The TaleMaster 9 ….Scribing

This little tale started itself about a dozen years ago. It was originally a couple of pages, a  background for a D&D character. Then came a dream or three which added so much more. Life & Death interfered for many years. I’ve begun dreaming of this tale again, recently. This will eventually be a book, I hope.

Link to all of TaleMaster

So please, go get yourself a tall cold beverage, adjust your reading glasses and settle into your comfy chair and join me in the City of Colours…

   The Seth leads the boy to the gate then watches as he scampers off down the tunnel, pondering the news. Sea serpents back… Kalygth Rathmon will need some heroes before long to dispose of that problem.  Saug Amaroth was needing a lesson in humility yet again. Maybe it is past time for lessons, time to cut out the ichor and cauterize the wound. Turning, the master of tales enters his cavern, pausing to lock the gate and pull the curtain to, his thoughts returning to the boy, Y’rbos, who brought the news.

    The blood flowed strong in that one. HIS blood…. many generations later but still the traits were recognizable and prominent. Y’rbos had picked up his lessons quickly, had become invaluable now he was old enough to go on the runs to distant cities.

One other, A’drui — too young yet to be of much use, but the most helpful in many, many seasons… quick and silent … keeping him informed. Updating information daily, sometimes hourly, certainly the best of the three he secretly employed.

   In the ante-chamber the ancient man pushes aside the ragged tapestry at the left of the gate and enters the chamber between  the gates, the only room that most visitors see. Weaving his way through the scattered chairs and around the scarred table he crosses the chamber and pushes aside the ragged tapestry to enter his home cave, his private rooms.

   Glow globes in stands softly illuminate the cavern. Although sparsely furnished, its appointments are of the finest quality.

   Tapestries in jewel tones line every wall, centuries of work displayed for his eyes alone.  The finest silken threads patiently worked by his hands onto emerald velvet. Minute details depicting the history of the mountain. Each season a square was completed and added to the edge, each year-end a border of vines worked in silver, creating year strips from ceiling to floor. At a short distance the details blur to reform into a striped pattern, a seemingly ordinary curtain keeping in warmth.

   Thick rugs of different sizes cover the floor, two and three deep in places, overlapping, keeping out the chill of the living stone. Their muted browns and patterns of leaves a reminder of the forest near the home of his youth.

   The Seth  passes the round table that sits in the center of the room. Cluttered with scrolls and ink wells, it is surrounded by three chairs made from mahogany barrels. These are fitted with cushions filled with corn-husks & wheat-chaff, a sturdy foundation for the fluffy down stuffed velvet cushions that sit atop them.

   On the northern wall rises an immense desk. It’s many cubbyholes are filled to overflowing with scrolls, maps and notes. Stacks of parchment line the top of the desk rising up to, and encompassing in some places, the three shelves above. Parchment pages, bound carefully by the TaleMaster, line the shelves, interspersed with scraps of parchment, empty ink wells and broken quills. A large tome lies invitingly open, waiting for The Seth. A wooden chair stands before the desk, its arms and seat worn, the bottom rung thin from his feet resting there, his constant use.

    He settles into the chair, opens the clasp of his cloak and carelessly lets it fall behind him. Many  minutes pass as he writes the latest information down in his spidery squirl script, then he turns back a few pages, and then a few more, to refresh a point of uncertainty. Satisfied he returns to his entry and adds a bit more before laying the quill down again.

Crossing the room he pauses to check on Nah’lei’s travels in the book atop the leaning, creaky shelves.  Quickly he scans her legible scrawl and assures himself of the safety of the adventuring party. They have reached the halfway point of their journey with no major problems, meeting some interesting people along the way. With a bit of luck the rest would go as well.  He places the book carefully back on the shelf. “I must get Buhdro to fix these!” he says to himself for the thousandth time and pushes aside a curtain, entering a smaller chamber to the south.

   A massive bed fills the space, its four posts carved into the likeness of dragons sitting atop ornate columns. The TaleMaster crosses the chamber to the north dragon. His fingers lightly caress its folded wings, black now from years of his touch, the natural oil of his hands. At first the gesture was a yearning for comfort, it has now become a ritual for the old man, comforting in its own way.

   He continues around the bed to the hearth in the south wall. A massive oaken mantle juts from the curving wall of the chamber, a handy shelf for his bowls & utensils. His is one of the few true fireplaces in the mountain, most of the other caverns had interior chambers. Being at the top of the mountain his chambers didn’t maintain a comfortable temperature and required a source of warmth. And, he admitted to himself, he just enjoyed having the fire to look at. It brought him comfort somehow.

   Turning, he looks at the great bed, a gift centuries ago from the first GoldSmith, Elriad. He has always felt safe there… sunk into the depths of the down and the dreams, guarded by the huge dragons at the compass points, covered by the silken rose eiderdown.

   The Seth enters this haven and lies down, waiting for the next bit of information to piece into the puzzle of the world. His thoughts drift, his mind wandering over the latest morsels, the news Y’rbos brought, the GoldSmiths latest story, fitting them into the already known or guessed. The dragon coalesces before him…

continued…

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