Chapter 6
The roaring was gone. The guilt was gone. In fact for the first time in his life Falk felt what he thought to be contentment. Falk opened his eyes. The pace of the incident seemed to have slowed somewhat. The members of the crowd who'd surged forward towards Adlwyn were stopped in their tracks though Falk could not fathom why. The pasty face of the magistrate seemed frozen in shocked indigence. Falk turned his head and saw that the magistrate's guardsmen who'd been responsible for administering his punishment stood still as well, the whip hovering in half-motion above his head ready to come down upon the convicted. Then Falk stared at the part of the village square which he'd been trying to avoid.
His father and the magistrate's guard were frozen in a statue of death. The guard had not moved after delivering the killer blow, his father somehow stood as well, the sword buried in his skull down to his eye-line, a trickle of blood, a single sanguine tear ran down past his right eye and over his mouth, but it advanced no further. “Father” whispered Falk, his voice filled with tears.
“FATHER” he screamed but was not heard. Falk struggled with his bonds, after some minutes he was able to free himself, still no one had moved, the crowd stood stock still, the killer guardsman did not withdraw his blade, father stood there beneath the terrible blow, by some miracle still on his feet. When finally free Falk staggered forward and put a hand upon Aldwyn shoulder.
“Father, please answer me, what is this mad fantasy that beguiles me” but Aldwyn was silent.
Falk turned to the figure of the guardsman “murderer” he shouted, throwing all his weight behind a blow which landed in the passive guardsman's cheek, Falk recoiled following the punch, he cradled his hand in which he suspected there was several broken bones from the feel and look of them, though he felt no pain which perplexed him. The guardsman's skin was solid like stone. Falk turned and reached a tentative hand up to his own fathers face, it was similarly hard and inhospitable to the touch. “Have I died, is this my hell, stuck in the lowest moment of my life as an eternal reminder of my failures?” Falk asked to the empty air. Then he remembered.
As the blade that ended his fathers life had come down, Falk had screamed out the word whispered to him by the statue maker, and now as he looked at the still and silent world around him Falk remembered. “When you speak it time will no longer be your master”.
Falk looked up at the clouds, they were stationary, he walked up and down the line of townsfolk gathered in the square, he waved his hands and shouted directly in front of them and there was no response. Falk climbed the steps of the village hall and tried to push the magistrate from them with all his strength, he did not budge, but he did not resist, he may as well have been on the other side of the world for all the effect Falks presence was having on him or anyone else.
There were questions. Many questions, how long would this last, and in what would he measure such lengths if time was as it appeared to be , stopped?. How far out did this phenomenon extend, the square? Falk listened intently, true silence met his ears, not the background noise of the world which fills our minds eye when there is noting else to do so, but the utter absence of sounds of any kind, no birds, no turning wheels, no crying babes.
The whole village then, the Northfold? The kingdom? Falk looked up, this time fearfully, at the frozen heavens over Alesven, even further?. This situation was almost too much for the young lad to bear, he wasn't sure where to start so he turned to his father and he wept in mourning for even with the absence of time he was still dead and had died misguided but was still trying to help his son. Falks tears were moist and warm as they rolled down his cheeks but as they fell from his face and struck the ground they became solid and cold the same as everything that was absent from direct contact with him.
After a time Falk got to his feet and wandered through the village looking for signs of life as he knew, but everywhere there were statues. Some of them smiled and some of them frowned, they set, they ran, they sewed and they baked, but they all were still and silent. Frozen in a single moment. Falk circled the whole village, nothing and no-one moved or made a sound. Eventually Falk made his way to his families shack and inside he did shed more tears, for sat at the old dining table with her face lit by a solitary unwavering candle was his mother, her face a picture of worry and desperation. Like her husband a single stream of liquid was frozen on her face but hers was a salty tear and not of blood. In Belessa's infinite moment her only son was under the whip for thievery to feed her family and her husband drowned in his own sorrow and torment.
Falk left his mother and their home for the sight of her there frozen in misery was too much for his wounded soul to bear. Falk stood and looked up and down the street where he grew up and tried to formulate a plan. He decided that he needed to leave and see how far the phenomenon which had descended was spread. There was much hope in him that the radius of the absence of time would be short, that he would ride to Albury and find a bustling town full of people to whom he could tell his strange tale and absolve some of his guilt at all that had befallen. Falk started to pack some items into a bag for travel, but soon realised the futility of such measures, the finest bread at the bakers was like stone, the finest meats at the butchery were like rocks. Falk heard the bucket from the well strike a hard surface when he lowered it for water. Provisions were going to be a problem. Deciding that he would just have to forage along the way Falk made his way from the village.
Albury was dead. Full of life and yet so macabre., they stood in the alleyways and the streets in a stillness that was the mirror of Alesven. Dogs who had barked their final bark, street traders who'd sold there last ware, buskers whose final note was a silent echo forever. The road there had been similar. Falk had never been as far out of his village as this. He'd often envisioned what it might be like to visit those places that the travellers talked of, he imagined Albury as it might have been just a few hours ago, he imagined the vibrancy and the laughter, the chorus of sounds that were the background music to the lives of the towns folk.
But there was not even a hint of it. Falk went into a tavern and sat on a rickety stool staring out in the the busy street that may as well have been empty and contemplated his next action. Falk thought that if this was what the wish of the statue maker was like then he prayed that he never saw one of his curses, then of course he realised that was the whole point, that was why it was drummed into them from such a young age, to steer clear of that place and His cold dark promises, to him a wish was the same as a curse. Maybe he wasn't really evil at all, to him these might actually be blessings, but then Falk shook that thought from his head, he'd stood in the presence of the statue maker, and of the many things he might and might not be, one thing was certain, he was evil.
Falk thought back to that day. Bereft of options the former sheep herder recalled the price that the statue maker demanded of Falk in return for his 'wish' as he called it.
“Far to the south, father than you have ever been or dreamed there is a city called Everfar. In that place there is someone who I want for you to seek out, she is known as the silver queen, you will know her for she wears about her neck an amulet the colour of fire. When you finally find the courage to accept your gift then you will seek her out, you will take the amulet from her, then you will bring it here to me, you will bring it here to me or by all that I may swear I tell you now boy, I will see you torn limb from limb by fouler beasts than you know, your wishes will turn on you and carry you forever into the darkness of your excruciating death, do you understand me boy?”
At the time Falk had nodded, though his nod was a lie for he made sense of very little that the lord of the western wood had said to him, talk of the western wood not being the western wood and of silver queens, far off cities and amulets of fire, these things meant little to the sheep herder. But he'd nodded along in desperation to escape. It was strange, the memory stood out starkly from the recesses of his mind now but prior to the freezing of time he could not remember
dwelling on it at all, it was if the power in the wish had unleashed the memory for him.
There was a part of Falk that was thinking of going directly to the western wood, it thought to confront the statue maker, if indeed he could be found in the timeless landscape of this world. Almost as soon as the thought came it was dismissed, the malevolent nature of the being who'd cursed him was not a thing to be confronted, it was to be feared. Even so only the statue maker could undo what was done, only he held the secrets to what was happening, and there was only one way that he would part with those secrets. Falk looked to the south, the statue maker had demanded the amulet in return for Falks gift of supremacy over time, Falk would find the amulet and deliver it to him, and at the same time he would return this unwanted gift, and hope that in doing so the world might turn once more.