Snow's Eclectic Journal: 2023

THE STRANGE JOURNEY

Since his wife died his world was utterly undone. Nothing was the same for Sulimeth. The fisherman of eighty-three years gave up fishing and seldom even boarded his boat except as a place to slumber. The old man’s strength was spent as he watched his four grown sons lay their mother in the ground. Three weeks after Nunessah’s passing he abandoned his seacraft and took up residence in a small stone hut, with a leaking thatched roof. The house was far inland from the shore, away from sad memories and loss. The one-room hovel was no home without Nunessah in his life. His dog, her dog lay on her grave and refused to yield to Sulimeth’s pleading. Dog and master both were heartbroken, changed by what their world had become, a lonely place without his love and dearest friend.

One night before a cold plate of beans Sulimeth cried aloud, “Evishkah! Evishkah! Oh, Goddess of the cold Night Shade, this life has become too much to bear, guide me to your realm and ease my suffering for I am nothing without my Beloved. Oh, Lady of Sorrow what meaning is there for a man without his mate? Frail is this mortal existence – all is but a vein illusion of smoke without purpose. To do it all over again, I would but do anything to have her back in my embrace.”

Upon the heels of that prayer, a knock came at the shack’s battered door. Opening it Sulimeth saw a hunched man, hooded, and shrouded in a dark cloak blacker than midnight. Though the day was nearing dusk its light was not yet gone. The shadowy figure before him brought the suddenness of winter’s cold. The fisherman asked, “What is it you need old man?”

The reply came above a whisper, “At the behest of my Mistress am I to lead you to her. Come.” With that, the eerie figure turned aside quickly retreating to the road before the stone hut.

Perplexed by his speed, Sulimeth closed the door behind him, then turning back to the road found the old man had gone further ahead of him. The fisherman ran to catch up with the stranger as he topped a hill heading for the cliff village of Slavath. “Who is your Mistress, old man?” But his new companion remained silent as the last light of day faded, leaving only the sliver of a crested moon to guide their steps.

Up ahead the two strangers spied the nearing haunted woods of Kinderval with the Blue Mountain range looming behind it. Pointing, the shadowed figure announced, “She lies there, deep within her cave beyond the forest road, and there shall your answers be forthcoming,” then the cold figure added, “I am Cirvron her Messenger, he that brings her children before her feet.”

Sulimeth did not speak the many questions that arose within his pounding chest but continued beside his new companion, nonetheless. An hour passed as the chill of deep winter followed the fisherman, but knew it was only midsummer’s day after. “Before her, the Gate Keeper awaits your three answers for your coming. Be warned and be truthful without hesitation.”

“I – shall,” came Sulimeth’s slow reply.

“Before Kudgroth’s Gate, you must battle the zealous Beast who shall challenge your cause. The creature must be defeated by the living before the journey of the Dead is met.”

“Am I dead, Cirvron,” Sulimeth’s voice cracked.

“Nay, you are very much counted among the living. Indeed! The entirety of this venture is most strange even to the Neitherlings below. Come, remember this saying: Alone as a seeker in humility I come.”

Only in that moment did the fisherman catch the faintest glimpse of his companion’s face. “I see on your face that same comforting smile of my own, long-dead father, but how is that possible,” Sulimeth asked?

“You only see that which appeases your fear. Now, be at ease until the Zealton is fully formed before you.” The moon slid behind whisps of clouds, covering the stranger once again in shadows.

The gnarled olive trees and knotted oaks stretched far overhead as the road turned eastward. Beneath those jutting branches the moon’s resumed light shone elsewhere, but not for those two travelers who entered the midnight of Kinderval.

Soon they came to a break among the thick tree line on their right where a wide space between two, towering white elm trees stood. Sulimeth boldly took that entrance into the great forest. The woodland path was marked with pebbled, white river stones whose way soon became lost beneath a carpet of withered foliage and an endless entangling of roots underfoot.

His hooded guide said, “From here, oh son of Man, you go alone to face your fear and speak your truth. For alone is this way that all men must take who enter the realm the Dead.” Then Cirvron vanished among the surrounding shadows of the trees.

With his companion’s absence, the strange warmth of summer came over the fisherman who suddenly heard the sounds of tree frogs, owls, and crickets of the night. An odd peace came over the wanderer. Still, Sulimeth went forward. Seeing a thin branch lay across his path, he picked it up, using it as a staff to steady his way through the dark trunks. Infrequently patches of moonlight beamed in from overhead and to his surprise, even the stars dared to glitter above.

Many long hours passed without any change to his surroundings, and then Sulimeth smelt an overwhelming stench filling the air. The woodlands grew quieter and darker. It was then his clear pathway abruptly ended with two great olive trees. They stood like black, gnarled sentries whose emptiness between them was a silent void.

From out of their twisted bark’s shadowy nothingness fear took shape in the growing form of a hideous nightmare. The monestrous blending of various creatures, smoke and shadows, fierce looming eyes, and far-reaching limbs ending in clutching claws. The Beast roared, unlike any living thing! A shrilling screech caused all the nesting fouls to flee the forest canopy.

Sulimeth stood his ground, “My cause is just even amid this sinful world. You are nothing to me and my way leads well beyond you. Stand aside!”

But the shadow took form and tossed the frail man aside instead. A weathered Fisherman of great age he might have been, but Sulimeth fought like a warrior in his youth! Beating and thrusting, pounding, and swinging against the dissipating smoke, which unyieldingly reformed and resumed its attack against him. Again, and again the man took brutality’s blow. With each clawing hit the man’s clothes were shredded. Again and again, he was beaten until his bleeding body stood naked. Then, standing one last time Sulimeth saw the massive creature lying upon the ground. Unmoving and defeated, the thing began to seep away into the ground like water on the desert floor until nothing remained of the creature in that moonlight.

Just beyond the gnarled gateway a troll-inspired; disfigured thing stepped out of the night’s gateway. Its red ember-like eyes blazed through the man before him, “Speak, creature, of the living – who are you with, why and for what cause hast thou cometh? I am Kudgroth, and none enter without my leave before my Mistress!”

Recalling the words of his guide, Sulimeth answered all three at once, “Alone as a seeker in humility I come.”

The goblin, half his size stared at the man for a long time, then sighed with grave disappointment, “It passes too easily from this life to the next, oh man with no purpose -- follow me.” The tiny figure turned back into the pitch void. Sulimeth followed. With staff in hand, the other followed what he perceived to be the curved walls of a cave. The tunnel was only measured by his steps which soon fell silent, “Come, do not falter now.” Came the echoed voice of Kudgroth far ahead of where Sulimeth could not tell. Still, he went on, tirelessly it seemed. The walls of the cave felt like a dirt pit, jutting rocks and jagged cut roots against the man’s searching touch. Numbness turned to unfeeling as the rough became a smoothed paved way, and what seemed like endless days later the walls grew wider and wider apart to where footfalls were all Sulimeth knew. If his steps slowed or stopped the only voice he heard was far in the distance like a faint whisper, “Come now, none that.”

On and on, without rest or sleep, without food or drink for all desire and sensation left Sulimeth. For his footfalls were all he knew and the urging to go on. So, he did. All he had in his thoughts was his past existence for nothing lay ahead, for him all had ended. “Come, do not falter now – she is here.”

Sulimeth’s reaching fingers felt the rough cave wall once again, and now even the roof overhead came down and brushed his head.

On and on he went as sensation came to his naked skin as he began to crouch beneath the narrowing tunnel that soon had him crawling on his belly with only outstretched arms to aid him to claw his way forward. Ever so slightly the narrow passage gave way to the faintest of a flickering light ahead of him. Sulimeth felt himself scratching his way out of his collapsed grave. Suddenly before him were two clean, unshod feet.

His nails scratched and clawed their way out of the earth. Sulimeth burrowed his way out of the side of an earthen wall, out into the expanse of an endless, underground cavern. Several arm lengths away from him there stood the beautiful figure of a nude woman. He quickly averted his eyes from hers, which were inspecting his nakedness, covered with caked-on dirt. Though Sulimeth had fully tunneled his way out of the wall he had not the courage to stand before the woman who towered over him, "Rise Sulimeth for you have come all this way for some cause, speak it now."

After the old fisherman, by trade stood up, he instantly covered himself with both hands, which the woman's smirk found amusing, "Just another filthy, naked creature whose rotting corps comes before me. It wants to beg forgiveness, or beseech its way into bargaining out of some misunderstanding."

Finding courage the frail man stood boldly with, "Nay, Vishkah, Caretaker of the Dead. In all my guilt I would deserve whatever eternity you would have for me, yet I am not yet dead and my course may be changed. My only barter request is to be a substitution for one newly come, my wife Nunessah by name." With his pronunciation it was then that his wife appeared, standing beside and behind the Goddess.

Suddenly the beautiful flesh of the naked Vishkah had become a horrid mass of half-rotting and half-scorched meat, she roared with a burst of fierce laughter that echoed throughout the cavernous hall. "There is always that one person who thinks they are more deserving than all the rest! Brief mortals who believe the lie that only they will never die, that it is always someone else's story. So you think you can switch fates with another? Eru gave you over to me."

"I am not dead and yet I stand before you as such, let it instead be my fate instead of hers, let me but embrace her once again, and then let fall whatever comes afterward. Make me your thrall, only release her."

The Goddess resumed her fair form but was now clothed in a gown of black. Her upturned eyes gazed sideward as if she were listening to an unheard voice, then to the small man before her, "So be it."

Sulimeth jerked himself upright, from the dining table, startled by an infant's crying from another room. Running to the bedroom he saw his wife sitting in bed half-beneath the covers, breastfeeding their first newborn son.

Bursting into tears Sulimeth raced over to her, collapsing beside the mother and child. He was weeping profusely. After a frightened moment of trying to console her husband, she asked, "I and the baby are alright, husband. Tell me true, whatever is the matter that has you so torn in this manner?"

Looking up at her with tears of great joy, Sulimeth began caressing the baby's forehead, "No longer am I a desperate old man dying without you, and pleading for the Keeper of the Underworld to exchange our fates, but I have returned to this very moment in time to relive a better life. Know beyond all knowing that I do truly love you, and here is all that matters!"

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..THE (Forbidden) SCROLL TEXT

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My Story:

In what now must be termed the Fourth Age of this middle earth, I Nathverin do mark down the experience as a firsthand witness of that great departure of those firstborn children of Eru's Elvendom, as memory for testament's sake.

From the hidden eastern woods, we traveled to these western havens only to find that the last of the White Ships were boarding and bound for the Sacred realms beyond the world's rim. It was Vendumar, that leader of our gathering who refused the unstated mandate to bid farewell, even at Lord Cirdan’s insistence which he disregarded.

“For we stay lingering behind as reminders of Eru’s Hand in the world of Men, that they may not be beguiled as before,” stated Vendumar the black hair.

At this Sheldamar his twin rebutted, “Come now brother, it has been proven time and again that even the most ancient of the Elves are not flawless in their actions, and the influences of the Defeated Darkness have been too deeply imprinted upon the imagination of Men. They are tainted, and shall ever be led by their own marred devices! We are not their Stewards, nor were we tasked to be so against that unquenchable flame that all of Eru's children were endowed with.”

Upon those words did the Lord of their House, Symordare boldly speak in defense of Vendumar’s reasoning, even against the stance of Sheldamar who was to Captain the last Swan vessel, “Indeed! We shall be just that bulwark before Men as both Steward and Memorial of those who now flee, that Eru's Divine presence be enlightened before them.” Those many others who stood by hailed in agreement as an oath.

Baalyic of Greenleaf put forth, adding, “Even the renowned foresight of Lord Cirdan would not refute, this day is unlike any seen before and has become but a milestone of this great change.” Again that remnant of watchers cheered all the more.

But the last Captain of the Swan fleet, Sheldamar parted with, “Cirdan knew all too well the fate we now leave is but in the hands of Men alone. In due time shall they reap the same reward which cleansed the Second age of the world. For this Fourth, Fallen Nephilim Age shall be marked as one of great folly, and one most fraught with doom! Farewell, brother.” Thus, was the great departure of words ended.

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Noelle Williams, Lisa Shalet and 1 other

LORE OF THE LOST SCROLL AND BOX

LORE OF THE LOST

SCROLL AND BOX

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Following the death of Lord Symordare, the first among those watchers of the great departure, his grandson Searfym began having night terrors and visions while fully awake. From the cloth remains of his grandfather’s shroud, Searfym wrote down his impressions of the woes yet to befall them as a prophecy of the neither world. Filled with regrets for not leaving with their kin aboard the Swan fleet, Searfym left in the cover of night that bay harbor’s community of twenty souls. He desired to learn if others yet remained uncounted of their people. Searfym left behind his sister, Lyreah with word that his brother-friend Nathvierin should keep and do as he felt with the crafted scroll.

Nathvierin likewise wrote upon the back side of Serafim’s cloth his own remembrances of that great departure of Elvendom. Later, desiring to honor his friend did he craft an ornate box in which to house the delicate sheet. The Scroll and Box were read before those Watchers. They were most impressed and taken back with awe at the hearing of it. From among them, Galadir said upon the anniversary it should be their tradition to publicly read and recount their own memories of the occasion as well. The Scroll and Box came to be held as a sacred record, and the beginning point of many new things among them. The Relic therefore was kept in the House of Meeting.

It came to pass, with the rise of other Lords among them a day when the sacred Scroll and Box came missing. It fell in the second year of the third King’s reign, that Nuthcorlan was outraged by the artifact’s theft. He ordered every house within the Harbor city, now renamed as Lindolmithar, to be searched and all its inhabitants promptly questioned. If the Scroll and Box were returned, undamaged then no questions and no judgments would be pursued. Yet if after three days from the King’s decree, it was returned and the one in possession of the Scroll and Box were found they would be shunned from beyond the city walls. After that time, again King Nuthcorlan pronounced that after an additional eight days be given, and if whosoever was found in possession of the Holy Record would be imprisoned within the Tower of Varlendur, with the entirety of their Household being put to death. Three years later and still the sacred record of Searfym’s scroll was not recovered yet the King’s word had become law till fulfilled. It became one of many such fears imposed upon the people of Lindolmithar.

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THUGO

THUGO MONARU

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(Something I wrote.)

The Easterlings had long ago left the rugged lands of Harad and sued for peace to enter into the west. The Blacksmith, Thugo took his myriad of followers cautiously into the Freedlands. All of them pridefully hailed their awarded pardons, symbolized as tokened necklaces, for the winged crowned king of the White City had promised his leave and their new beginning without molestation. On the ending heels of the Great War, they sought brighter days and new opportunities; yet hard-won would any real welcome come to them as strangers in a stranger land. Many of the United Realm’s people still perceived them as thralls of the old Enemy.

Thugo’s people had endured the choking air passing through the Black Ashlands, the scorching heat across unforgiving deserts, and fought brutal beasts through the thick jungles, all in their efforts of escaping thralldom. None yielded to the Enemy’s call for warriors. So, in the West, they could endure the glaring stares and bitter words from the war-torn people they encountered as well.

They followed the Blacksmith for they knew him as one true to his word. But there were few of Thugo’s kinsmen who questioned his ill mind or wondered outright if he had gone mad when he claimed to have heard the voice of Mahsaru, The One and Always. For hearing the voice of God made mortal Men uncomfortable. The unknown was seldom a welcomed thing, especially when it challenged one to change. Thugo had nightmarish dreams and even day visions of horrific things, for the war exacted its toll on the living. The slain heroes or innocent bystanders paid their price, Thugo did not question this but when the voice called to him, he wondered if madness had come. The voice came by way of a desert horned lizard, a woodland cicada, and an ocean-side octopus that had washed ashore; all spoke to Thugo and claimed to be Mahsaru! The voice said, “Follow me to the First Children, and your own seed shall be multiplied. Defy me and all flesh shall fail. Do this and even you shall see.”

See what -- they often questioned him, but every path that Thugo took yielded goodness on his behalf to his people. A well where none thought water was possible, a game when even mighty hunters failed, and honors from a Western King when all others were turned away or slain. Still, the Nasilian people pushed ahead following the Blacksmith prophet, a title he himself disowned.

They headed to the far reaches of the Blue Mountains in the west, on foot, horse-drawn house wagons and tents they trekked. One morning as the people approached the forest of Norwood, with the great peaks in the distance, the Shadol came to the Blacksmith’s working tent, “As Judge of the people I should be jealous of you for gaining such favor with the people, but in truth Thugo I am envious. God has never spoken to me.”

“Marithan, my Shadol – I never --.”

“Be at ease my friend, your words are not needed,” Merithan’s honesty showed in his face, “Yet, I must ask --.”

“I do not know, Shadol. If I did, my dearest of old friends you would be my first confidant. Why we are to go to the Firstborn is beyond my knowing,” now was Thugo’s turn to share his questioning look.

“Do the Elves even remain in the world, or at least at their ancient harbor?”

Thugo smiled broadly, “Of that, I am sure. A man of Gondor shared that they do,” he added, “A shoed horse gained payment in the way of news, my Shadol.”

The tribal leader beamed hopefully, “It is a bright glimmer to know one day that we shall be accepted by these strangers.”

THE SILENT VOICE

(A story I wrote).

Among the Nasilian people who wandered in their covered house wagons, and infrequently pitched their tents by tribal colors, there came a man named Al-madath, who was also called Baaladon. He was a humble man and kept to himself and his family, a tent maker by trade as was the tradition of his clan.

A day came that Baaladon fell backward from off a wagon’s porch hitting his head hard upon the ground, bloodying it upon a large rock. Yalma his wife cared for Al-madath as he never rose from his bed where he lay for four days with no food or drink. She gave him up as one lost unto their gods for he retained no color, and his breathing had forsaken his flesh.

Wood, as could be gathered among that rocky range of the Blue Mountain’s northern face, was built up whereby his form laid in repose in the rite of farewell. Yalma was called a widow before his pyre, and fatherless were his six sons: Al-Jahmesh, Al-meth, Al-ye’voth, Al-Bedath, Seir-al-Ban, and Seir-al-Shalvon.

Beneath the shadows of a blackening sky, Baaladon sat up straight upon his deathbed, to the utter fright of all those gathered mourners, he then stood to his feet and in a loud voice proclaimed, “Forgive them Oh Lord! I continue to lift them up even now that you have returned me, even as I swore before your Light that I would oh Sovereign of All!” Then, Al-madath cried to the people who were gathered about as though he had seen them for the first time, “Stop your foolish ways you corrupt wicked people for the Lord of Life, Ruyil Himself desires only to crush you into nothingness, to wipe you away like crumbs from off the feasting table of a King of kings!”

Those who approached to ignite the funeral pyre were thrown back with much freight, accidentally causing the pyre upon which the living man now stood to suddenly blaze with leaping flames! Yet, the man whom Yalma had known as her husband continued to shout at the crowds as though he was on a stage performing a summer play, “For four days and nights without drink or sleep I pleaded before Ruyil on your behalf. I wept with great sorrow, and he was much perplexed by my sorrow as to why I would mourn so, for the loss of oath breakers, murderers, and liars such as this wicked generation has become! I cried ‘Oh God, fallen stupid children are we but children nonetheless, if only I could turn them from your anger, then surely would you withhold from washing them away like filth.’” Baaladon ( which means Man of God) looked down from his own funeral pyre engulfed in flames, suddenly blowing out at that very moment like the flame of a candle. “Neither was I consumed by Ruyil’s great light; greater than the sun’s disc burning the sands of those desert lands we were so blessed to have fled!”

From that smoldering wood pile, Al-madath leapt down tearing with great joy at seeing the face of his beloved wife. He quickly embraced her even as she and their six sons wept holding him close. Being much moved in their hearts, all those people gathered likewise embraced them as members of their own inner family. Then, in one great voice, they swore themselves, “All these and other wicked things we pledge to reframe from and to serve only Ruyil, and you as his cherished Spokesman!!! Slavath are we now, his children, and fools no more.”

Seventeen years passed for those upright people, who craved the best for their fellow man, sharing with the other what needs and wants they might have with each other. Nine hundred and seventy-eight persons traveled as a single mind, ever west in search of the homeland of the fabled Ancient Ones, called Elves of the secret Harbor. Those Nasilian nomads pitch their tents, encircling their leader’s House-wagon no longer than two days in the same place. Then, in time, upon the very morning that they were to uproot themselves once again near the walled city of their prayers, devastating news shattered all their pledged hopes. Their Judge-Shadol was found murdered on his bed with his throat cut open. Wailing cries of horrid shock railed out against a cloudless morning sky.

As it came to pass the two adopted sons of Baaladon, Seir-al-Ban and Seir-al-Shalvon were the very ones who saw a man fleeing the Shadol’s covered wagon. They fell upon the murderer and held him for the elders to proclaim his fate.

The Shadol’s firstborn son declared, “Before the walls of the Ancient Ones have, we finally come, and at their feet shall we plead our cause.”

But it was the ominous words of Baaladon that gave the people the greater cause for unsettled fear, “Hear now, our days have come to be numbered and shattered is all that we once held as secure for once again have we embraced the path against Ruyil! From here on ever shall we fight against those who shall surely prove to be our Masters, enslaving us with cunning words shall we in turn be wholly a forgotten people. Shame! Shame upon us all. Fallen are we even as our Shadol has been slain, and let his blood be upon us for having allowed such wickedness to creep back in among us.” With that Al-madath shut his mouth as a mute man, never spoke again, not even to his wife or sons, who wept bitterly at his passing seventeen years later. It was then they remembered their tattooed oaths and the old ways their people once clung to.

Marithan the first Judge-Shadol of that name was slain in the year [2758], which would have been the [145th] Year of Recitation. Yet, because of the terrifying chaos, it was the first time his people neglected to swear their allegiance to one another as a single people. Reciting the tattooed oaths, they bore on their forearms gave no peace with the loss of their sovereign leader.

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