Rhistmaege

Muck Sooth

Dovi cringed, as the twisted part of Muck's story surfaced: Watchers for the Crown eyed Muck and his lazy eye wading deep into the bog four straight nights. He wandered aimlessly about, then seemed to chase someone or something that wasn't there. Each night, when he finally stopped running, the sharpened stake was in his hand.

Wenton S. Blight, head of the Crown's Suspicious Activity List, also known as the S.A.L. or just The List, had marked Muck Sooth as a potential enemy of King Resdinius, back those one hundred and fifty or so years ago.

Blight chronicled the four stakes Muck brought back those four nights. Questioned Muck the last evening, but only received a bucktoothed snarl in reply. Blight called on Nemmy, but Muck Sooth claimed she was unavailable. Some whispered Muck had murdered old Nemmy. On the next night, the fifth night, Blight himself followed Muck into these same swampy lowlands. Muck being no fool, noticed Blight, and scampered away into a silent mist. Blight called out, but the echoing silence was the only response.

Dovi tried to force his mind away from the story's ending, but failed to divert his attention.

Blight did find Bucktoothed Muck Sooth that dubious night, when the mist had finally dissipated. They say it was a scene no man should ever have witnessed. The Keeper of The List stumbled and found himself knee deep in a swamp turned red. There, butchered into five pieces and impaled high upon a tree at the ends of five sharpened stakes, was Bucktoothed Muck Sooth and his lazy eye.

Blight sprinted away and lost his bearings, ending up waist deep in the middle of the swamp. When he had just about given up hope of finding his way out, he heard a small girl's chuckle.

"Hello? Who's there? Can you help me?" called out Blight.

Surfacing from beneath the murky muck, just in front of poor Blight, was a small girl, in a small black dress, holding a sharpened stake. Red lips curled upon a small pale face. She raised a finger to her small mouth and whispered, "shhhhh." She raised the stake and held it to Blight's forehead, then laughed and faded away. Terror stricken, Blight fled Muck Gully that night and raced back to Wroughton Grove.

A crazed, hysterical Blight rounded up some Kingsmen and broke down Nemmy's front door. There, was poor old Nemmy, impaled with a stake through her forehead, hanging at the top of the grand staircase. The body still dripped to the floor below- onto a sodden, blood-soaked dress.

Wenton S. Blight was never the same after the incident, as folks politely called it. Blight claimed every night, when the clock struck three, a small girl in a small, bloody dress lifted a finger to her mouth at the foot of his bed, and whispered "shhhhh." Tired of hearing folks call him daft, Blight, who now had a lazy eye himself, left Wroughton Grove and was never heard from again.

Goosebumps iced up Dovi's arms. Shoulders creeped up to nearly touch his lobes. Why do I have such a destructive-

Footsteps splashed in the distance beyond some heavy underbrush. Dovi's head snapped up as a piercing shriek echoed high in the sky. Griffin, with a rider. Kingsman?

The aerial team pivoted and dove closer to the wetlands. The rider smoothly stood in the stirrups and loosed two arrows over a stand of leather-leafed pumpkin ash. In immediate response, a burst of shimmering, silver lights streaked up from behind the trees.

Mother of Mercy. A Maege? Could it be...

The incandescent silver trail hovered, then morphed into four blazing birds. They flashed towards the griffin. The rider had anticipated the attack and turned the great beast down and to his left. Two avian furies sailed harmlessly past and dissipated, but the other two found their mark. The griffin roared out in pain as one pulsing charge fired into its flank. The other flamed across its right wing. Man and beast spun into a panicked fall. Just before reaching the treetops, the mount righted itself, turned and flew awkwardly back towards Wroughton Grove.

Could it have been a Rhistmaege? But they were just fairy tales. Tapping into Earned Wit, like they learned in school, was nothing compared to what he had just witnessed. His pulse pounded, but he knew better than to seek out a possibly wounded Rhistmaege. Injured by a Kingsman?

Dovi pushed down reckless thoughts and rose to his feet. Better to be out of Muck Gully before whoever is out there gets wind of me.

Dovi half swift-walked and half ran recklessly through the marshlands, before finally arriving at Beaconwick Pointe crossroads. He huffed his way to a four way intersection. Three weedy paths linked his family's farm with two other farms and the last was a rutted wagon path leading back towards Wroughton Grove.

He had forgotten about his fears of going home. His legs began to shake. Breath seized in his chest. Tears rolled down his narrow cheeks. The bastard caught him again. Damn him.

Dovi eyed the old wood signpost staked drunkenly to the left at Beaconwick Pointe. Macabre Farm. Swifthand Horselands. Bernbell's Eggery.

A small wood sign dangled by a rusty chain on the arrow pointed towards his house. Each letter etched upon the wood sign seared Dovi to the bone. I hope he burns for this.

An image of his father's bloated, sun baked body floating belly up in Ripplewhip Pond. If only...

He pulled the chain off the post and mouthed the words etched upon the wood placard. "I pissed myself" "I shame my family".

Dovi knew what this meant. He would wear the sign to school tomorrow. He dropped heavily to his knees. Balled fists pummeled the hard path, leaving sandy blood upon his knuckles. I hate him.