Long before the term thermo-mystic-degradation had ever been coined and the world was still flat! Before its affects brought about the first of the devastating ice ages and the giant lizards were still to lay their claim on the world. Even before the last of the true dragons, were to lose their affinity with fire and enchantment. The primordial magic was yet to degrade into radiation, flammable liquids and noxious gases. There is a chapter in our planets story which has been almost entirely unread. During this time the Earth, was known by another name.
Have you ever heard of the phrase “too many Gods spoil the primordial soup” or some variation on it at least, I’m sure? After their first and failed attempts of intelligence, the gods threw out the rule book; they started to create anything and everything they could imagine. They gave their creations the gifts of reasoning, self-awareness and imaginations, which were paralleled only by their own.
This proved to be a mistake!
The most jaded and impatient of the gods quickly abandoned the world they had made, for other and more promising projects. However many had hope and saw great potential in their creation and so decided to stick around to see how things played out.
Some made themselves bodies so they could walk among their creations and play the game from within, others chose to watch; manoeuvring their pieces from elsewhere.
They were great and terrible wars, there was murder and deceit. Some beings became powerful and others became enslaved. Certain races became dominant, others fell into obscurity. Some conquered the land and some moved beneath it; others made their homes in the seas and some in the skies. Certain beings became more intelligent than others, teaching themselves to use tools and began to create things of their own. Many, less confident of their place in the world, lost the gifts the gods had given them. It was these creatures that the others chose to use for food and clothing and trade deeming them lesser beings. With this the eaters of flesh and traders of skin had become more like their creators than ever before.
Some of the Gods fell in love with their own creations, the offspring of their encounters giving rise to new and fantastic combinations of mystical beings. Beings that in turn grew to adulthood to sire children of their own and in so doing formed the orders of mystical creatures. Who in time found their own rolls within the nature of things; some followed a path of peace and took on rolls of protection and of care. In time these creatures where collectively given the name of Fay. Others were lead down a darker trail, choosing to use their inherent powers for their own gain. They preyed on the minds and fears of their supernatural decedent’s beloved creations and these were to gain the shared name of Dim.
However we join the game much later than this, so much later in fact that some of those gods had forgotten they were ever gods at all. They became pieces in their own game and manoeuvred by other more experienced players. We join the game at a time when it was known as Evermorn…
These are the secret histories of Evermorn, the triumphs and tribulations of its most feared and respected inhabitants.
These are the Tales of The Cunning Men.
Chapter One: Overdue…
Spring, was due to have started two weeks ago…
The weather was perfect! The trees were bursting at their roots, ready to release energy back into their branches; they needed to replenish their winter stores.
But something was amiss in the orchards of Evermorn…
Somewhere In the distant southern expanses, a region as vast as it was thick with ancient woodlands; a place where the un-magical and non Fay would seldom venture. Three elderly gruesome shapes sat decrepit and motionless. A solitary leaf gave up, releasing its hold on a twig like shoot that sprouted from a branch like arm; it softly floated down to join the rest of the dead leaves and mulching blossoms that littered the ground at their feet, feet which in fact more closely resembled the entwined roots of mangrove. The three beings huddled close as they shared the warmth of a dying fire.
Barely distinguishable against the surrounding woodland, they held council enveloped by the chilling morning mists deep within their dormant forest. The bedraggled beings were only a month previous, the mighty and beautiful elders of the Apple Tree Men; guardians of the orchards and the purveyors of spring.
In the centre of the three, looking more like a tree, than the trees that enclosed their small clearing, sat Granny smith. The only female of the group, she was acid tongued and sharp toned the rest of the Apple Tree Men would quivered down to their roots in the shadow of her mighty presence. Now she had become but a remnant of her former beauty. The bouquets of fragrant blossom and lavish coating of lime green leaves that once graced the surface of her sturdy oaken limbs, had all but withered and wilted to nothing more than harsh shades of frail grey bark.
To her right; sat Newton Pippin, the eldest of the three, untrusting and hard natured he disliked change, a stickler for tradition. His iridescent shimmering bark of deep purple and metallic reds was now dull and lifeless. He too found himself in a most sorry state; all former splendour and glory had been ravaged by the mysterious ailment.
The third and widely regarded as the most kindly of the three was Old Hawkeye. He was known for his fondness of folly and eccentricity and it was he who would most regularly tend to the saplings of his kin. Tending to the nurseries that where hidden under the veiled protection of the sacred spinney; home of the Elders, where Apple Tree Men were born and raised. Yet even this light hearted soul’s, usual vivacious and impressive outlook had sullied and he too had developed a look of the end about him.
The elegant and majestic fay-race of the Apple tree men had been taken ill by an unknown sickness, a sickness that was threatening their very existence. The elders were fast losing the last of their power and the time had come for one last effort!
“Enough is enough! If we wait any longer we’ll be too weak to heal him for the time he needs to seek out help.”
The ancient voice that broke the blanketing silence woven throughout the sleepy forest was that of Granny Smith. Her movements stirred the thick stagnate air, lazily pooling within their desolate woodlands. She moved slowly and as she did so her body splintered and creaked back and forth to address her fellow elders.
Until now pride had stopped any of the three from suggesting that they might need help. The proud and beautiful Apple Tree Men were far from used to feeling the cold let alone becoming unwell and they had almost left it too late.
“I…I...I feel it too” Stuttered Newton Pippin, dry and wheezing his voice barely perceptible. “If we don’t act now; then I fear our people and spring along with them are lost.”
“We may have left it too late” said the last of the three, dust falling from his lips as he spoke.
Both Newton Pippin and Granny Smith craned to look at Old Hawkeye; who nodded solemnly. He began to rock gently back and forth, muttering long slow sounds under his breath, low and gravely; the words, if indeed they could be called that at all, were full of depth and time and they drowned out what few other sound there were around them. Granny Smith and Newton Pippin played their parts on queue and joined in with the chant.
The flame they sat huddled around bellowed violently in front of them, rising above the arid trees and out across the forest canopy, before suddenly and as quickly as it rose retreating into the soil below. The ground surrounding the three elders began to warm and emit a pulsating orange glow.
All at once, each of the elders flung back their heavily, burr knotted, heads and thrust their tangled roots into the dirt. The ancient language of the apple tree men travelled down through their bodies and passed from their limbs, into Evermorn herself. The orange glow spread out at great speeds over the land, in an ever widening circle of warmth and light, taking with it the communication spell the elders in their combined efforts had cast.
Someone, somewhere not a million miles away; licked the back of a Far-sight-toad and experienced the sudden rush of clarity gained in doing so. This particular toad had frankly had this kind of depraved behaviour right up to the back of his tympanic membranes, in fact, he decided, that the very next time he was turned into a dashing young prince, something that happened far more frequently than you may have been led to believe, he was going to notify the R.S.P.M.M.A (the Ritualistic Society for the Prevention of the Misuse of Magical Animals), whilst he was at it, he thought to himself, he would point out that, although he admitted that it was certainly a great deal of fun at the time, it was really quite improper; the obsession all these beautiful young human princesses appeared to have with transfigured amphibians. But since at this present moment in time he was still in fact a toad, in the hand of someone that had just licked his back, the only protest he was able to vocalise was a disgruntled, “Croooak!” and the toad was almost certain, this hadn’t conveyed the full extent of his disapproval.
The misuser of magical animals in question focused her mind and she felt the pain of the Apple Tree Men. She smiled a dark smile, the type of smile that would make a mountain head for the hills…
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