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This is the first draft I just wrote of a short story I have to do for English class. What do you think?
As the flames rose higher and higher, old Miss Mathews shrieked in pain. She was tied to a stake. No one made a move to help her. Why should they? Burning was the punishment for having magic.
Jed knew a lot about magic, even though he was only nine years old. When he was four he had found a gold and silver flute in the forest, and found that when he played it, strange things happened. A soothing melody would lull even the most excited person to sleep, and another song would heal nicks and scrapes and even more serious hurts. A certain sequence of sharp, harsh notes would bring a torch to life, and another sounding of the wind would put it out. Other tunes would ensure a good harvest from a field, or blunt a person's rage. Jed wasn't afraid of being burnt, though. He didn't have magic; it was just the flute. Those who could use magic through an enchanted item were safe, even honored.
Today was the last day of the harvest, the day when peddlers and entertainers and merchants came to Erin Vale to sell their wares and buy the wool and crops of the village for trade in distant lands. They came from the city of Brenn, which often represented the entire region when negotiating with rulers of distant lands. Only one or two people of the village had seen the city, and it had acquired almost mythical proportions.
Jed spotted a traveling bard telling stories to a group of children about his age, and walked over. He got there just as the bard finished one story and started into another.
"This is a tale of an age a thousand years ago, when Brenn was a great nation among nations and items of magic were as numerous as the stars. There were orders of magicians - healers, warrior mages, even those enchanters who made the tools of magic themselves. But highest among them was the Singer. There was only one Singer in all the land, and his apprentice, he who would be Singer when the Singer died. The Singer bore an enchanted flute, made of gold and silver and precious metals, and enchanted with the most powerful enchantment of all that ever were and ever would be - the power to allow the Singer to control his gift."
"Jed, sounds like you," jeered an older boy, Renwy Tomons. Renwy was a bully, and delighted in making fun of the younger children. "You think you're gonna be a Singer?"
"Hush, boy, you don't know what you're talking about. The flute was destroyed in the act that ended that age of magic. That act, that treason, that is this story," said the bard. "The Singer was the first and last line of defense of the great nation. He was the highest judge, and the chief enforcer of the law. He had the trust and faith of his people. And one day, one Singer betrayed that trust.
"The Singer's trust was this - that never would he use the power for his own ends, or to gain dominion over others. He would always, unfailingly, use it in service of the nation. This Singer, Marcus Avaran, was a corrupt and greedy person, and evil as well. He learned of a way to get around the restrictions of the flute, to use the magic in its purest form, and he became more powerful than all the enchantment in the world. He used magic - not the magic of the flute, but magic itself. The people rejected him, though, and his apprentice, a brave young man, defeated him through wits and cunning and forced the evil man to flee. However, the sheer power of the battle laid waste to the city and forced the flute out of Time itself. To this day he hides in the Trewerick Mountains to the north of Brenn, slowly regaining his strength, kept alive only through his vile sorceries. Even today his legacy lives on in the laws - the punishment for having magic is burning."
The children clapped and walked away, but Jed felt odd inside. What the bard had described about the magic of the Singer had sounded a lot like what he did.
"Come here," said the bard. It was not a request. "My name is Tarn. I know about what you can do, boy. I already heard about it from the other villagers. My question is, would you like to come with me when I leave? Someone with just your talent with music would be a worthwhile candidate for an apprentice, but with the magic, you could be one of the greatest bards in history."
Jed doubted for a moment, but the prospect of seeing Brenn excited him. "Ok, I'll come," he said, and set about packing at once.
* * *
They made camp the next night with the rest of the caravan, all of the other people who had come to the village for the last harvest day. Even though he had not had much physical work that day, Jed was exhausted. He'd spent all day learning songs and stories from Tarn, and his mind was struggling to assimilate it all. He fell asleep almost immediately.
Jed woke to the sound of the alarm horn. He heard the clanging of swords and spears, and he saw armed men attacking the camp. The guards had been caught unprepared and were disorganized and confused. A man grabbed him. Jed shrieked, and suddenly he felt a twisting, a bend in the pattern of reality. The man exploded in a shower of blood and gore. The shriek continued as if it had a life of its own, darting throughout the camp, brutally destroying the brigands. As it died off, he felt a pang of loss, as if some part of him had been enjoying the slaughter. The survivors of the caravan all looked at him in fear.
"What did you do, boy?" asked one. Another pointed and yelled, "he used magic!" The men began advancing on him, for they knew that the punishment for having magic was burning.
"Stop!" cried Tarn. "Even if he does have magic, shouldn't you be grateful for your lives? Give his name and description to the Governor in Brenn and the village folk, and exile him," he pleaded.
The caravan leader thought for a while. It was a difficult decision. The law was clear, and every child was raised knowing that it was necessary. "Ok," he said with a sharp nod of his head, "but if he ever sets foot in his village again..." his voice dropped ominously, "you know what will happen."
Tarn and Jed took two horses, and provisions to last them a few weeks. Once the caravan was out of sight, Tarn turned north and beckoned Jed to follow.
"Why did you defend me?" inquired Jed. "You knew the law as well as every man there? I'm grateful, but why?" The boy stared suspiciously.
"I owe you the truth, now," said the bard, "You would have to be told anyways." He scowled. "I never planned on making you my apprentice. I am a bard, and more, a student of ancient histories and ancient magics. I realized that soon, as the time since his defeat grows to a full thousand years, Aravan would regain his full strength and finish what he began. I knew only one with the Singer's gift could stop him. Now listen. The story I told in the village the other day was a lie. Some lies are told to betray the truth, but this one was made near a thousand years ago to protect it. The Singers never used a flute. They used the pure magic of their song, and pure, it was as powerful as anything on this earth. You could sing to heal, and create, or to harm, and destroy. The songs of death and destruction were sweet and addictive, the more brutal they were the more they seduced the minds of men. The songs of life and creation were the opposite - the strongest of them were painful and difficult to sing, and extracted a terrible price. The office of Singer was given only to those with the strongest of wills and the purest of hearts. Yet even those can be corrupted, and that is what happened to Marcus Aravan. That shriek of yours," the bard said in a low voice, "was his own invention, the Wind of Death, and the most evil, brutal song that could ever be sung. You must not sing it again, or you will be lost forever in the lust for destruction.
"The flute was created after the battle, in the hope that someone with the Singer's gift would one day find it and use it. It was protected with the most powerful of enchantments so that it could never be used for evil. Yet this comes at a cost as well - it's magic is weaker. Yet even so, they reasoned, it may be the key to removing him for ever.
"I have searched long and hard for the one who found the flute. Aravan has built a palace in the mountains, a palace of air. The Palace of Winds, he calls it. He is creating an army of spirits, creatures of the air and wind, to annihilate the once-mighty nation of Brenn and subjugate the world."
Jed felt a bitter taste in his mouth. "But what if I fail? Why pin all of your hopes on me? I'm only a nine-year-old boy."
"Because," the bard said sadly, "you are the only hope."
* * *
After a week of travel through bleak and rugged mountains, they reached the Palace of Winds. It rose majestically, crystal blue, the walls swirling, looking as ephemeral as the wind. Yet it radiated an evil, somehow, and Jed heard whispers in the back of his mind, death blood must maim must destroy must KILL KILL! which he quashed immediately, yet not quickly enough to spare him trembling in fear. He could not lose control.
"You must enter alone, boy. The Wind of Death runs through the very walls of the Palace. You must sense it. Only your power can shield you, and for the forces loose here, just barely. I had never dreamed he could be this powerful yet... and use the flute, only the flute. To touch the song directly, in that place of evil, would be your undoing. You would become merely another Aravan."
Jed started towards the palace without a word. He raised the flute to his lips. Almost without thinking, a song came out of love, and protection, and the safety of a child in the womb. The evil presence diminished until Jed felt at peace. He could not let up on the song, though, for the shield would collapse as soon as he did, under the malevolent forces arrayed against it. As he walked closer he could feel the pressure on the shield as it failed at the edges. The core held, though, and he was safe.
The force grew sharply as he walked through the entry to the palace. He continued, knowing by instinct where the heart of the Palace would be. Where Aravan would be. He could see the complex weaving of songs that formed the walls, floors, and ceilings of solid air. He could see their point of origin.
How long he wandered through the palace, Jed couldn't tell, but eventually he came to a massive door. It was locked shut. That was no problem. How he knew, Jed didn't know, but the slightest note, and the door unraveled. It became nothing but the air it was. Behind stood... something.
It was not possible to look directly upon it; there was nothing there. And yet their was something there as well. Aravan, or what had once been Aravan. Even through his shield, Jed could hear the whispers. Suddenly, the figure struck.
Jed parried instinctively, recovering just in time to parry the next strike. Strike, parry, strike, back and forth they went, a battle of song, Jed dodging what he could not parry and letting his shield absorb what he could not dodge. But the shield weakened.
Jed knew he had almost lost, so he went on the offensive. For a time, even, it seemed to work, as Aravan was pressed back. But suddenly an attack slipped by Jed's defenses and shattered his shield. Jed knew he was dead. It was all Jed could do to resist the whispers in his mind. Without the shield, they hit him full force.
Strangely, the figure did not finish him. It regarded Jed amusedly. "You fight well, for an untrained boy of nine. What a Singer you would have been. It is a shame to kill you, but I must do what I must." He opened his mouth to sing his Wind of Death.
In an instant, Jed knew what was necessary. He could never kill with his magic. He let out a single, powerful note, with all of his remaining strength behind it. It was a command, to an infinitesimal part of what had once been Aravan. The part that had taken pity on him, if only for a moment. The part that was still good. It was a command to grow.
It grew. In an instant, Aravan's soul was equal parts good and evil. They battled each other. A moment of silence, and Aravan was gone, as was the palace. Each part had annihilated the other, destroying him.
Tarn walked up to him. "You did it, boy."
* * *
Two weeks later, Jed returned to his village. As soon as they saw him, they grabbed him, bound and gagged him, and put him on the stake. And then he burned.
As the flames rose higher and higher, old Miss Mathews shrieked in pain. She was tied to a stake. No one made a move to help her. Why should they? Burning was the punishment for having magic.
Jed knew a lot about magic, even though he was only nine years old. When he was four he had found a gold and silver flute in the forest, and found that when he played it, strange things happened. A soothing melody would lull even the most excited person to sleep, and another song would heal nicks and scrapes and even more serious hurts. A certain sequence of sharp, harsh notes would bring a torch to life, and another sounding of the wind would put it out. Other tunes would ensure a good harvest from a field, or blunt a person's rage. Jed wasn't afraid of being burnt, though. He didn't have magic; it was just the flute. Those who could use magic through an enchanted item were safe, even honored.
Today was the last day of the harvest, the day when peddlers and entertainers and merchants came to Erin Vale to sell their wares and buy the wool and crops of the village for trade in distant lands. They came from the city of Brenn, which often represented the entire region when negotiating with rulers of distant lands. Only one or two people of the village had seen the city, and it had acquired almost mythical proportions.
Jed spotted a traveling bard telling stories to a group of children about his age, and walked over. He got there just as the bard finished one story and started into another.
"This is a tale of an age a thousand years ago, when Brenn was a great nation among nations and items of magic were as numerous as the stars. There were orders of magicians - healers, warrior mages, even those enchanters who made the tools of magic themselves. But highest among them was the Singer. There was only one Singer in all the land, and his apprentice, he who would be Singer when the Singer died. The Singer bore an enchanted flute, made of gold and silver and precious metals, and enchanted with the most powerful enchantment of all that ever were and ever would be - the power to allow the Singer to control his gift."
"Jed, sounds like you," jeered an older boy, Renwy Tomons. Renwy was a bully, and delighted in making fun of the younger children. "You think you're gonna be a Singer?"
"Hush, boy, you don't know what you're talking about. The flute was destroyed in the act that ended that age of magic. That act, that treason, that is this story," said the bard. "The Singer was the first and last line of defense of the great nation. He was the highest judge, and the chief enforcer of the law. He had the trust and faith of his people. And one day, one Singer betrayed that trust.
"The Singer's trust was this - that never would he use the power for his own ends, or to gain dominion over others. He would always, unfailingly, use it in service of the nation. This Singer, Marcus Avaran, was a corrupt and greedy person, and evil as well. He learned of a way to get around the restrictions of the flute, to use the magic in its purest form, and he became more powerful than all the enchantment in the world. He used magic - not the magic of the flute, but magic itself. The people rejected him, though, and his apprentice, a brave young man, defeated him through wits and cunning and forced the evil man to flee. However, the sheer power of the battle laid waste to the city and forced the flute out of Time itself. To this day he hides in the Trewerick Mountains to the north of Brenn, slowly regaining his strength, kept alive only through his vile sorceries. Even today his legacy lives on in the laws - the punishment for having magic is burning."
The children clapped and walked away, but Jed felt odd inside. What the bard had described about the magic of the Singer had sounded a lot like what he did.
"Come here," said the bard. It was not a request. "My name is Tarn. I know about what you can do, boy. I already heard about it from the other villagers. My question is, would you like to come with me when I leave? Someone with just your talent with music would be a worthwhile candidate for an apprentice, but with the magic, you could be one of the greatest bards in history."
Jed doubted for a moment, but the prospect of seeing Brenn excited him. "Ok, I'll come," he said, and set about packing at once.
* * *
They made camp the next night with the rest of the caravan, all of the other people who had come to the village for the last harvest day. Even though he had not had much physical work that day, Jed was exhausted. He'd spent all day learning songs and stories from Tarn, and his mind was struggling to assimilate it all. He fell asleep almost immediately.
Jed woke to the sound of the alarm horn. He heard the clanging of swords and spears, and he saw armed men attacking the camp. The guards had been caught unprepared and were disorganized and confused. A man grabbed him. Jed shrieked, and suddenly he felt a twisting, a bend in the pattern of reality. The man exploded in a shower of blood and gore. The shriek continued as if it had a life of its own, darting throughout the camp, brutally destroying the brigands. As it died off, he felt a pang of loss, as if some part of him had been enjoying the slaughter. The survivors of the caravan all looked at him in fear.
"What did you do, boy?" asked one. Another pointed and yelled, "he used magic!" The men began advancing on him, for they knew that the punishment for having magic was burning.
"Stop!" cried Tarn. "Even if he does have magic, shouldn't you be grateful for your lives? Give his name and description to the Governor in Brenn and the village folk, and exile him," he pleaded.
The caravan leader thought for a while. It was a difficult decision. The law was clear, and every child was raised knowing that it was necessary. "Ok," he said with a sharp nod of his head, "but if he ever sets foot in his village again..." his voice dropped ominously, "you know what will happen."
Tarn and Jed took two horses, and provisions to last them a few weeks. Once the caravan was out of sight, Tarn turned north and beckoned Jed to follow.
"Why did you defend me?" inquired Jed. "You knew the law as well as every man there? I'm grateful, but why?" The boy stared suspiciously.
"I owe you the truth, now," said the bard, "You would have to be told anyways." He scowled. "I never planned on making you my apprentice. I am a bard, and more, a student of ancient histories and ancient magics. I realized that soon, as the time since his defeat grows to a full thousand years, Aravan would regain his full strength and finish what he began. I knew only one with the Singer's gift could stop him. Now listen. The story I told in the village the other day was a lie. Some lies are told to betray the truth, but this one was made near a thousand years ago to protect it. The Singers never used a flute. They used the pure magic of their song, and pure, it was as powerful as anything on this earth. You could sing to heal, and create, or to harm, and destroy. The songs of death and destruction were sweet and addictive, the more brutal they were the more they seduced the minds of men. The songs of life and creation were the opposite - the strongest of them were painful and difficult to sing, and extracted a terrible price. The office of Singer was given only to those with the strongest of wills and the purest of hearts. Yet even those can be corrupted, and that is what happened to Marcus Aravan. That shriek of yours," the bard said in a low voice, "was his own invention, the Wind of Death, and the most evil, brutal song that could ever be sung. You must not sing it again, or you will be lost forever in the lust for destruction.
"The flute was created after the battle, in the hope that someone with the Singer's gift would one day find it and use it. It was protected with the most powerful of enchantments so that it could never be used for evil. Yet this comes at a cost as well - it's magic is weaker. Yet even so, they reasoned, it may be the key to removing him for ever.
"I have searched long and hard for the one who found the flute. Aravan has built a palace in the mountains, a palace of air. The Palace of Winds, he calls it. He is creating an army of spirits, creatures of the air and wind, to annihilate the once-mighty nation of Brenn and subjugate the world."
Jed felt a bitter taste in his mouth. "But what if I fail? Why pin all of your hopes on me? I'm only a nine-year-old boy."
"Because," the bard said sadly, "you are the only hope."
* * *
After a week of travel through bleak and rugged mountains, they reached the Palace of Winds. It rose majestically, crystal blue, the walls swirling, looking as ephemeral as the wind. Yet it radiated an evil, somehow, and Jed heard whispers in the back of his mind, death blood must maim must destroy must KILL KILL! which he quashed immediately, yet not quickly enough to spare him trembling in fear. He could not lose control.
"You must enter alone, boy. The Wind of Death runs through the very walls of the Palace. You must sense it. Only your power can shield you, and for the forces loose here, just barely. I had never dreamed he could be this powerful yet... and use the flute, only the flute. To touch the song directly, in that place of evil, would be your undoing. You would become merely another Aravan."
Jed started towards the palace without a word. He raised the flute to his lips. Almost without thinking, a song came out of love, and protection, and the safety of a child in the womb. The evil presence diminished until Jed felt at peace. He could not let up on the song, though, for the shield would collapse as soon as he did, under the malevolent forces arrayed against it. As he walked closer he could feel the pressure on the shield as it failed at the edges. The core held, though, and he was safe.
The force grew sharply as he walked through the entry to the palace. He continued, knowing by instinct where the heart of the Palace would be. Where Aravan would be. He could see the complex weaving of songs that formed the walls, floors, and ceilings of solid air. He could see their point of origin.
How long he wandered through the palace, Jed couldn't tell, but eventually he came to a massive door. It was locked shut. That was no problem. How he knew, Jed didn't know, but the slightest note, and the door unraveled. It became nothing but the air it was. Behind stood... something.
It was not possible to look directly upon it; there was nothing there. And yet their was something there as well. Aravan, or what had once been Aravan. Even through his shield, Jed could hear the whispers. Suddenly, the figure struck.
Jed parried instinctively, recovering just in time to parry the next strike. Strike, parry, strike, back and forth they went, a battle of song, Jed dodging what he could not parry and letting his shield absorb what he could not dodge. But the shield weakened.
Jed knew he had almost lost, so he went on the offensive. For a time, even, it seemed to work, as Aravan was pressed back. But suddenly an attack slipped by Jed's defenses and shattered his shield. Jed knew he was dead. It was all Jed could do to resist the whispers in his mind. Without the shield, they hit him full force.
Strangely, the figure did not finish him. It regarded Jed amusedly. "You fight well, for an untrained boy of nine. What a Singer you would have been. It is a shame to kill you, but I must do what I must." He opened his mouth to sing his Wind of Death.
In an instant, Jed knew what was necessary. He could never kill with his magic. He let out a single, powerful note, with all of his remaining strength behind it. It was a command, to an infinitesimal part of what had once been Aravan. The part that had taken pity on him, if only for a moment. The part that was still good. It was a command to grow.
It grew. In an instant, Aravan's soul was equal parts good and evil. They battled each other. A moment of silence, and Aravan was gone, as was the palace. Each part had annihilated the other, destroying him.
Tarn walked up to him. "You did it, boy."
* * *
Two weeks later, Jed returned to his village. As soon as they saw him, they grabbed him, bound and gagged him, and put him on the stake. And then he burned.
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