Andrew R. Clark
An emissary from the Sun
A bird made all of fire
Made the long trip to Earth
When it got here it was tired
The world was mostly forest
So it alighted on a tree
But the perch it took burst into flames
Crumbling away
Flying without respite
Finally reaching the sea
The bird approached the water
Not knowing what it could be
But when it dipped its toes in
The waves put out its feet
It escaped into the air again
Yearning to speak
Farther along the shoreline
It spied a hole in the ground
The stone inside didn’t douse it
Nor did it burn down
Finally the yellow bird rested
Sleeping like the grave
It awoke to excited whispers
People had seen light in the cave
The bird began to sing a song
To let its message free
I have been sent to comfort you
And will stay here if you feed me
#
Hoisting the heavy garage door behind their building, the troll spotted his old cruiser bike among the clutter of boxes and things, leaning against the cinder block wall, long ago having lost its kick stand. Gliding to the end of the alley, he turned onto the street. Every time Molly saw the creaky relic, she threatened to buy him a new one. But it got him where he wanted to go, and he was in no hurry anyway.
Omer had the day off and decided to take a ride over to the other side of the river, in late summer shrunk to little more than a big creek between sandbars. At the far end of the bridge, the path looped under the highway, but he slowed, maneuvering off the pavement and past a gate, entering the wildlife refuge. This probably had once been a farm road, but now it was one section of a trail spanning thirty miles beside the river. He sped along under the shade of huge cottonwoods and silver maples, the dirt road dipping and rising but mostly running flat.
Approaching a low point that often held rainwater, he got up speed, lifting his feet as the wheels cut splashing through the puddle. A bend in the trail steered him into sandy meadows stretching between willow thickets. Away from the river now, a marsh opened out to his left. On the far side of the reeds and rushes sat a cluster of odd buildings. It was the fairgrounds, where every year, for a few weeks in fall, thousands of people came to be amused by paid actors and feast and pretend to be in a romantic past.
The trail proceeded into oak woods and soon led to a clearing. At its center rested a boulder the size of a Winnebago. It seemed a giant had set it there and forgotten about it, which of course is just what happened. Ages ago some receding glacier had deposited the stone, neglecting to put it back where it found it.
Omer laid his bicycle down in the bushes, preferring to take to his feet in this section of park. Time and flood had cut into the underlying sandstone, leaving a terrain of wooded hills and exposed ledges of water‑smoothed rock. A bird flew out of the trees—about the size of a robin, with an orange breast and dark head and wings—an oriel.
In the distance he saw people coming. There’s a general etiquette among hikers for situations like this. When you’re fifteen or twenty paces away from someone, you look to see if they’re looking at you. If so, you nod and say an innocuous greeting. If not, it’s their right to remain solitary. If it’s two or more people engaged in their own conversation, you just smile at your feet.
Omer glanced up at the figures, two men, one stocky, one tall with long hair and white beard. The shorter man was talking without pause. It was unclear from the other man’s body language whether or not he was listening. As they drew near, Omer nodded to the two. The tall, elderly man hardly noticed him, but his partner did a double take. As their paths diverged, a fancy came to Omer’s mind, and he imagined the pair as a noble king in the company of his fool. It must have been the proximity to the fairgrounds that suggested it, and he had to chuckle at himself.
His stomach started growling; it was time for lunch. Not much farther along, a bench sat at an overlook, the far bluff perhaps a mile away. It was a hundred feet down to the water, the river curving in a big bend. On the opposite shore, flat bottom land filled the valley, the tops of the trees below like a plush green carpet.
Shrugging off his backpack, he rummaged around in it for his phone. He had three bars and called Molly. She picked up, noise in the background.
“Omer? Pepper turkey and avocado with an iced latte.”
“Are you busy?” he shouted into his phone, already knowing the answer.
“Your order will be ready at the end of the counter,” he heard back.
“I’m sorry I’m not there to help.” he shouted.
The noise subsided a bit. She must have walked to a quieter corner of the shop. “Hi honey. How’s the hike?”
“I’m sorry I’m not there to help,” he repeated at a more normal volume.
“Don’t be silly,” his wife replied, “You deserve a day off sometimes.”
“How’s my darling?” he asked.
“Oh, she broke a stack of plates helping mommy. I’ll just take it out of her wages.”
“She’ll be surprised to hear she gets paid.”
“We’ll review her contract after she gets up from her nap.”
Omer pulled a sandwich out of his pack. “I made Braunschweiger with Swiss cheese and onion on rye. Ishgoowd!” he worked out between bites.
“I’d better go.” Another surge of background noise beat his ear, and the connection died.
Welcome breeze stirred the trees, and he finished his meal in a restful mood. A loud clap like nearby thunder jarred him alert—nothing unexpected, high strands of cloud streaking an otherwise clear sky. The nearby quarry hadn’t been worked in years. It wouldn’t have been dynamite. Maybe they were testing a cannon at the festival grounds.
Packing up and turning back toward his bike, he again saw two figures advancing toward him on the trail, this time a man and a dog. The man was powerfully built and wore a dark scowl, and the large dog was of an old lineage, bred for battle. There was a distinct aura of danger about the two. Omer didn’t look like most people—short and stout, with a heavy face—so he wasn’t one to judge. But it was difficult not to call the dog walker ugly, something as simian about him as manlike. He wore leather with felt padding, both leggings and jacket. A knight without his armor? An actor? It was still days until the fair started, but some people must like getting into character.
In a few minutes he was in the glen of the huge boulder. Walking his bike back to the trail, near the rock, he smelled something burnt, like the Fourth of July.
#
Omer pushed the stroller as Elizabeth walked ahead holding Molly’s hand. It might have been easier to leave it behind except that his daughter had insisted, and neither he nor her mother had been inclined to argue the point. It had always accompanied them on family excursions in the past, Beth explained, so it wouldn’t be fair to leave it behind now.
The three (or four) of them were on their way back home from the ice‑cream parlor. Omer suggested they might get an ice‑cream machine of their own at the coffee shop, good for business. But Molly said that would take all the fun out of going on walks.
Elizabeth and her mother were deep in a discussion of the relative merits of waffle cones or bowls with a spoon when one of the stroller’s wheels caught a crack in the sidewalk. He hadn’t noticed before how well equipped it was. A beginning reader’s book he recognized was tucked into a side pouch. A stuffed frog, its legs neatly tucked under a blanket, sat comfortably restrained in the seat, three crayons bound with a rubber band—perhaps favorite colors—resting alongside.
When they got back to the shop, there was a woman near the door, scanning the street. “There you are!” she beamed. “Your assistant said you’d be back soon.”
Omer caught his wife’s eye. “I’ll get Beth upstairs.”
“Hello,” Molly said with sublime composure, extending her hand.
After Omer got his daughter settled for her nap, he took the back stairs down to the shop. There weren’t many customers, and Molly and Mickey were leaning against the prep sink, talking. When Omer approached, Mickey went over to the sandwich counter, rearranging what was left after lunch.
“What was that about?”
“You mean the woman at the door?” Molly replied after a beat. “She just wanted to know if we’d put up a flyer for the festival.” Sliding an advertising poster off the top of the counter, she held it up. Under colorful scrolling text, a knight in armor, lance pointing up from his gauntleted hand, sat atop a rearing mount. “Do you think we could go this year?”
“Isn’t it maybe a little adult for Beth?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Tell you what, us ladies will stay out of the bawdiest dens to preserve our chastity. Besides, we’ll go early. The drunks won’t even be up yet.”
There was a shop at the festival that sold the best Scotch Egg he’d ever had. It was simple enough to take a boiled egg, wrap it in sausage, roll it in breadcrumbs, fry it and serve it with horseradish sauce, but there was something special in the way they did it that Omer couldn’t decipher. He’d nonchalantly questioned the proprietor on the matter, but all he got in response was a knowing smile.
#
An acolyte entered the castle’s great hall, holding a candle. Another one followed with another flame. One by one they emerged into the chamber, until all the niches around its perimeter were filled, flickering light just reaching the center. The forms were being kept to, but there was no company of guests and ambassadors, no smells creeping in from the feasting hall, no suppressed joy.
A tall man, resplendent in finery, ascended the steps to the royal throne. Beneath him witnesses gathered around the dais, incongruously attired for a wedding, armored and warlike.
From a vestibule three hooded figures emerged, closely grouped together, making their way toward the throne. They stopped beside it, and before receding into the shadows, two removed the cloak from the remaining one. And like a final light uncovered and added to the gloom, the Queen of the Realm stood revealed, face pale as her gown. As the proceedings began, she slumped to her knees. Retainers came forward, lifting her again erect, and the ceremony continued.
#
Molly had been given tickets in gesture of thanks (and in lieu of payment) for putting the poster up in the large front window of the coffee shop. It wasn’t really Omer’s sort of thing—crowds, sunburn, and sore feet—but he knew he had to turn lemons into a nice family outing. The day was marked on the calendar, and soon it arrived.
On this excursion bringing the stroller would be useful as well as egalitarian. In addition to being outfitted with bottles of water, sunscreen, bug spray, wet wipes, extra socks, hats and hoodies—even spare undergarments—it could transport a tired child. The shuttle stopped at the corner across the street, the obvious mode of conveyance even with the stroller. They had a light breakfast, knowing they’d be stuffed before they were done, and went to wait for the bus.
“We have to see a dragon and a princess and a unicorn,” Elizabeth firmly stated from the bench, seated on her mother’s lap. Omer was again relegated to stroller wrangler. He noted, along with the practical items, there was one well‑worn monster joining them.
#
He fed the dog, gave it water, and tied it to a tree. As he walked away, the animal took to mournful howling, but it couldn’t be helped. Spying on the strange carnival, he’d found his goal. But when he’d tried to enter the gate with the dog, people had begun an infuriating salvo of questions and incomprehensible nonsense, and he’d turned back. So it was needed that the beast be left inconsolate.
Not approaching the gate this time but making to enter the grounds surreptitiously from out of the swamp bounding its edge, he succeeded.
#
The bus let them off at a parking lot near the front entrance. This area was mostly facade, resembling a Hollywood backlot or an old western set, the obligatory castle looming behind crenelated walls. It was, perhaps, a misnomer to call the festival Renaissance.
Molly paid at the booth as Elizabeth squirmed excitedly, holding her father’s hand. A group of tumblers and aerialist were at work nearby, at the end of a promenade resembling the street of an old European village. A woman in fuchsia tights spun down a length of fabric of the same color, suspended between two long polls. A man flipped a boy into the air, spinning, and caught him on descent.
Farther along, under the shade of a tree, a costumed musician plucked a lute as another player beat a soft drum. A woman’s clear, plaintive voice rose above the bustle, and they stopped to listen to the sad madrigal. At song’s end, they sincerely applauded then rejoined the crowd tramping along the pretend avenue. There were stalls with face painters, walking sticks, souvenir clothing, jewelry and artwork, and of course plenty of food and drink.
One booth had small, colorful bottles stacked on the counter. An energetic man stepped out in front, bowing to passersby and beginning to speak, a medieval pitchman. “Ladies and gentlemen, maidens and valiants, nowhere else in time and space is there a potion such as this,” he said, pulling a green glass vile from his pocket, holding it enticingly up to the sunlight. “Should ever love’s eye wander, one drop, added to food or beverage, will recover. Should foe deal unfairly, one draught will grievance redress. You there, yeoman! Stop and attend.” The costumed salesman confronted a couple walking by.
The young man, dressed in baseball shirt and jeans, stopped. “What’s that supposed to mean … yeoman?” The girl tugged at his sleeve.
“Nay, good youth, be content. It is but a term of respect.” The pitchman offered out his hand. “All here are friends!” People had stopped to watch.
The young man reluctantly reciprocated, stretching out his own hand, and they shook. “Here, take free a bottle in gesture of accord.” The stocky man handed over the brightly colored flask. “Thy maid, too, will be enchanted,” he finished, with a theatrical wink, drawing a laugh from the crowd.
“What do you think,” Molly whispered into Omer’s ear. “Should we try it?”
“I’m inclined to pass on this one.”
#
Captured in a fever dream, he’d accepted his doom but still struggled to overcome its madness. Mingling among these strangers—all rather much too tall—he came upon a tournament ground, improperly laid out but recognizable. But the joust was foolishness. It was as though he’d walked into a shabby mockery of life. Standing in the crowd, watching the absurd spectacle, he yearned to draw steel and rebel against insanity. But striking any of these incompetent children in combat would bring shame.
A man with an emblem on his chest approached. “Sir, you have to secure your sword. It’s the rules.” The man lifted a noisy little box to his ear and said, “Hey, everybody doing the gates. Remember, weapons have to be tied.”
Accepting the offered cord and binding hilt to scabbard, he moved on, stalking his prey.
#
“Anybody ready for lunch?” Molly asked.
“Well, there’s a shop I’d like to stop at—”
“Yes, sweetheart, Scotch Eggs,” Molly groaned.
You can’t please everyone, Omer thought to himself.
“Tell you what, go find your egg, and Liz and I will hunt for something more appealing to the younger crowd. Meet you by the big tent there in twenty minutes,” she said, pointing toward the blue and white checked enclosure of a beer garden.
#
Finally, he spotted them—king and wizard, old man and fool. As usual it was the short one doing the talking and the other adding a veneer of authority to the charade. The comedy ended, but he held back, resolved to bide awhile. Striking amongst this strange festival held too much risk of interference. But now that he’d found them again, not magic, nor divine title, nor disgrace would stop him. The only possible stay on what would come was his own destruction.
#
Omer knew Molly would tease him more if he told her the truth, that after
scouting around and eventually asking, he’d been told the Scotch Egg vendor hadn’t made the trip this year. So when he found his wife and his daughter near the entrance to the beer tent, fumes of sausage and sauerkraut escaping from it, he bluffed, “You know, I think I’m still hungry.”
The noontime sun was warm, so they scooched over to the side of the table shaded under an umbrella stuck into its center. Beth worked her spoon through strawberry shortcake in a paper bowl, Molly gnawed an ear of grilled corn, and Omer washed down his last bite of bratwurst with a swish of dark, sweet malt. He deserved it.
“Where next?” Omer asked, wiping his mouth, looking at wife and daughter sitting side by side. He picked up another napkin, not sure which to tackle first, dripping butter or whipped cream.
“Let’s wander a bit before we start back to the bus,” Molly said. “Work out the sauerkraut.”
Omer chose to ignore the jibe. “Fine. Although could we sit here a minute longer? All of a sudden, I feel sleepy.”
#
The moon visible through treetops, illuminating the night, Omer awoke somewhere in the woods, though he couldn’t remember why that should be. When he tried to move, his limbs wouldn’t cooperate, something holding his wrists and ankles. Becoming more fully conscious, he recognized the glade of the giant’s boulder and understood he was bound to the rock.
A voice came from above, atop the stone. “You’re back with us. Splendid!” Omer couldn’t force his head up and around to see who spoke. Though obscured by a strange lilting accent, the words were plain enough. “We met once before, you and I, a month past. I never forget a face, especially not one of the Elders. Calculate the chances of us meeting. And just then the right spell popped into my head, a fragment of script I’d read when I was much older, a remedy for all the trouble.”
There was something familiar in the voice, but Omer couldn’t place it. “What do you want?” He managed to get the words out of his dry mouth. “If it was only to kill me, you’d have already done it.”
“Calculate the chances …” the voice repeated softly, apparently to itself. “There’s long been debate on the nature of your kind’s ability to hide. Some say it’s a power that bends sight. Others argue you exude a scent like poppy to confuse pursuers. I’d love to know more, to examine you closely, but time bans this. I’ll have to use the spell without understanding the niceties.”
Omer heard shifting above, and the speaker slid down the rock and soon stood in front of him, round‑shouldered with astute eyes hooded under bushy brows. The man pulled a knife from his belt and cut the palm of Omer’s bound right hand. The troll grunted, stifling a moan. Drops of blood landed on the rough surface of the boulder, forming a lengthening rivulet, black in the moonlight.
Sheathing his knife, the man pulled a small bottle from somewhere about his person and poured its stinging contents onto the wound. “This should keep things flowing, a tincture of my own revelation.”
It hit Omer where he’d seen the man before—the elixir salesman, and earlier, one of two men walking in the woods.
“Come, Sire, it’s almost time.” From around the curve of the great stone came the other man, tall with a white beard, stiff and silent, defiant in bearing. The moon had risen above the treetops, filling the glen with pail light. The first man continued, “it’s this ability of yours to conceal that binds up the spell. The doorway I open will be hidden, even from the Wise.”
He could feel a warm trickle dripping from his fingertips. The stocky man began speaking again, but now in muffled rhythmic incantation. Omer didn’t know what it was, but he felt something changing, sensation becoming less solid, sound less present. Vertigo tossed him as though he weren’t in a single spot anymore but in an echoing, shifting anywhere. In one of these places, he struggled against his bindings and on the wind heard a deep‑chested baying.
Down the trail came the sound of toenails striking gravel, and from out of the dark tunnel of trees the war dog was upon them. Close behind, the large man strode into the clearing, drawing his bright sword. The sorcerer continued his incantation, oblivious of events. His companion stepped forward, interceding, and for the first time Omer heard him speak. “Why do you bother me, foreigner? You have no jurisdiction here. By the oath you gave, take your beast and be gone!”
In response to this command, the fighting man closed the remaining distance between them and struck the tall man, knocking him to the ground. His companion seemed to come to his senses and spun toward them. “Captain! It’s good you’ve arrived,” he said effusively. “We’re lost and in need of fellowship. It’s joy to find a friend—” The big man leveled his sword and drove it into the talkative man’s chest, pinning him to the rock, blade sliding in until hilt met breastbone, something in the wizard’s spell having made thin some barrier, embedding the weapon in stone.
“I’m sorry,” the large man said to Omer. “I’ll free you soon.” He walked back to the one he’d punched, who was still on the ground, and kicked him. “Up, Your Majesty.” The old man slowly began to comply, but when he’d regained his feet, he suddenly plunged into the brush, wildly running away. The big man barked a command, and the hound sprang after the disappearing figure.
“It was hers, you see, the dog,” he explained as he cut the troll down. Omer looked into the strong, ugly man’s eyes, gray blue in the moonlight, weary and sad. “She raised it from a pup.” Producing a strip of cloth from a leather pouch, the man wrapped Omer’s injured hand. “The Lady was patient of our Master’s return, but in the end was unable to bear the shame. When she took her own life, the dog had no one left. I was Champion. It was my office to stop all this from happening. We’ve been companions on this quest, the beast and me.”
Not far off they heard a scream. The man put fingers to mouth and whistled. In a minute the dog broke from the brush and was back at his side. “Please, let me help you home.”
“There might still be a bus into town from the festival.”
It was half a mile to the parking lot, where the shuttle would be, and on the way the man told his tale, concluding with, “The dog and I were so close upon them, we were pulled along into the spell.” A glow became apparent through the trees, lights from the fair, and as they drew near, revelry met their ears. “I must leave you here.”
Before parting, the Troll asked the desolate knight a question. “What will you do when you catch him?”
“For now, we’ll let him run.”
#
Pieces of the previous evening began reassembling themselves. He’d caught the last bus back into town, somehow gotten up the stairs and into bed, and promptly passed out. Remembering his hand, he gingerly flexed his fingers. Not too bad. The bandage would need changing but after coffee.
Downstairs, he sipped at the bitter foam, not having noticed who’d served him his cappuccino. Molly slid into the opposite side of the booth. “I had the weirdest dream last night,” she began without preamble. “We were at the Renaissance Festival with Beth, and in my dream, I drank a bottle of magic potion and poured one in your beer when you weren’t looking. I was glad when I woke up this morning and it went away.”
His family had gotten home safe, and that was all that mattered. Omer reached across the table and took her hand. “What did you do?” she asked, concern in her voice. He’d forgotten about the bandage.
“Just a little careless. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Let me see the next time you have it uncovered.”
“Okay,” he conceded.
“It was one of those dreams that feel so vivid,” Molly continued. “I guess it’s more like that when you wake up right in the middle of them.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s silly anyway. We wouldn’t really take Elizabeth to the Renaissance Festival. A little adult for a five‑year‑old, don’t you think?”
Omer loved his wife and tried to be up front with her, but he decided it might be better this time to let it go. The alchemist’s potion hadn’t done any lasting harm, and if a few scrambled memories was the worst of it, he felt lucky.
“You look like hell, bossman,” Mickey said matter‑of‑fact. “Can I get you breakfast?”
She brought him a plain croissant, “—really, all I can eat this morning.”
“Did you talk to him?” Mickey asked Molly before returning to the counter.
“I’ll do it right now.”
“What’s the mystery?”
“Actually, Mickey wants to buy the place. She has some interested investors. I think that means her parents. I didn’t want to say anything until I thought about it, but I kind of feel like a change, and this would give us the money to do it. That is if you agree.”
Omer wasn’t sure. The business belonged to his wife, and she was free to do with it as she pleased, but the apartment above the shop had become their home. Well, life is an adventure, he thought, and if his wife wanted some, why not? Money wasn’t a problem. He had a bag of gold stashed away someplace. Where had he seen it last? On a shelf behind some paint cans?
“So what would we do next?”
“I was thinking Elizabeth deserves to know more about her heritage. Do you have any relatives we could drop in on?”
Omer put his head in his hands, rubbing his face, not sure he wanted to open up that can of worms. But he sat back up straight and gave Molly a smile all the same.
#
Once upon a time, a regent assumed the throne in his lord’s absence, claiming to be the true and rightful king, chosen by the ancient spirits of the land itself. His accomplice, a master of illusion, dripped poison into the people’s ears until they came to believe the lie. But eventually, after long pursuit, the usurper’s head was removed from his body in the customary manner.