the back of his house. At the top of the hill, he knelt by the two piles of stones: Shenn and Marrannah’s places of rest.

He didn’t say anything. He just touched the stones of both graves and remembered. He could still feel them, their presence like a warm blanket wrapped about his shoulders. He did think of Shenn, always by his side, always jubilant and often barking at nothing. But in that moment, his mind was mostly drawn to the reminiscence of Marrannah: her smile, her laugh, the delicateness of her lips when they shared a loving kiss, the warmth of her body when they lay together in bed.

It was all too much, and he shed a few tears, one rolling all the way from cheek to chin. Then he wiped his bleary eyes with a sleeve, gathered himself up, and walked down the hill with an arched back, the way old men do sometimes. He did not look back.

Step after step, Tannos followed the ruddy path leading away from his home and set off to pay a visit to a neighboring farm. This particular farm was home to his good friend (and possibly now his only friend) the meek, the infallible, the kind, Mr. Mort Lurch. The thought of meeting up with his pal put him in better spirits and quickened his pace.

Rain was sprinkling ever so shyly that morning, and Mort Lurch had decided to wait it out by reading an old but favorite book while relaxing on the stoop of his house. His droopy-eyed hound Lulu was there snoring beside him as always.

When Tannos came into view, walking evenly up the roadway to Mort’s farm, Lulu was the first to snap from her half-sleep and notice him approaching. She leapt up and went scampering off to greet him, nails clacking and scraping on the floorboards as she bolted off the stoop. Mort set his book aside and smiled, as joyful as his hound to see his good pal coming up his road.

Tannos habitually walked over to Mort’s every other week, especially since Mort’s health had started slipping — something Mort tried to hide but failed at miserably. A gripping cough seemed to always be with him these days, and he often had to sit himself down and catch his breath when the affliction became too much to suppress.

“Ale, my friend! You better have some!” Tannos cried out as he closed in on Mort’s house. Lulu was circling around gleefully, barking for Tannos’s attention. “Yes, yes of course, of course!” Mort yelled back. He coughed into his sleeve a few times, then waved at Tannos to keep walking on up.

They gathered themselves under the weathered and slightly crooked overhang of Mort’s porch. Both gave their platitudes and shared a friendly embrace. Tannos plopped down in one of the deep seating chairs Mort kept outside.

“Yes, sit, sit, my friend,” said Mort. He took a moment to have yet another coughing fit, then went into his house and came back with two tankards and some homebrew in a brass jug. He poured for them both.

They opened with light talk of crops and weather and their farm animals. It was very much the usual way they began their conversations. Mort went on at length about how his westerly field had flooded and that he was trying to decide whether to have his farmhands harvest what was surely going to be a short crop or to just cut down the whole lot and compost it. Several times during their talks, Mort couldn’t help but notice that Tannos’s full interest on matters wasn’t quite there; Tannos kept looking into the fields, his gaze listless. So Mort finally asked, “What’s wrong there, Tannos? What keeps stealing you away?”

Tannos inhaled deeply. “My dog’s dead, Mort… Shenn is dead,” he said solemnly, letting go a heavy sigh.

Mort caught a quiver in Tannos’s voice. It was unsettling and hurt his heart to hear his friend in distress, especially since only a few years ago Tannos had lost his wife, Mirrannah. He isn’t ready for more loss, thought Mort. Not yet. He couldn’t help but look to Lulu then, not daring to imagine what life would be like when she’d inevitably move on from this world.

“Gods, Tannos. I’m sorry to hear. I could tell you were fond of that pup. And I knew when you didn’t walk up with him that something was likely amiss.” Mort took off the frayed straw hat he was wearing and put it to his chest as a gesture of his condolences. “Please, tell, how’d he go? That dog was young! And he was keen and able if ever there was one, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, yes. Sure was, Mort.”

Tannos clenched a fist. The night of his dog’s murder came to him so vividly in his mind’s eye: Shenn scrambling out an open window. Tannos running outside, then struggling to light a torch as his dog bounded in and out of the lofty field grasses, barely visible by the viridescent moonlight. And the torch had been lit too late. Tannos saw too late. That last, sharp and dying squeal Shenn had exhaled still echoed in his mind. And then he’d seen it. There it had been, that thing. A vile goat-like face looking back at him with bright reflective eyes, utterly evil and guiltless. Tannos’s heart had stopped beating as he’d beheld the villainous thing that did not belong in his field.

Tannos took another one of those deep breaths, and an even longer exhale.

“That creature’s gotta go, Mort!” said Tannos sternly.

Mort’s eyes went wide with understanding. He knew what Tannos was speaking of. He knew of the devil that came down from time to time from that higher, northern place; everyone did.

“So that’s what did Shenn in? Not the wolves?”

“Not the wolves,” agreed Tannos.

Mort took a big swig of brew, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he did so, but he never broke the stare that Tannos and he shared. “That thing killed a horse of mine four years ago, you know?” said Mort.

“I know.”

The atmosphere between the two became quiet and careful, as if talking loudly about the creature might accidentally summon it to them in the moment.

“It’s been a thorn in the side of every farm this far north for generations back, Tannos. I’m surprised your farm has managed this long to go unnoticed by it. Gods be good!”

“So have I,” agreed Tannos. “How come no one has tried to exterminate that thing?”

“Because it ain’t a natural creature, Tan’.”

“Yes, I could tell.”

“And the truth is, friend, folks have tried to get rid of it, many times. Champions were paid and have come only to have died or failed and fled.”

“I see,” said Tannos.

They let a long moment pass and gazed out across Mort’s fields, contemplating the predicament at hand. Mort was first to break the silence.

“Bozear!” he said gravely.

“What’s that now?” Tannos asked.

“His name is Bozear, Tan’. He was a god once.”

“No, Mort. There are no gods. They’re gone.”

“Well, maybe not a god, Tan, but god-touched, it’s the truth!” Mort pointed a long finger at Tannos to stress his point. “It comes down from a castle, err, a palace mayhaps, where they say a god once ruled.”

“So they say,” agreed Tannos.

“It can’t be killed, Tannos.”

“It can be taken care of, Mort,” Tannos said with conviction. “And I don’t plan on paying for a champion. Going to take care of it myself.”

Mort stared at Tannos with an expression Tannos had never seen him use before. Mort looked at his long-time friend with focused and surmising eyes, like Tannos had finally gone the way of the kooks.

“Take the rest of my flock, Mort. My sheep, my goats. I have some chickens too. I’ll be gone for a while. Can’t care for them.” Tannos pulled a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it in Mort’s direction. Mort’s hand shot out, and he caught it deftly. Years of working trade counters had left certain instincts forever sharp. Mort knew immediately that the gold was for the help he’d have to hire to bring Tannos’s stock over. And one gold went a good long way in those parts.

Tannos had a hunch that Mort was going to deny him this request, gold or no gold. He suspected Mort was going to tell him he was crazy and to go back home, go live out his days on his farm in peace, or maybe suggest Tannos just come live with him even. But Mort was an old man too, just like Tannos, and when you were as old as they were and you saw the end of your rope coming, doing the unexpected as Tannos proposed wasn’t perhaps so unexpected. Mort just nodded in agreement. “Alright, I’ll have my hands hire some more men and fetch them straight away. I just hope you’ve thought this through and, my friend, this is really what you want to do.”

“It is, Mort.”

“Why don’t I come with you, Tannos? We’ll both hunt it.” And just as Mort said this, he released one of his long wheezes and coughed into the sleeve of his shirt.

“No, Mort. I’m doing this alone. You’re not well enough for the cold air where I’ll have to be going.” Tannos gave Mort a look. The resolve in his gaze said there would be no argument on the decision; the matter was settled.

“Alright, Tannos, if it’s your wish.”

Mort knew he would probably just hinder such a mission anyhow. He wasn’t a coward, but he was old, slow, weak, and sick, and he wasn’t in denial about it. Tannos, on the other hand, well, Mort had come to believe there was a sort of refined and capable nature to him, a grit that few other men possessed. And although he’d never witnessed anything truly heroic from the man, years and years of being his friend brought Mort to believe he was playing the role of a pigeon when all along he was truly a hawk.

The pair spent the rest of the day on the porch, leaning lazily in their chairs, drinking homebrew and reminiscing about good times past. Days when both of their wives were still alive and their bones and joints had only just started to creak and rust and ache in the night. And they laughed at the little misadventures they’d had while on the road together, visiting all the quaint hamlets that were nestled close by, where they’d go to trade their livestock and visit the taverns and drink and get news of the great inner cities.

Then came the dark and the chill air with it, so they moved inside and set themselves by a warming fire Mort prepared for them. Lulu would bark when they became jubilant and their laughs got excessively loud. The barks reminded Tannos of Shenn and that hurt a little, but he never mentioned it to Mort.

Mort was first to pass out in his chair, one finger still dangling his empty mug. Tannos got up and threw a bearskin over him, then flopped back down and yanked another one across himself. Then he passed out too.

In the morning, they got up early as good farm folk do, ate eggs and heavy cuts of bacon, then said their goodbyes. When Tannos had made it just about halfway down Mort’s driveway, Mort cried out to him. “Tannos, are you sure about all this? Chasing that… creature? How do you plan on killing that thing anyhow?”

Tannos turned back to Mort and thought upon the questions for a moment, letting the cool morning breeze wash over him, pushing his grey hair off to one side. “I’m sure!” Tannos cried back. “And poison, I’m planning on killing it with poison!”

Previous writings of this story..

Prologue. https://medium.com/@rydelege/this-is-the-prologue-of-a-fantasy-novel-abd9914485ca