A Preface to The Stirring of the Oak

In the Year 949, when the powers in the leaves were waxing full, in the shallow reaches of Caldaria (known to Passians as the Darkwood), and just across the Urf from Hildor, a young toddling boy hid in the happy hollow of a m'apple tree.

The hollow was happy for him, for it hid him well, and he wished to be hid. For what seemed to him as vast legions of searchers from his native Hildor were now flooding across the Urf, to find him and bring him home. But this boy— Luminthred, Lumi, or Lu, you may know him as— was determined to depart from his village, and follow after his elder sister, who had been placed in a train of similar schoolgirls, to be given over as sacrifice to the Darkwood and its terrible commander who dwelt beneath the soils.

Now this Luminthred was only a toddling, with just over two years past his robe, but his resolve was absolute. For his sister had been kind to him, kinder and lovelier to him than all others in Hildor put together. Without her, he saw no purpose in going on. His village was miserable, both in terms of the wooden shacks and the people in them, and the anxious ideology that rushed about on a constant, with the fear that the armies of Darkwood would swarm forth at any minute.

Now some of these searchers stopped nearby to Luminthred’s tree hollow, but young Lu ducked down, and the leaves inside— a holdover from last year’s autumn— covered him well. This, then, he overheard from friends of his father, as they scouted the wide forest floor, all covered by the shadow of the turning leaves:

“We’ll never find him now. Not with the dusk coming on so soon. I can barely see the way it is!”

And indeed the roof of this forest was near complete, as the rising branches of these trees sprung out from bases that proved the broadest of all any of these men had seen. But there were voices which spoke against the first man:

“He’s a waddling two year-old! Swift for his number, sure, but it was by no means long after he took off that we chased after! He’s got to be close.”

There was argument, then, whether to continue on into Caldaria or search the shores of the Urf more thoroughly. The majority of men agreed that any ordinary toddling would’ve never made it past the first line of bushes, and they were right, but Luminthred was no ordinary boy.

“I saw the look in his eyes when we took his sister away!” announced a large man called Pendle to the others. “He wants this. He wants to run away into the woods no matter what the cost, as some show of defiance. So why are we following him? The kid’s mind is made up.”

“We’re following him because he’s the son of ol’ Pitchfor!” shot back Leg, a searcher of much leaner proportion than large Pendle. “I’ve got a son not far from him in age; sometimes they get silly things in their heads and take off! But that doesn’t mean they don’t come to their senses! I’ll bet by now he’s scared out of his fingers, and longing for a way home! Come on all, let’s shout and move forward! That’s the only way he’ll hear us, that’s the only way we’ll know which way to go!”

“That’s a mighty fine way for Darkwood beasts to hear you too!” fired back Pendle. “And if we’re all shouting, then how will we hear if the runt calls back?!”

“We’ll just— we’ll just have to take that chance, before daylight’s done,” nodded Leg, frail and unsure in the voice, but others agreed. They needed to put a valiant effort into finding young Luminthred, or they would all regret it eternally should he wash up dead on their shores.

Thus they proceeded deeper into the Darkwood, calling out coaxes for the young boy to return. And all the while, that same young boy sat tucked uncomfortably under leaves in the wide hollow of a tree, just wishing they would all go back home, so he could get out and find his sister before dark. Of course this was an utter folly, but when one is two years old, every problem appears to have a quick and easy solution when brought before the young and simple mind.

As Leg, Pendle and company marched on under leaves of many colors, and over the crumpled grays of yesteryear, they came to a horrid slope: one that led right down to Caldar’s Gate.

“Well that does it, we can’t go past that,” whispered a scared man of the company called Haym. “We’ve no right to anyhow. Not our land. There’s an arch there for a reason.”

But Leg was not so sure. He stared at the broad stone arch for some time, contemplating its alien nature. Then he spoke quietly, “For nine years have we feared this place. For nine autumns has Caldar and his Desirot beat us into submission. Still we send him our brightest children when the first green leaf turns… and still he raids our villages when the colors are at their peak. It’s a rude game, and I’m grown tired of its playing.”

Many tried to stop him, but Leg was now as determined to press on into unknown lands as Luminthred. But he did not get far at all, for lurking just beyond Caldar’s Gate was a winged serpent with sharpened fingers, and she sprung out from high in the trees as the thresh-hold was crossed, coming down hard on Leg and digging her claws into both his shoulders. As the blood bubbled up, this Dragon of the Darkwood let the cries of Leg linger just long enough to be heard by his followers, and then she ripped off his arms to be thrown out the gate, and slit through his chest for a quick passing.

The men of Hildor were already fled by the time Leg’s arms came soaring out from Caldar’s Gate, and they all ran at different angles, silent as sin, for this is how they had been trained to flee over the course of the last decade, when dark things had begun to assault them regularly after Caldar had declared war on all the lands west of the Urf.

And so the search party was disbanded. And after many minutes of silence had passed by, Luminthred emerged out of his little hollow, and looked around. There were only pockets of pale light poking through the trees now, and already he began to feel autumn’s chill. Perhaps he would not find his sister out here after all… but that was too dreadful a thought. He wanted now her soft embrace more than anything. More than mother, more than father, more than the elders. And so that desire took hold, and guided his steps.

With every shuffle in the leaves, young Lumi pictured himself with her, playing low games of a base quality as they had done mere days ago. And then he came to the little bowl-shaped valley which led to the stone arch known as Caldar’s Gate, and he admired its craft. Nothing like it had he seen in all the Glimmerlond, for there all things were made of wood. To him, stones were just an occasional oddity which sometimes adorned the ground, in rude and messy piles. But this… this stonecraft was a thing of wonder, a thing of an otherworldly mysticism.

And so, the curiosity and amazement led Luminthred on, and he passed through that stone arch with head tilted up high, and the sights beyond the arch did not fail to impress either. For here the trees rose up in a manner that was too perfect to be of mere chance. Here the trees formed a tunnel, with a path between neither widening nor narrowing. It was a perfect leaf-covered path, set there for just one man (or toddling) to tread, and it rose up and winded, with branches forming a rounded roof overhead.

Luminthred— being two years old— had not the words to describe it at the time, but the visions and feelings of that night would remain vivid until the end, and so this account certainly holds true to his memories. However, he should be forgiven if there is not a satisfactory transition to the next part of his tale— for the memories of children are often speckled with omission. Anyhow, he walked further and further into the wood, until he found himself unspeakably lost, and this is where his vivid stream of memory returns: amidst a tangle of tall fungal towers, like mushrooms but much more quick in their movements. For these fungal towers were pulling in air like a gasping elder, and exhaling with a splitting of their tops, revealing horrid odors and teeth, which young Lu could see as some of the more limber towers bent over to reveal their hideous inners.

In short, Luminthred had seen jolly attempts at artwork back in Hildor which presented ‘mushroom forests’ as happy places of song and whimsy; this was not true. Fungal forests were a place of fear and dread, so much so that young Luminthred was positively relieved to see a live dragon poke her head out from behind one of these living towers. Our little lost boy only stood still, struck stiff, and this Dragon of Darkwood took slow steps forward, her long talons pressing down on the fallen leaves, her bright violet eyes swirling Lumi into a trance.

When he regained his senses, Luminthred found himself surrounded by rock. Not fully surrounded— thank God— but more surrounded than he would ever be in life. For he sat in a little inlet carved into a massive rock wall, and to his left he could see another craggy wall of stone. Between these two slabs and far below walked a gentle river, fed by numerous rushing waterfalls, taking their time towards some far distant end. But some of the water ended up very close, trapped in a little swirling pool which lay under a half-domed outcrop of stone, where leaves of all breed and color turned about slowly, and where a series of strange devices hung on the walls of the cavern. He was looking upon metalwork, but he never seen such a thing, so those shimmering ores were a mystery to him.

The Dragon of Darkwood broke his gaze, as she emerged out from her resting place deep in the adjacent chamber. As Luminthred looked upon the beast, and she looked upon him, there was something of an understanding. Neither could speak the other’s language, but this would not be such an insurmountable challenge. After all, Luminthred was two, and didn’t even have much of a grasp on his native Gandry tongue yet. There was never a better time in life to learn how to communicate with the Darkling Creatures, and the Dragon of Darkwood— Kathir Dahir was her name— knew this well. She knew that children were adaptable, moldable, open minded… if given patience, and kindness.

So Kathir took Luminthred upon her back, and flew him down the ravine, to the little swirling pools, where she demonstrated each set of terrible tools and weapons which hung there. And then Luminthred was disheartened, not so much by Kathir Dahir’s violent mannerisms, but by the realization that finding his sister would now be infinitely harder than he could have guessed. Who knew how far this winged serpent had carried him from the edge of his homeland?

In a seemingly hopeless effort, Lumi began to speak words like “sister,” and “Bel,” which was her name, and— surprisingly— the Dragon of Darkwood appeared to comprehend.

“I want my sister,” said Luminthred, as clear and poignant as he could. Then Kathir appeared sad, for reasons that Luminthred could guess but would not bring himself to believe in that dark hour.

In a vain attempt to comfort the boy, Kathir put up one of her sharp claws, and stroked his cheek, but Luminthred recoiled, and scolded the dragon. “You’re not my sister,” he cried, “You’re nothing like Bel.”

And then the Dragon of Darkwood departed for some time, leaving Lumi alone in that little pool offset from the mouth of the River Essen, under a bright starlit sky. The full light of the Seven Moons found their way to him from various angles at one point, but then they all began to duck behind the stones in their own time. Sounds of hissing, creeping and clicking seemed to fill his ears, and he thought he could gleam ancient eyeballs lurking behind jagged stalagmites, which probably belonged to moldy, crusty beast-folk, or so he imagined.

At any rate, he was relieved when the soaring monster Kathir Dahir returned from on high, and he embraced her as she landed before him. The two shared what could only be described as a tender moment, but it was cut short by an unfortunate misunderstanding. For Kathir had gone off to find something that she thought would cheer Lumi up. She had returned with the hand of his sister.

And she in her dragon’s fist held up the severed hand and stroked Luminthred’s watery face with it, and he was too overcome with despair to move. Was this truly the hand of his sister? What, then, became of the rest of her?

Now the reality dawned on him, that he was hopelessly alone in this terrible wilderness with no family but a treacherous serpent. Filled with rage— rage at the Desirot for demanding his sister as sacrifice, rage at his village for allowing the sacrifice to take place, rage at himself for running off to a miserable death— he took off once again. But there was really nowhere to go. He ran along the rocks for a while, but they were so jagged and slippery that he soon found him tumbling into the river. And yes, the river was shallow, but not more shallow than the height of a two year-old.

The boy called Luminthred would have drowned there, then, were it not for the intervention of Kathir, who was by now taking a liking to the boy.

It seems that often times, when powerful creatures take a liking to things, they will extend all power to ensure their private possession of that thing, and suffocate the thing they love just so long as they might lay claim to it above all others.

Happily, this was not the case with Kathir and Lumi.

Such was the fondness of Kathir Dahir, that she straightway took the boy out of Darkwood, to the western shore of the Urf, very near to the boy’s home of Hildor. She did not dare to make an appearance in the town itself, for the folk there were already terrified of many things, and didn’t need confirmations of winged devils to ruin their sleep for centuries.

In the morning, Luminthred awoke, and waddled over to the side of his village. He looked on for a good while as the suns gave rise, and the villagers began to make well with their trades. How could he make an entrance now? After having been away a whole night? What would he say? How could he explain all the thoughts associated with his motivations, determinations and obligations? He was only two.

And so he didn’t even try. When one of the villagers spotted him, he froze up, and didn’t move an inch. He was carried to his father’s shop, where he froze up further. Hounded all week for answers by all types of people— “Where were you? Why did you leave? What were you expecting to accomplish? Do you realize how stupid that was? Why’d you come back then?” — he simply refused to say a word.

And so it was for years.

Luminthred had been a bright boy in those first two turnings, and all Hildor was impressed by his early use of speech. But all that was apparently undone after his journey into the Darkwood. His third year came, his fourth year passed, his fifth year drifted on… and still Lumi said nothing.

He could understand folk just fine. He just found them all rude and unbearable, and so he didn’t care to converse with them.

And then in the Year 952, three years after his night with the Dragon, things took another ill turn. The enterprising man called Barrzeus, who had made a name for himself in far-away Dolerenn, came to town with a convoy of merchants. There were builders too, of a fiendishly fast nature, who set up makeries in a perimeter around Hildor, changing the town’s design from a simple circle to a raucous rectangle. There in those new makeries would goods and foods be sprung up quicker than sand, and be sold at half the price of the local produce.

In the summer it was all merry and joyous. The folk of Hildor were beyond pleased to have such a fresh company on their borders, and to be able to purchase their wares for such a bargain. The merchants of Barrzeus brought a festive air to the nights as well, with musicians and love-makers to introduce all sorts of new fares to the people by firelight.

But by the turning of Tanariat, the charm of Barrzeus was already wearing off. The local merchants were beginning to feel enraged, for— although they could buy things for cheap— they were no longer able to sell anything! Their shops and trades were worthless now, in the face of the bold newcomer.

Worst of all, Barrzeus employed not just merchants, but messengers and heralds galore. And these would be brought in by the hundreds, to a village which had only hundreds to begin with. And so, all day— every day— in every corner of Hildor, one could not escape the trumpet’s call which was followed by decrees of “things they must have, things they must get, things they must do, things they must be.”

It was ridiculous. This quiet place had turned into a raging hell where every moment was fueled by the desire, temptation and necessity to grow, expand and conquer— and it was aimed at everyone. It was as though Barrzeus was stirring the pot for some wild war to break out among all the Hildorians— but to what end? What could all this noise and disruption possibly bring about?

But apparently Luminthred was the only one who really felt bothered by all the implementations of Barrzeus. Yes, the elders were put off, but they could spend most the day sleeping and look past it. Lumi, on the other hand, was now a sleepless five year-old. He missed the quiet of his town before Barrzeus, and his desire for silence led him to remember something.

His night in Caldar’s Wood.

It came flooding back as a dream thought forgotten— so dark that it had spent the last three years hiding in the deep recesses of his mind. But now he recalled that perfect silence. The silence that came after the search party, when he first walked up to Caldar’s Gate. He longed now for that silence. And such a silence, curiously enough, finally broke his own silence, and he began to talk to his family once more.

“You know, it was quite pretty over in the Darkwood.”

His mother and aunts stood with dropped jaws as this mute boy spoke his first full sentence in three years. And then he went on, and on, and on.

“It’s not that I couldn’t talk. I just chose not to,” he assured them.

His father beat him for that, and he would never again talk to him, but to his mother and aunts he continued for some days, telling them all of his fantastic night on the far side of the Urf.

They did not believe him, clearly. Gates made of stone? Water-falls and giant rock walls? Fungal towers? And a kind-hearted flying reptillian? This was high fantasy to their ears.

And so Lumi ran away again.

This time he took provisions. Not much, just a humble sack of onions and cheese, but those were the best foods for traveling days. As he waded through the Urf this time around, he felt a certain freedom that had not accompanied him on his toddling sojourn. For last time, he was overcome with grief and denial at the loss of his sister. He had been making his journey out of desperation, and did not expect to come back.

But now, he was making the trip to better himself, to escape his home which had become overrun by mercantile freaks, and to rediscover that old dream that now haunted him in the night. He did not expect to find the Dragon so soon, if ever, but he did so hope he would. In his heart, he was longing to find that beast once more.

For Lumi knew that Kathir was a well of knowledge. He had sensed it in her presence, he had felt it in dreams not long after that sacred night.

Something about the leaves in that pool where he passed those moonlit hours… they seemed powerful to him in ways that leaves on familiar trees around his home had never seemed. And who was this Caldar that all of his fellows whispered about when the suns began to make their bed, this terrible enemy who was strong enough to send out thousands of servants in the second half of each autumn but would never leave Darkwood himself?

Now the young boy’s life seemed cloaked in mystery, and whereas all those he knew were now content to remain in their homes and listen all day to the abrasive hammerings of the Heralds of Barrzeus, Luminthred found himself reaching beyond, reaching for the world itself.

He crossed over into Caldaria as the first gold leaf of autumn blew off a broad and lonely oak. Luminthred took up the leaf, and there in his hand he felt the first of his questions being answered.