Forsooth!

Chapter 1: Sweaty Days and Sweaty Knights

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Last month it was Giants from the jungle hinterlands east of the Valley, beyond the castle-dotted peaks of the Border Mountains, that were making the rounds down here. Before that it was the Reaper’s Riverboat that threatened to claim the souls of all the Valley Kingdom’s inhabitants as he paddled down the lazy, snake-winding Queen’s Tears River. Oh, there were also the werewolves between the Reaper and the Giants—a rather short-lived scare. Before all of that were the fiery-eyed witches of Ealdor’s Pass, their blasphemous cants and irreligious rituals turning the night into a living nightmare as they sought to awaken slumbering evils within whichever malevolent realm suited your fancy. Now it was dragons.

Skeletal hordes. Harpies. Bands of berserkers who leaked tar-black blood on occasion. All of these nasty things took turns tormenting the Valley Kingdom. So sayeth Simbel, the Soothsayer.

No one believed a lick of this, of course. But only two people knew it wasn’t true: King Chalbor, the then-current Lord of the Valley, and Simbel, the Soothsayer. Everyone else would deny and jeer at the poor madman, who raved and ranted about the forces that would inevitably make the Valley’s fate a sealed and unfortunate deal every other week. Scant few, however, didn’t glance up at the mountains or keep an eye out on the river or watch the dark corners more intently after he came through their town—whenever reason had its hands off the reins and animal survival-instinct-stupid-terror saw the free horse and gave it a go. Only those two men could rest assured that everything Simbel said was utter fantasy, often invented on the spot, and they liked it just that way.

Simbel, anticipating a real rager of a public scene later that day, was sitting just outside of a lumber mill town by the river, eating his lunch. Under the shade of a sycamore tree, the Soothsayer chomped on a ham sandwich and sipped a sweet mead out of his flask, basking in the cool breeze that blew over the gently flowing river. It was a sweltering day, just as the whole past week had been. Simbel watched ants scurry along the roots of the tree at his back, carrying away the crumbs that fell from his sandwich. It was the last of his food and mead, but he knew where he’d get more. It was just beyond this village, probably in an old foxhole.

Licking his lips of the last of his mead, the Soothsayer grunted as he got up and brushed the crumbs off his shirt and put on his head bandage over his left temple. He wasn’t injured, but it was crucial for the show. He also didn’t want to run the risk of anyone finding him remotely attractive, because then they might consider believing any of the ridiculous things he said. This wasn’t a serious risk in Simbel’s case, but it wasn’t a risk worth taking.

He also took a beat-up cart wheel he had sitting in the grass beside him and put it around his neck. Tragic prophets have wheels around their necks. This is just how it is.

The town gates were opened, and Simbel’s easy stroll shifted into a foot-dragging trudge on his way in.

I ran most of the way here, thought Simbel, and now one of my legs can’t carry me further. Yeah, sounds good. Looks believable.

He panted heavily, mouth agape both in mock exhaustion and despair. It was a broiling noontime and he’d been sweating enough to sell the idea that he’d been running, when, simply, his sweat glands worked as if they were gunning for promotion at all times. Slowly, with one hand over the strawberry jam-stained bandage covering half of his face, he worked his way up from a low groan towards a full-blown wail. He was already getting people’s attention.

The town was called Ambermill. It split the logs floated down to it by lumberjacks from further upriver and hacked them up into proper, sellable lumber, supplying much of the southern Valley with said lumber. Naturally – and this was most importantly for Simbel – folks here were chronically bored. Ambermill townsfolk lacked the imagination to come up with more than one card game, had too stumpy of hands to play instruments, and lived too rugged of lives to distract each other libido-wise. The closest thing to culture they constructed for themselves was reading palms, splinters being the punctuation marks. These people were the kind of folk a Soothsayer could Say some Sooth to: people who will lend you their full attention because nothing else in their whole, small worlds could ever compete in being more interesting.

A Soothsayer fulfilled many civic duties in the Valley. Entertainment, for instance.

“Lo! Lo!” shouted Simbel as he howled and entered the town square, or what he presumed to be it. There was a clearing with a magnolia tree sitting in the middle and people were watching, so it was good enough.

“Lo!” he cried again for good measure. “Disaster nears! Disaster! Damnation!— ”

Slowly, the townsfolk of Ambermill ambled over to watch him, smug grins on the mill workers who were just glad for a break. Others watched with the uncomfortable curiosity of watching a child throwing a tantrum.

“—Dragons! From over the mountains high! I have seen them with my one good eye!”

“So what’d they look like?” called out one of the mill workers, incredulously. Some of the children, holding onto their mothers’ legs and bosoms, watched the Soothsayer more intently.

“Big lizards, aren’t they?” yelled a barmaid, her beer-stained apron hanging around her neck.

“Monstrous,” said Simbel, a signature and well-rehearsed tremble in his voice. “Demonic worms of Hell! They fly on bats’ wings that blot out the sun. I have seen their talons split the walls of castles and tear knights in two. I have witnessed the fires of perdition flow from their gaping maws and melt all of man’s fortifications like snow in a crucible. I have looked into their eyes and seen nothing but deep fathoms of avarice… ceaseless torrents of wrath! Indeed, the very worst sins of man would make a pious dragon. And they’re here! They’re in the Valley!”

He twisted around, trying to look as frenzied as he could while also stealing a good look at his audience. Folks were engaged, for sure. People watched him to see if he was going to start crying or tearing his clothes off. Simbel figured he wouldn’t need to go that far today.

“Lo! Hear me, people of Ambermill!” he resumed. “When the dragons come to your village, who can save you? You without swords, without shields or horses! What hope have you of surviving the day? What will your walls do when fire rains from the clouds? Lo! What mercy can you hope for from these carriers of Hell? None, I say! None! Ye, despair all, one and all!”

Simbel fell to his knees, hands over his eyes. He faked a manic sob. He was quite good at it. Even people who never once bought his stories believed he was truly, inconsolably, weeping. It’s what got people to believe he believed what he was saying.

Through his fingers he scanned the crowd. Folks were no longer engaged; they were enthralled. They talked amongst themselves loudly. Some snickered… good. Some were more annoyed than anything… well, could be worse. Infants cried… can’t really get a read on that; they just do that sometimes. Some had arms crossed and curled fingers to their lips… some worry, but that’s probably over me and not the dragons, so we’re still in business.

But one person, a girl, possibly at the cusp of womanhood, looked concerned. She had been hanging on his words like the edge of a cliff, eyes darting to the sky and back. She put a finger through the braid of her hair—sure sign of a nervous tick.… oh no.

Simbel couldn’t have anyone concerned with him. A Soothsayer’s job was to predict doom and get kicked out of town. Concern meant someone might vouch for him; even if only as a Devil’s Advocate, that could be trouble. Concern meant that when he was kicked out that eventually someone might question for a moment how their people treat strange men, and the King wouldn’t have that for a second. This was a problem. But Simbel had a few tricks to solve this problem.

I could escalate the story beyond all probability, thought Simbel between sobs over the Ending of Days. Claim that dragons have the faces of old hags and tails of cats… yeah that might work. But I don’t know, she’s bought everything so far. I don’t want her buying that too.

Simbel realized that he’d been overthinking this and now the crowd was wondering why he was crouched over and saying nothing for so long. He considered playing into that and acting like he’d totally lost his mind, but then thought of something far stronger than insanity to make people drop any interest in his story: moralization.

“And lo… Lo, it is all of your faults!” cried the Soothsayer. “Your greed and pride! It has drawn the dragons!”

At the moment he opened his mouth to preach, the eyes of the crowd rolled hard enough to throw all of his credibility far, far away. “Ugh,” was Ambermill’s word of the day. Perfect. Engagement, not credibility, was his job.

“Don’t you understand?” said Simbel, further reaching into the dark recesses of morality to annoy them. “Nothing as terrible as a dragon could ever come to our Valley unless we truly deserved its wrath. You must repent of whatever vice your carry in your hearts, so the gods may repel the dragons out of the Valley!”

“Yeah, and where are these dragons?” yelled a mother, clutching a crying baby and scowling hard enough and putting deep wrinkles on her forehead. They were deep enough to hold soup spoons in them. “If they’re here to bring righteous judgement, then they’ve done a right lousy job so far. Ain’t even showed up.”

“All… all around. The caves of the mountains… in the river, yes. Yes, one could be in the river right here, waiting for the right moment to punish you all.”

“And why’s it our fault?” demanded a young boy. “We ain’t any worse than anyone else!”

“As far as you know, boy. Lo! there is corruption here beyond what you may ever grasp in your lifetimes.” Now he’s questioned their intelligence. A gardener wheeled out his rotted produce. Simbel stifled a smile.

“Wait, wait a second,” said one of the mill workers, “I know him. This man is Simbel! The bloody mad prophet!”

Thank you, good sir, thought Simbel. The only thing that could kill Simbel’s credibility more efficiently than moralizing was his name.

He looked for the young woman. He found her wearing that tight-lipped expression of disappointment reserved for when one is annoyed by another’s foolishness but more annoyed at one’s following along with it for so long. Victory.

A putridly green potato flew through the air directly at him, bouncing off the wheel around his neck and squarely hitting his ear. A cheer arose. It was time to leave. A job well done.

Staggering out through the wide streets of Ambermill, Simbel sidestepped as much of the rocks, sticks, and unwanted vegetables as he could and braced for what he couldn’t. Through the years of doing just this, Simbel came to see the pelted projectiles of an angry mob as like running through a forest: there’s a pattern in it; and always a path running through it; but, if you didn’t catch it quickly enough, you’ll walk out with a lot more bruises than when you came in. Folks called him insane, a liar, and not welcome back to their town—this happened, in this exact same order, more often than not. At the gate, a bulky mill worker grabbed Simbel’s neck wheel and shoved him into the muddy ground outside the gate. They shut the gates behind him. A job well done, indeed.

As the Soothsayer skulked away from town on the opposite side he came in, he looked back. There were several kids throwing stuff at him, still. One of them had his eyes set on the wispy clouds above. Simbel smirked.

The Soothsayer held the cart wheel under his arm because it was putting a crick in his neck. Despite his whole scene not lasting even thirty minutes, Simbel was wiped out. That happens when your one job involves so much running and screaming and weeping for the End of Days, on top of neglecting your cardio.

Ambermill was far behind him now and the sky was turning orange. He was looking for a willow tree beside the road. It was always a willow tree beside the road.

Simbel found his willow. For a second, he thought he might be an actual prophet, because in an old foxhole dug behind the tree there rested a sack under a coating of leaves and ripped-up moss. His supper.

This drop-off was stuffed with several loaves of a kind of flat bread, several pounds of dried ham, a fresh change of rags, a book on fairytales from the Vintrar Marshes, and three canteens filled with cold, sweet mead. Simbel took one of the canteens and started guzzling it down when he spied, folded up underneath one of the canteens, a letter. He took it and unfolded it with his off hand, never taking the canteen off his lips.

It read:

Dear Simbel,

From the reports I’ve been getting lately, it seems you’re causing quite the stir in the southern Valley. Quite good. Not enough happens down there and there’s not much more dangerous than subjects with nothing else to do but drudgery work and think.

Though your Soothsaying lately has been as remarkable as always, I have some concerns over your choice of dragons. While there’s nothing wrong with dragons – they’re timeless, and you never need to explain what the fuss is about with flying, fire-breathing lizards – I have my worries about your timing, for it is the height of summer. Due to the dry heat, our forests are more given than usual to catching fire. Now, if one of the more suggestable subjects were to see his woodland ablaze, and he has tales of dragons swirling about his noggin… well, what conclusion do you think he might come to? We don’t want that.

For your next destination, try heading west. From what my scouts tell me, they’re not handling this dry spell very well and could use a monster to take the edge off. There’s a split in the road about two leagues north of you that will take you to Gerrim’s Grotto, which is due for a good Soothsaying.

I hope you enjoy this batch of mead. My methier tells me he’s mixed in raspberries into this brew. I haven’t tried it; more of a wine man myself.

As always, remember that you’re a civil servant firstly, a mad man secondly, and not a prophet at all. And of course, destroy this letter.

With all confidence,

- K.C.

Simbel could only speculate on the intricacies of King Chalbor’s spy network as he ripped the letter into fine strips. A part of him thought kings shouldn’t have spy networks, that they were supposed to don a peasant’s cloak and stroll through the kingdom to hear the Word of the People. He then figured this was probably why King Chalbor has been king for so long: he didn’t do that.

There wasn’t much he could complain about with the King. Not that he couldn’t complain; nobody’s lost their tongues for dissent against the crown since he came to power some decades ago, not by the steel of his sword but by the silver of his tongue and the mercury in his oppositions’ drinks. After all, with so many dragons, monsters, spirits, and mad men throughout the Valley, who had time to complain about a silly old king?

Simbel sat and ate under the reaching branches of the willow, watching the string-like clouds drift above him. He decided to give that book of fairytales a skim, since his aching legs were telling him he was done walking tonight. Perhaps there was something in here he could use in place of dragons, some exotic yet equally universal monstrosity to get the creative juices flowing?

He was glad the King sent him this book. When it came to ideas, Simbel had been running dry lately. Not that he wasn’t enjoying the Soothsaying trade, of course, but looking back people used to give a bigger hoot when you raved in their towns and spelled their doom. Of course, they weren’t used to King Chalbor’s secret Soothsaying service yet, so everything was fresh and exciting with them. For Simbel, too.

But over the years, Simbel had to ramp up his shows to absurd degrees to get anything out of these subjects. You just couldn’t get people’s attention with a band of orcs anymore. They needed to be ten-feet-tall, breathe fire, eat babies, and travel on bolts of lightning. Sometimes it was a matter of rephrasing old concepts to get things working: they wouldn’t torch the town; they’d demand an expensive, history-tarnishing reconstruction project via arson. Simbel longed for the days when all he’d had to do before getting shunned out of a village was insinuate that their ends were near. Now sometimes he’d have to flail in the dirt, tear at his clothes, froth at the mouth, and undermine their most precious institutions just to get people to give him the time of day.

Dragons, frankly, were a bit of a cop out. You didn’t have to work much for dragons. Folks just got them. That’s the real problem with the Boy Who Cried Wolf. He should’ve cried Dragon.

The sun was setting, and Simbel closed his eyes to focus on the sounds of flowing water, chirping birds, rustles in the underbrush, swaying trees, and his own breath. The Soothsayer learned early on that when your job is to throw fits, you’d best focus on taking it easy in your own time. He believed it was a concept called “toil/life balance”, which he was also pretty sure was an outlawed concept under several of the previous regimes in the Valley.

But soon enough another noise came into the soundscape: running footsteps, panting. Simbel opened his eyes and looked down the road. A steel-clad warrior, a knight of the House of Chalbor by the Mongoose insignia on his breastplate, was staggering down the road. Sweat soaked his long red hair and a look of hysterical panic was washed over his face, like his house was burning with his baby in it two leagues away.

Simbel had seen a fair deal of knights in his time, most of whom he got a good look at their steel boots as they were dragging him out of town. He had never seen one sweaty. This was disconcerting.

“Oi, Sir knight,” said Simbel, standing up to meet him, “what’s the worry?”

“You must flee. Tell the others!” replied the knight in a raspy voice. He stopped in front of Simbel, grabbing onto him for support. “Dragons in the Valley!”

Word travels fast around here, thought Simbel. But what’s he doing retelling my story? Has Chalbor started sending out his knights, too?

“Sir, if I may,” began the Soothsayer, “I wouldn’t advise going about with that story. I already made my rounds around here with dragons and—”

“So you know, then?”

“Oh, yes, I know all about the dragons and so do the townsfolk nearby. So, I wouldn’t go about telling them again or they might start believing it.”

The knight looked bewildered. “But why shouldn’t they believe it? There are ruddy dragons in the ruddy Valley and they’re going to ruddy kill us all!”

The Soothsayer was peeved at this point. “Did King Chalbor send you to mock me? I do his work since I was a lad, and he mocks me? Well… well you can tell him that—”

Simbel stopped. He had never heard the sky quake before. He didn’t know that was something it could do. But he knew it was happening right then, that something great and terrible was lurching through the sky and causing what holds the air together to shudder under its weight. Slowly, the two men looked up into the sky, past the tree branches above.

Something spread forth a shadow over a cloud. Something bellowed and shook the men to their core. Something that flew on bats’ wings that, given the chance, could likely blot out the sun; something whose talons could likely split the walls of castles and tear knights in almost-equal halves; something that, with no doubt in Simbel’s imaginative mind, could cause the fires of perdition to flow from its gaping maw and melt all of man’s fortifications like, say, snow in a crucible.

The Soothsayer wasn’t a gambler, but he thought it safe to wager that if he got a good look into that something’s eyes, then he’d see nothing but deep fathoms of avarice and, more than likely, ceaseless torrents of wrath.

What he had failed to properly convey to the townsfolk, Simbel realized, was just how sodding big dragons are.