Chapter 8: The Secret Wonders of Parli
At first just wood board rooftops were visible behind a large hill. As the travelers scaled the hill, more and more of the buildings became visible until the ground was seen. The travelers now stood only yards away from a wooden fence that surrounded the small town. The buildings were on average only one story, with only several two, and one three. The entirety of the town was made of wood, from the buildings themselves, to the road connecting them. The travelers now were at an entrance to the town, standing still, listening intently. For there were no sounds inside the town called Brickem, named for what the town sold, not for the structures which were clearly not made of brick. Neither person nor animal was seen in the streets, or heard from the houses. The absolute silence pushed even more fear into the mind of the tall guide. He slowly stepped onto the wooden street. The boards creaked eerily in the desolate town. Mitchum cautioned the other two with him to not follow. Continuing his slow tread, the tall man set off to the first house on the left. He approached a window cut into the wood, and peered inside.
It was a small room that he looked into, a kitchen. A table sat directly on the other side of the wall, several chairs around it. On the opposite wall was a small kettle, and under the kettle lay sticks that showed evidence of having been previously lit by flames. Mitchum began wondering why someone would start a fire inside of a house made entirely of wood. But just before the thought progressed in his mind, a shiver of fear flew down his body, for in one corner of the small kitchen, halfway through a doorway to another room, stood a man. He was staring steadfastly at Mitchum with a strange smile of satisfaction.
“Excuse me sir, but I was just wondering why –” He froze midsentence, abruptly realizing a horrible truth. The man in the house, standing in the doorway looking directly at Mitchum, was not moving a muscle. He could have been easily confused with a statue, though he looked too real. Mitchum quickly looked back at the children, who still stood just inside the town. They gazed back, wonder illustrated their faces. Mitchum swiftly looked back to the man in the house. Deciding quickly what to do, he jumped through the window and onto the wooden table. He jumped down from the table and advanced straight for the man in the doorway. Outside he could hear the creaking of boards and looked back to see both Mith and Ludus at the window.
“Go back.” Mitchum pleaded, standing in front of the statue like man, hoping they would not see him.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ludus almost shouted as he realized what Mitchum was hiding. Deciding it useless to keep them in the dark, Mitchum moved away from the man, and helped the kids in through the window,
“I have a hunch, but I plead it is not so.”
Mr. Quinn immediately attempted to unravel the mystery himself, while the kids seated themselves at the table, watching fixedly. He began by feeling for a pulse. There was one, extremely slow, but it was there. Next he tried to wake the man up by calling to him, and then softly hitting him, this did not work. All out of ideas, Mitchum turned hopelessly to the kids.
“I would check the rest of the town, but I am certain it is more of the same.” He bit his lip. “How could this have happened? I was certain it could not.”
Ludus threw his hands up in the air, “What in all of Parli are you talking about? You have not told us anything. And you talk of Rerum being secretive.”
Mitchum waved his hand for Ludus to stop, “I know, I know. I expect it comes to me teaching you in only minutes what you should have been learning about for years.”
“And what is that?” Mith asked.
“The history of Parli.” Mitchum responded bleakly.
“We already know that.”
“Not in its entirety.”
Silence took over once again, Mith and Ludus wanted to hear of the true history, but the thought of sitting in a room with a man that appeared to be frozen in time was not their idea of a good time. Mitchum did not sense their distress, having so much of his own.
Mitchum cleared his throat, thought for a minute on how to begin, and then said: “As you should already know, we live in the year four twenty-six, but what you may not have known is that the history of this island goes back farther than that.” He took a look at his listeners, they were already captivated. Either that or they were trying to look captivated so as to get out of that house. “The history starts hundreds, even thousands of miles away from here, in a place called Memoria. Memoria is a huge island, much more massive than Parli, and on the other side of the world. Well, anyway, this place was engaged in a great war, the greatest of all time. The regions of Memoria began to fall by the evil Hulius. A man said to be so evil, death did not want anything to do with him, and so the story goes he was well over two hundred at the time of the war. As all hope is lost of regaining peace to the now terminal continent, five of the remaining regions, they had many more than that, each sent a lord to find a new home. These lords and ladies were handpicked by the leader of the resistance. They had to be the noblest, bravest, and strongest of all the land. Their names were: Portur, Altis, Rerum, Lwid, and Ijnus. (And yes, if you were wondering that is the same Rerum that your town is named from.) That is three men and two women in case you could not hear the gender differences in their names. With them go two boatloads of people (a lot of which are children) who are to help the new place get started. They are each sent in a different direction, hopefully to each find a new place to live. But before they set out, the three lords and two ladies were entrusted with something very special.”
“What is it?” Ludus blurted out.
“That Ludus, is an excellent question. Because what they were entrusted with is the reason why the war was even fought. They were entrusted with magic. You see, Hulius may have been immortal (supposedly), but he did not have the magic that fueled all of Memoria, so he planned to take it. Once he was caught trying to steal it, he did not by any stretch call a quits. He somehow gathered up massive forces in a short period of time and took over Memoria, then went to take the magic by force. Unbeknownst to him, the other side, the good side, also had an army. The fight was on, and it lasted many years, until the side of the five lords was depleted. Fearing the magic getting in the hands of Hulius, it was given to the lords, and they were sent away. They got attacked when they left, but made it out alright. Those who left never returned, and had no idea what happened to Memoria after they left. Those people are our ancestors.”
“Hey, the names, the first letter of each spell Parli.” Ludus announced to the group. He had already forgotten that only feet away was a frozen person.
“Very good, Ludus, anyway, back to the story if you do not mind. The whole point of the boats leaving at the same time from different places is so they would inhabit multiple islands, so that even if the evil forces were to follow they would never destroy all of them and get all the magic. Each of the lords and ladies arrived at an island at different times, making camps and starting up societies where each of them were at.” He paused to catch his breath; he had been talking very fast out of excitement. The history of Parli was Mitchum’s favorite story and not even a dire situation could keep him from getting hyped up from telling it. “The story does not end here; in fact it is just now getting good. So after about a year of thinking they were alone on an uncharted island, each lord finds out that all the others are on the same island. It turns out there are only two landmasses in the world, Memoria and Parli. So instead of fighting and causing another war, the five leaders decided to split the island into six parts, one for each and one for all, thus creating the five regions and the palace grounds. But still the story does not end. Now when all seemed happy, they realized they can do something about the fact that the entire island is a desert. The leaders get together and plan something extraordinary, that being a complete change of landscape. Now you might be wondering how that is possible.” He looked to see if they would ask, but they did not. “They have magic, remember? It grew inside of them and took shape around their
personality. They then made up their minds to create an island of their choosing using magic. Each went into their own region and placed the entirety of their own magic into the ground. The result is an island suitable for anyone. In Lord Portur’s region hills and grass took over. In Lady Altis’s region, a forest grows tall and strong. In Lady Rerum’s region grass grew all around the already large bay. In Lord Lwid’s region, mountains were born. And finally, Lord Ijnus’s region was split in two, straight down the middle, into half valley, half marsh. All the landscapes came to a point under the palace.”
“It takes the entire magic supply for that to happen?” Ludus asked.
“Not quite, it only took half for the land to change. The other half made the entire island magical.”
Mith finally spoke, “I thought it was already magical, that’s why it is still—wait a minute, why is the Valley-Marsh no longer magical?”
Mitchum chuckled, “I will tell you, hold on. Half of the magic was absorbed into the land, making it unusual for the people to be affected by it, not counting the fruit that come from the trees planted in the magic soil. The other half of the magic was not absorbed into the ground, causing it to be in the air. All around there was magic, the trees were magical, the ground was magical, and even the wind, which is said to sing as it raced through the land. But of course all goodness cannot last. As with on Memoria, someone on Parli became magic-hungry and that person was lord Ijnus. As the years passed he wondered why he was not able to have his magic in his control (he had evidently forgotten that he too agreed to put it in the ground years earlier). It should have been a real give away that he was bad, since his was the only region to become two different landscapes, showing that his personality was also split. He gathered forces of his own, just like Hulius did, and attacked his fellow lords and ladies. Ijnus took all of the magic out of his region, and put it into a single sword, turning the great V-M back into a rough desert. If you learn anything from this story, Mith and Skippy, learn this: Nothing good can come from turning against those who trust you. That is exactly what Ijnus did, and he paid for it dearly.
“Once the other lords and ladies found out about his treachery, they knew they would be no match for him without their magic. As a result they took half of the magic out of their own regions. This left their regions still with the mountains, or the forest, but took the magic out of the air. It is not known why the lords and ladies did not just take the magic back and put it back into their bodies; some say because they were old and could not control it as well. Instead they also put it in swords, perhaps trying to keep things equal. When Ijnus put his magic into the sword, it was capable of much more than a regular sword. Ijnus made it all the way to the castle, fighting the guards on his way. The guards’ swords were no match for the magic in Ijnus’s. The sword fights ended with one blow, for whenever the magic sword hit a regular one, the regular one burst into tiny fragments. Once all the guards were defeated, Ijnus turned his sights on the other leaders. He was so disillusioned by that point that he actually thought he could kill all the other four. Was he ever wrong, even with only half power in each sword, the other lords and ladies overpowered Ijnus and sank their swords deep into his flesh at the same precise instant. Ijnus, and his hope to become sole ruler, had died. But it was not just any death; Ijnus disappeared in a puff of smoke after the battle.”
“Really, how did that happen?” Ludus’s face had a look of complete awe.
“No one knows. Some say he was magically trapped into his sword, others claim the lords and ladies just did not want people to know what they did to the body. Anyways, all those who fought for Ijnus recognized that it was a futile fight and surrendered. But the sword was still magical, and there had to be a decision made about what to do with it. Fearing the likes of another rebellion, the rulers took the sword and, instead of putting the magic back into the land, they kept it in the sword.”
“Why did they not put it back into the land?” Mith asked, becoming so enthralled by the story that she was leaning forward on her chair, causing the wooden back legs to rise into the air.
“The remaining lords and ladies believed that all those who fought against them were products of the Valley-Marsh region, so they banished them back there, making sure that they lived in a desert as punishment. That is why there is a belief that the inhabitants of the Rough Region are still bandits and thieves, which in fact is completely false.” Mitchum sat back with his back against the wall, right next to the window, and sighed. Then, remembering that he had not finished the story, jumped up. “Wait, I’m not finished yet.” He sat back down and continued. “The lords and ladies were very paranoid from that day forward. Fearing a rebellion from their own regions they altered Parli forever. Instead of removing the magic from the swords and returning it to the land, they used the magic to transform the swords into roses, which was Memoria’s sign of peace. From then on half of the magic was encased in magic golden roses. Once finished with their own, they planned to turn Ijnus’s sword into a rose, but it did not work. The roses were put on display in each region, so all could see.”
“What about Ijnus’s sword.” Mith asked.
“Ijnus’s magic was special just to him, nobody else could use it.”
“So what did they do?” Ludus interrupted.
“They hid the evidence that there was ever evil in Parli. They hid the sword deep under the ground below the palace so nobody would ever find it and use the dark magic. The strange thing is, though, the sword’s magic kept the small area around the palace completely magical.”
“How is that strange?” Ludus interrupted once again.
“It is strange because the roses did not make the land completely magical. As long as the roses were on display the land stayed the way it was, as in it did not turn back into a desert, but it also did not make it completely magical again, so it seemed it had no effect, but the sword kept the Palace Region fully magical, possibly because of its small size.” Mitchum paused once again, this time to build suspense. “This lasted for years, but still the story continues. About thirty years after Ijnus’s death, the truth came out about the roses. One day a small boy, younger than you,” he pointed to Ludus, “took the rose from its resting place as a prank on the leader of the town that held it. Immediately all in that region, it happened to be this very region, froze in time, with the exception of the boy. The boy was very scared and at once returned the rose to its holder, and immediately everyone was back as if nothing happened. The boy explained it to his father and the roses were deemed too dangerous to be kept around. The only problem with that is, the lords and ladies were deceased by then and nobody had the courage to break the rose since they did not know what would happen. The reason that the people then came up with was that the roses had some dark magic. At first nobody could explain that, and then it became clear. When the lords and ladies killed Ijnus, their dark intentions turned to dark magic. And this darkness transferred to their magic supply, and after that, the roses.
“The magic golden roses were now feared throughout all of the regions. As a result of their fear the roses were hidden away, the whereabouts told to very few, the mountain rose was the only that had been hidden by the Lord himself, which is why it is the hardest to find today. The new leaders of this land, who were a queen and king chosen by Lord Rerum, the last to survive, knew the location. As the years past, fewer and fewer knew of the roses. But the stories never died, and neither did the roses, they still exist, still hidden away.”
“Someone else knows where the roses are, at least this one.” Mith shuttered at the thought as she said it. “Why are we not frozen, Mitchum?”
Mitchum nodded gravely, “The freezing only occurs as the rose is lifted off of its holding place, a golden plate once used in the palace dining area. The person who takes it off and those outside of the region are not affected. But as you can see, the people never unfreeze unless the rose is replaced in the region.”
All eyes fixed on th
e frozen man in the doorway. His smiling face and wide eager eyes saddened those in the room. He was clearly happy about something, perhaps the quality of the day he had lived in when it happened. Now he was frozen, and no one present could quite grasp the idea that this man may never be returned to normal, never see the sky he was so intently staring into through the window.
“Who could have done this?” Mith’s voice was utterly cheerless.
“I can only think of one person that would truly be capable of such a heinous crime, but I have doubts.”
“Who is it?”
“A man I once was friends with, a man that was sent to the jail in the bay. He is a man with no boundaries unsalable for him, no matter how many are thrust in his way. His name is Oldo. He was a guard for the palace, just like I was. We shared similar ideas; we each wanted to force towns like Rerum to open its doors to the rest of the island. We each had envisioned a Parli with no boundaries. The only difference between us is that he used force and fear to get what he wanted. That is why he was fired from his job and sent to the jail in the bay. He threatened to kill the prince because he did not believe in what the prince spoke of, keeping Parli the same, without changes. Whether or not he actually was going to attempt an assassination is unknown, but the threat was very real.”
“You mentioned a jail in the bay, correct? You cannot be talking about the great black rock are you?” Ludus asked.
“Right off the coast of Rerum, that is exactly what I am talking about.”
“Oh, alright.” The news did not come as a shock to either Mith or Ludus. After what they had heard they did not believe there could be any more shocks in the world.
“Mitchum looked around the room, “You stay here; I need to see if there are bedrooms we can stay in for the night.”
“What are you joking? What if whoever did this comes back?” Ludus protested.
Mith’s jaw dropped, “That is so wrong, to take use of this poor man’s house like that.”
Mitchum looked so stressed now, it was a wonder he did not yell at the kids. “Look, Ludus, if Oldo really did do this, he is not going to be sneaking around this town looking for people sleeping in beds they are not supposed to. Knowing him, he is long gone by now, probably demanding something at the palace in exchange for the rose. And Mith, I am sure that this man does not mind us staying out of the cold tonight by sleeping here. One thing I forgot to mention, the rose does not just freeze the people, it also freezes the remaining magic in the land. This place is already starting to turn back into a desert, that is why the sun is so intense and the boundary between the regions is gone.”
No one protested any longer, deep down they both knew they now needed to listen to Mitchum no matter what he said. They sat silently while Mr. Quinn went through the house arranging matters. Minutes later he came back. Beds were found and set for Mith and Ludus. There was nobody else frozen or unfrozen in the house. Mitchum made the kids go to bed very early that day, even before nightfall. He did this so that they could sleep off some of the initial fright caused by the story, and so he could explore the rest of the town and decide their next move.
Mith and Ludus obliged half-heartedly. The house was incredibly different than those in Rerum. First of all, it was not a small shack, but an actual house. The beds were not mats, but beds that sat off the ground, filled with feathers (luckily no one was allergic) and the pillows were as well. The kids went to bed on one condition: if Mitchum took turns sleeping in each of their bedrooms. Mith and Ludus finally got to sleep almost an hour later. They did not realize then, but they were wrong before. There would be one more shock, more devastating than all the rest combined.