The wall surrounding Garisa
Year of Our Lords 1130
“Boy, hurry up with that mud!”
Though the boy was only eleven, he was large and well-muscled, and he’d knocked mortar up for his father since eight years of age. It was hard graft mixing the sand, lime and water together, but he found pleasure in the routine and rhythm of the work.
His family had been masons ever since the first wall went up around Garisa, and he knew his toils kept his fellow townsfolk safe. Being a mason was vital, second only to the soldiers who patrolled the wall he and his father helped to maintain and expand.
“Coming, Da,” the boy yelled up to his father as he shoveled mortar into a bucket, then swung the heavy load up and onto his broad, callused shoulder.
As the bucket of mortar—or ‘mud’ as his father and the other masons called it—hit his shoulder, he let out a small grunt of pain.
For five days straight, the masons and their apprentices had worked double shifts to raise the height of the wall by another three feet. Eighteen-hour days were taking a toll on the boy’s work-hardened body, and his shoulder bore the brunt of that price.
As callused as his shoulder was, the lime and water seeping through the wooden slats of the bucket had begun to eat away at his skin. Now, his shoulder was a bloody mess, but he could not allow it to slow him.
According to the scouts the mayor sent out a week ago, a Falnorian caravan of refugees was heading their way, and they needed to make sure none of their cursed infected could breach the walls of the town.
If even a single individual from that plague-riddled convoy made it inside the walls, then Garisa would go the same way as the city of Falnor. The vast majority of the populous would die horrible deaths, while those who remained would become outcasts, ever cursed to wander the lands in search of somewhere new to live.
The boy all but ran to the scaffold on which his father worked, then scaled its ladder with the dexterity of an Elf.
As he climbed, the boy tried to imagine what the Falnorians would look like.
Ever since the first outbreak, stories of what the plague did to people had spread with the speed of wildfire. In fact, his mother told him, ‘The only thing spreading faster than the plague are the stories about it.’
The memory of his mother’s words caused the boy to smile.
His mother had always brought a smile to his and his father’s face. Yet, his fond recollections did not linger long, for another memory of his mother entered his head.
As he turned onto the first platform of the scaffold, and moved toward the second ladder, a tear rolled down his filthy cheek as an unwanted image of his mother’s crushed body filled his mind.
A mere month ago, his family had been a whole and joyous one, but that changed when a cart carrying stone for the wall lost a wheel. His mother never saw the cart as it began to tip, as she was busy attending to her market stall. But the boy saw it. He screamed for her to move, yet his yells reached her ears too late, and she was buried beneath half a ton of sandstone.
By the time the masons and other townsfolk uncovered her, she was dead.
The life of commoners in Garisa was often short. Only the nobles and governing classes got to live out their lives to old age. For the rest of those who lived within the walls of Garisa, they were lucky if they made it much past forty winters.
The boy reached the final platform of the scaffold and spotted his father. Even with his tears still streaking his dirt-covered cheeks, he smiled.
His father was the biggest, strongest and fastest of all the masons.
The boy watched on with pride as the huge man heaved up a stone that would have taken two men to lift, then placed it on the bed of mud he’d just spread on the wall. Like the other masons, his father was shirtless, and his dark, sun-browned skin glistened with sweat as he rocked the stone back and forth until its edge was perfectly matched to the string line.
His father then straightened, turned in the boy’s direction and smiled back at him, revealing tombstone-like white teeth beneath his thick, black beard. The big man waved his son over, and the boy picked up his pace.
A mere second or two after his father beckoned him, the boy emptied the bucket of mortar onto a spot board. It was then the big man noticed the blood covering his son’s shoulder.
With a gentleness that belied the man’s huge callused hands, he eased his son’s shirt away from his skin.
The boy winced but made no effort to pull away from his father’s touch.
With his free hand, the boy’s father took him by the chin and tilted his head so he could look his offspring in the eye.
“Boy, this looks bad. The lime is really eating into you.”
His father’s voice was deep but soft. Despite the man’s enormous size and strength, he was known in Garisa as a kind and gentle soul.
Never in the boy’s eleven years had his father ever raised his voice to him, let alone a hand. Unlike his friends, who all complained about their fathers, the boy enjoyed the company of his Da. In fact, he both loved and respected him deeply.
Of everyone the boy knew, it was his father he most wanted to emulate. He tried to treat others with the same esteem his father did. Despite the fact his father worked with his hands, he carried himself with a dignity few nobles possessed.
“I’ll be alright, Da. Our shift ends with the dropping of the sun, which is only an hour or so away. I can last till then.”
The big man leaned in and kissed the boy’s sweat-drenched forehead. He then whispered, “I am proud of you, Boy. And your Ma would be, too.”
The boy’s heart swelled with love, and he whispered back, “Thanks, Da.”
The man then straightened and looked out over the wall.
The boy followed his father’s gaze, and both of them took in the landscape that surrounded Garisa.
Lush farmlands surrounded the town, and the families who worked those farms supplied the people of Garisa with meat, grain and all their daily needs. Those same farmers were now inside the town’s walls as they too waited for the threat posed by the approaching Falnorians to pass.
A single road weaved its way through the fields until it breached the huge steel gates of Garisa, making it the only way in and out of town.
As the boy stared out at fields he’d once played in, his mind turned to how safe he and his Da actually were.
For centuries, the wall and its sturdy gates had protected the townsfolk, but never before had the Garisians faced such a threat. The town’s defenses always held firm against the weapons of man and Dark Realm beasts. But could they hold against an enemy that drifted on the breeze and on people’s flesh? Would the wall keep them safe from the plague ravishing the whole of Yedinerth?
According to the tales brought by travelers to the town, the plague had annihilated entire citadels in a matter of days, and laid waste to every township in between.
The boy found this hard to believe, as he knew it would take months to walk from one side of the kingdom to the other.
Yedinerth was the largest kingdom in the world, but the infection was spreading across the land with the speed of an invading army.
Some even believed the plague was a weapon of the Wizard King in the West Mountains. But his Da thought that a foolish untruth told by the fearful.
For more than a hundred years, the Wizard King had done nothing but good for the citizens of Yedinerth. Even when its monarchy let the people it ruled down, the Wizard King stepped in to feed them.
No, people made up foul stories about the man in the mountain, because they feared magic and believed the plague was magic of the darkest kind.
“Is that dust I see on the horizon?” the boy’s Da asked as he shaded his eyes.
The boy shaded his eyes in the same way his father did, and stared off into the distance.
“Mason Ó Déaghain. Apprentice Ó Déaghain,” a deep baritone voice said from behind the father and son.
Both turned, and the boy stared up at the Master of the Guards, Ó Luasaigh.
The powerful soldier always sent a shiver down the boy’s spine.
The man was known to be a savage warrior who’d never lost a battle. But it was not the man’s reputation that caused the boy cold chills; it was his appearance.
Like all the town’s guards, Ó Luasaigh’s long, black beard was platted, but tightly woven into the plat were the middle phalanx bones from the index fingers of those he’d killed in battle. His plat was over a foot long and appeared to contain almost as many bones as hairs.
The boy’s father bowed his head reverently. “Master Ó Luasaigh.”
“What is it you spy?” the Master of the Guards asked as he stepped past the mason and raised his long-seeing glass to his eye. “Ah, the Falnorians.” He lowered the seeing glass and turned to the masons working on the wall. All of whom now watched him. “The plague-ridden will be at our gates this time in the morrow. Gentlemen, while you still can, put your tools to good use.”
The sound of trowels striking stone resonated through the air as the masons returned to their work with newfound vigor.
“Boy, go fetch more mud.”
The boy looked up at his father. “Right away, Da.”
Then he ran off to fetch another bucket of mortar.
***
The boy rested his head on the table as his father warmed the stew their neighbor had made for them.
The day’s work had gone on well into the night, as the masons toiled to raise the town’s wall to an all but impenetrable height. As a result, the boy’s shoulder was now a bloody mess that hurt like the devil himself was breathing fire upon it.
As soon as they’d returned to their dwellings, the boy’s father had treated the injury with a soothing balm and cleansing oils. During the man’s careful tending, the boy battled to hold back the tears, but they’d finally bettered him.
When his father covered the raw flesh of his shoulder with a dock leaf, the boy finally let out a solitary whimper of pain.
On hearing his son’s distress, Mason Ó Déaghain pulled the boy into a firm but gentle hug. The two remained that way for a minute or more, then his father kissed him on top of his head and went next door to retrieve the stew from old woman Ó Floinn.
Since the death of the boy’s mother, the old woman had stepped in to take care of him and his father. He knew the aged maid received payment for her work, but what she did for them went far beyond what that meager wage covered. He’d always seen her as a surrogate grandmother, but in recent times, her efforts had deepened the boy’s feelings for her.
“It will be ready in a few minutes, Boy. Could you lay the table, please?”
The boy heaved his weary head from the table and stood.
Every inch of him ached from the day’s hard work, but he forced his legs into action and moved to fetch his and his father’s bowls and spoons from the shelf above their beds.
“As you set the table, why not recite one of the teachings?”
The boy’s hand hovered next to the bowls as he considered which teaching to recount.
It had been a while since he’d narrated his favorite lesson, so that would be the one he chose.
“When the Lords breathed life into mortal beings, they gifted them individuality and the ability to think. This gift was the greatest the Lords could bestow on the living thinking creatures of the world, and they declared that above all things, the gift should be protected and honored.”
“Good,” his father said as he stirred the stew, then took a taste. “What else?”
The boy set the bowls down on the table, then placed a spoon beside each. “The Lords bound the gift of individuality and thought to our Lords’ given names. This is the First Law, and it states: ‘Never utter your Lords’ name in public, or to those you do not trust with your life. For if your Lords’ name ends up on the lips of evil folk, you will fall under their dominion and will never ascend to the Second Realm.’”
“Good,” his father repeated as he took the rag from his shoulder and used it to protect his hand from the heat of the pot’s handle. “When can you or others utter your name?”
The boy sat and licked his lips. He had not eaten since the night before.
His father set the pot down on the table, not caring that its hot base would singe the wood. He then ladled out a great scoop of the wonderful smelling food and held it above his son’s bowl.
“Well?”
“Well, what?” the boy asked as he stared hungrily at the spoonful of stew.
“When can you or others utter your name?” his father repeated.
“Your Lords’ name may be uttered at your birth, your naming ceremony, your joining, and your death. At no other time must your Lords’ name be spoken, other than to bestow it on someone you trust beyond all others.”
His father smiled, tipped the spoon, and allowed the stew to drop into his son’s bowl.
As the boy dug in, his father ladled out some for himself. Then, with comfort built from familiarity and love, both ate in silence.
After finishing the stew and cleaning away, the father and son headed to bed.
There would still be much toil come morn, though no more stonework. For the walls now towered high enough to stop giants, so it was sure to defeat a few hundred sick and hungry refugees.
“Da, are you scared?” the boy asked as he punched the lumps out of his pillow.
“Of the Falnorians?”
“Aye, them, but also of the plague they carry.”
“In all truth, Boy, I fear the plague but pity the Falnorians.”
“You pity them, not fear them?”
“It is not their fault they carry the plague. They mean us no harm, but instead are seeking a safe haven. I have been to Falnor, and the people of that once fair town are much like us. They do not deserve the hand they have been dealt. No one does.”
The boy stared up at the ceiling as he considered his father’s wise words.
As thoughts of the plague and far-off cities filled the boy’s head, those same thoughts turned to dreams, and he fell asleep.