The Far Quest (Chapter One - The Desert Dreamer)

The Parting of Shadows (Chapter One - The Desert Dreamer)

The woman gently held the bundled child out over the parapet and the precipice below where the waves crashed with what seemed like even greater anger.  It was as though they knew what evil was afoot and meant to stop it.  Giving no heed to the swells, she whispered in a low voice that could not be heard over the roar of the sea.  And then, with a cold, heartless expression upon her thin, pale face, the woman dropped the bundled child.

Flinging out her tiny, golden arms as she fell, the baby gasped taking in her first breath, and then letting out a loud angry cry, she vanished into the darkness below.

The young woman awoke with a start throwing her arms out at her sides as if to catch herself.  Quickly sitting up, she glanced about with glazed eyes hoping to see her desert home and no trace of water or wave.  Her hopes were answered.  There was the small campfire that was now only glowing embers.  The living coals cast their faint light upon the nearby rocks and stones of the craggy slopes where she had made her camp.  All around slept her flock, and behind her, she could feel and hear the rhythmic snoring of her old donkey, Dawdle.  The donkey lay on her side, and her round belly was like a great fury pillow against which the shepherdess could recline.

In the cold night breeze, she could smell the blooming cactus, and she could hear the sad song of the Weepingwaste.  This rocky land was her home, and never had she been more thankful of this than she was then.

She looked upward remembering suddenly the angry storm that had swirled above but found only the clear desert sky full of bright stars.  Instead of lightning streaking across the dome of heaven, she saw overhead only the outstretched branches of the old gnarled tree under which she slept.

Realizing that it had all been a terrible nightmare, she sighed with a shudder and stoked the fire with a stick of kindling.  Gazing deeply into the fiery cinders, she thought about her dream.

As she sat deep in thought, the campfire’s glow gave her young face a reddish hue, and its newly kindled flames glinted like gold in her eyes.  However, her skin had in it no red tint, but it was, instead, pale and utterly colorless.  Neither was there a color of gold in her eyes, but even her gaze was as gray as the smoke that rose up from her fire.  Her lips were a slightly darker gray as well as the inward parts of her mouth, nose, and eyes.  Her mingled, dull-gray hair dangled down in dry, lifeless locks from under her rust-colored turban.  The threadbare head-wrapping covered the greater part of her delicate ears, but what could be seen was as gray as the rest of her.

In truth, her total lack of color had the effect of making her appear as though she were very ill, and if she lay completely still, perhaps even dead.  Darker gray circles were around her eyes, and her cheeks seemed brushed with the same hue.

The young woman’s sickly appearance had nearly cost her life, for a shepherd name Jocund had passed by in the cold of the desert’s night and, hearing a baby’s cry, found her naked in the warm sands of the Weepingwaste.  Jocund had looked upon her and, thinking she was on the edge of death, he had a mind to let exposure finish her.  However, the tiny baby’s angry wail turned again the heart of the young shepherd, and he took her up in his arms and delivered her to an old slave-woman who cared for her.  The aged woman named her Livid because of her color and her disposition, for though she was a good child, she had much anger bound up within her young heart.

When Livid was around eight years of age, Jocund had gained several flocks of his own and a large house.  He had also married and, by that time, had two daughters only slightly younger than the gray-maiden.  He thought to have her in his house as a chambermaid and playmate for his daughters; however, they were very spoiled and unkind.  More often than not, they treated her hurtfully and called her “the gray-wench.”