Blooming Sorrow

On a not really warm spring day, in a forest, a few miles outside the town of Ginirad, a lone traveler sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, eating one of his rations. His horse was grazing nearby, tearing bites of grass from their soil and devouring them with obvious taste.
A bright sun shone upon them both from directly above them, indicating that the time must be around noon. Even despite its obvious brightness, it still failed to heat them very well and Felger rubbed his hands together to get rid of the numb sensa- tion that had slowly mastered his fingers while riding steady for several hours yet. He took another bite from the bread he was eating, and wondered if wizards could have anything to do with it. The next moment he cursed himself for the thought. His dislike of wizards, spellcasters and everyone that had only the slightest thing to do with supernatural forces was beginning to make him paranoide. Ofcourse there were wizards aplenty around who could alter the wheather a tad, but no sick mind would go to all the trouble of preparing and executing a spell that would bring more bad weather after the miserable winter they'd just had. At least he tried to convince himself of that, and found his ancient hatred of wizards of all sorts blocking the sentiment.
He suddenly realised that he wasn't at all hungry and threw the remainder of his lunch into the bushes opposite to him. He quietly cursed his own stuppidity for stopping for lunch when he wasn't at all hungry. His boredom with the long way he had come, and the distance he still had to go, had unconciously, but unavoidably, forced his eyes to look out for any kind of diversion. It would now seem that that which his eyes could not find, a reason to stop, his stomach and his mind had been apt to do: generate a false feeling of hunger.
Felger quickly got to his feet and headed over to his horse, who still wasn't quite done grazing, but the priority of their mission justified a little hurrying every now and then. Felger seized the reines and jerked the horses' head up from the daisies it was nibbleing at. He was just about half mounted, when his eyes caught something he'd never forget for the rest of his life. Over the back of his roan, he saw a group of the most lovely flowers conceivable. They were fairly large, about a foot tall, and no two of them were alike. There were some twenty flowers in the group, some bright as the sun shining down upon them, some as modest as the black robes the king wears whenever he casts judgment. Some implied strength and determination, others modisty and tenderness, but they were all more beautifull than any other flower growing anywhere on the entire planet. Felger also knew they were extremly evil. Some twelve years ago, Felger had been little more than a boy then, maturing into manhood, he had seen the exact same flowers before. He had been living in Furyx, his tiny native village, at the time, unaware of the outside world as had most of the townsfolk been. He had often helped his father, who was the town blacksmith, and frequently went on errands for him to get a little something or deliver a finished order or a repai- red tool. He had also been seeing Lara at the time, the daugh- ter of Brendaskin, who was the town carpenter. They had been going steady for about three years, and both their fathers had already agreed upon their future marriage, should they both become of age.
Lara had been a beautifull girl, a little older than Felger, with raven black hair, an honest, beautifull face and a plea- sant laugh, that always managed to find its match in Felger's. No matter what happened, the two had seemed perfect for each other, and Felger would have gladly have made her his wife, but to his eternal sorrow, fate had intended it otherwise... One drery day, under an overcast sky, Felger and Lara had been lying in the haystack of Timmons, one of the many farmers the town held. Felger had gotten a day off from his father and Lara had found way to slip away from her mothers ever watchfull eye, once she had seen Felger wander about on the town square, obviously wanting to call on her, but knowing her mother would not have allowed it.
It would have been hard to tell which of the two loved the other more, or which of the two had enjoyed the others' compa- ny more, but one thing had been true: they would have gone through the fire for each other.
And neither of them knew a greater pleasure then being together, holding each other close as they were doing that one day. Felger had been too much into his passionate mood to notice, but Lara had all of a sudden pulled her lips from his and jumped up, claiming that she had heard something in the town square. Felger felt a little sorry to let go of her waist, but he was, like she had been, also quite curious what may be afoot in their little town where hardly anything exci- ting ever happened.
They climbed down from the stack and helped each other straighten their clothing somewhat, pulling straws from places the other had missed and sharing a short kiss every few se- conds. Finally they had been decent, or at least decent enough to walk through the village without attracting the attention of the entire community.
As they walked into the town square, it became obvious to both of them in a single glance that their precautions had been wasted. They wouldn't have drawn anyones attention if they had been running across the town yelling:"Fire!" For all they could see, the small square appeared to be totally filled with nearly every inhabitant of Furyx and all they saw was a small forest of backs turned toward them. Everyone was staring at something in the center of the square, and every now and then the couple could hear surprised sounds and appriciating grunts coming from that direction, indicating to their legs where they had to take their curious bodies. Penetrating the outer half of the circle of bystanders was easy, but as they got closer to what they wanted to see, the crowd began to get constantly compacter, so soon they had to elbow their way through to make any progress.
It took them about five minutes, but by then they could see the person that appearantly attracted the attention. At first Felger and Lara had failed to see what was so interesting about the man. He had a very common, if somewhat rat-like face, with narrow, dark eyes and a small mouth that constantly twitched with some sort of nerve-spasm in his upper lip. As they came even closer, however, they could see it was not the man the villagers were interested in, altough travellers were always welcomed greatly in Furyx, but whatever it was he appeared to guard closely on the ground before him. After some more pushing, twisting and manouvering, they finally reached the center of the circle and looked down upon the most beautifull sight either of them had ever seen. On the ground before them was a large rack, suitable to be carried by one man because of the intricate contraption of leather cords which seemed also partly responsible for keeping the rack together, for it would have collapsed under the weight of its load, had it not been for the cords. On the rack, there had been a display of flowers, more beautifull even than the imagination of any human being could have conceived. They seemed to attract people like a magnet attracts iron, and the few people in the town square that had been able to move away from the flowers, after having seen they would not be able to afford the price the rat man asked for them, only moved away very slowly and looked like they doubted the sanity of leaving those flowers there every step of the way back.
That day, it became Felgers undoing that he had always been a little cheap, and always had saved a small portion of the little money he made one way or another, for something very special. Something like those flowers in front of him... They seemed to nearly scream to him that they were the perfect investment, and that he would not regret his purchase of them for a second. And Felger had been all too willing to agree with that feeling, as he could not hope to find Lara a better gift in another ten years, no matter how hard he would look. And he had also seen the very flower for his ends, a mysterious rose-like flower, modestly half-hidden between two large, bright flowers that seemed to be flowering fully. His flower however, had only barely begun to open its knob, but Felger had been certain that it would not disappoint him at the time.
He had quickly grabbed hold of the salesmans vest and drawn him apart to agree upon a price. Not that it would have matte- red what price the man would have asked for his wares, Felger would have paid the man his last demus, if it would have meant securing that one flower for him. The man had first appeared to be willing to strike at Felger or get rid of him so he could watch over his merchandise against even less credible "customers", but like any good salesman, he hadn't missed the glint of enthousiasm in the young mans eye, and reassembled his calm very quickly, almost as quickly as he had lost it. `Well, there young lad, what might I do for a man like you?' the man had said,`Would you perhaps be interested in one of my many magical items I have for sale? I am a travelling sorce- ror, you should know... I can sell you everything and anyt- hing, if you meet my price. Would you perhaps be interested in a love potion? Perhaps to charm the lovely lady at your side with?' The man snapped his fingers once and in a puf of orange smoke, a little bottle appeared in the mans hand. It had a little hart shaped label glued to it, but Felger never even noticed that. He had been growing steadily more and more impatient as the man went through his well-studied sales talk, and was now nearly willing to strike the man down himself, if it would keep him from talking any longer. Fortunately, the man appeared to have enough dignity in him to wait for a reply from his potential customer, so then Felger could finally make the man see that he wasn't at all interested in his magical trinkets, or anything else but the one flower his eyes could not seem to let go of. He pointed the flower out to the man, and ofcourse, how could it have been otherwise, it had been the most expensive flower in the bunch. The man named a price, and Felger agreed upon it with a feeling that he had struck a great bargain with it, even though he would have declared anyone an idiot, who would have told him the previous day, that he was going to spend his life savings on a flower.
Felger hadn't minded, nor had anyone else in the village, because by the time the wizard had left the town, no more of the mysterious flowers were in his posession, only a great sack filled with most of the coins in Furyx.
He had not known the doom he had brought upon the village that day, nor had any of the villagers had a clue to the peril their beloved village was heading for that night.
Felger had bought the flower without hesitation, and had offered it to Lara the minute they had left the town square. She had smiled her warmest smile and taken the delicate flower from his slightly trembling hands. She had given him a long and tender kiss, and promised him to take the best of care of it. Then they had parted and promised each other to see if they could find a little time for them both the next day. Felger had gone home, slightly fearing his fathers rath should the man find out that he had spend his savings on a mere flower. When he came home, some ten minutes later, he was glad to find his fear unfounded, as he immediatly noticed one of the mystyrious flowers in the middle of their small living- room. His parents had also bought one of the flowers...
Some thirty minutes later the entire family began to gather around the large table at the center of the room, as dinner time neared. When everyone was finally seated and dinner was served, everyone had been particulary and unusually silent. No talking was to be heard, no laughter about the funny triviali- ties of everyday life, not a single sound, except the sound of eating utencils scraping across wooden plates, as everyone ate in silence, staring at the marvel in front of them.
When dinner was done, the table was cleared, in the complete silence that had struck most of the village. No one seemed to notice this, however. The ones lucky enough to afford a flo- wer, were caught up in the shere beauty of the little plants, and the ones too poor for such a purchase, were sitting in their houses moping over the unfairness of life.
Soon after the table had been cleared, everyone deceided to go to bed, as suddenly none of the things they usually did to kill time in the evenings seemed to appeal to them anymore. Within a matter of minutes, every member of the family, and most of the people in the village, for that matter, had been vast asleep, dreaming dreams of beautifull flowers. There were a few exceptions ofcourse. Naturally the men and women who hadn't been able to buy a flower slept fairly normally, as did Felger, for he was forced to sleep in his fathers working room since the arrival of his fourth and youngest brother. Sometime in the middle of the night, something strange happened however.
All of the flowers had gone back into their knobs for the night as the sun set, but after a little while, as the moon began to rise, the flowers opened again, rapidly unfolding their pettals and producing a faintly odd smell. They stood thus for nearly half an hour, still producing a smell that no one would have been quite able to place, but which surely was not as good as the sweet aroma such pretty flowers would be expected to produce.
After this half hour, a change occured in the smell. It went very rapidly from unpleasant to outright disgusting, and suddenly there was an outburst of dark dust from the middle of the flowers across the village. The black clouds hovered around in the village rooms, like angry banks of fog, not decending, but always remaining afloat throughout the rest of the night.
The next morning, as the sun began to rise, the black clouds of dust began to grow thin, and finally they disappeared com- pletely, as if cast away by the bright sunlight. It was a bright, sunny day, the day Furyx ceased to exist, because at daybreak, everyone who had inhaled the black fumes now lay lifeless in their beds, their faces twisted by an expression of despair that Felger would never in his life forget.
He walked into the livingroom early the next morning to find his entire family dead. The cries for help and of despair he cried out didn't seem to have any effect on anyone at first. After about five minutes someone appearently had heard his cries and had deceided it would be a good idea to take a look what all the fuss was about.
Soon after, the entire remainder of the village populus was awake to discover the extent of the horror that had struck the village.
Sorrow was controled as best the villagers could, and the mortal reamains of their former neighbours were burried with great care and little ceremony, although Felger did say long and persistant prayers during the burrial of both his family and Lara's. After this was done, a quick vote quickly deceided that none of the villagers had any desire to remain in that place that seemed too obviously touched by death to be coinci- dental to the superstitious townsfolk.
It was on that same day that the survivors loaded their belongings on wagons and left the place they had lived for all of their lives. It was also on that day that Felger, along with several others from his village, although he didn't know that, swore not to ever rest before he could find the man who had brought the hellish plants to their village and caused the deaths of so many good and honest people.
Felger shook his head, and suddenly realised that he had stood in front of the cluster of flowers, crying as he remem- bered the cause of his hate for sorcerors, as well as the beginning of his queste to find and destroy that one wandering sorceror. He rubbed with his sleeve across his eyes and took one final look at the most beautifull flowers he had ever seen, except for one...
He then drew his sword and made absolutely sure that none of the flowers stood up after he was done. He then went into the forest and returned some minutes later, his arms loaded with fire wood. He then made a nice big fire, right on the spot where the flowers had grown and stood by it as it grew and got so hot he had to take a few staps back to prevent scorching himself. After half an hour, he put the last pieces of the fire out, and slowly walked to his trusty horse.
He mounted the roan slowly and softly urged her forward, not quite relying on his own horse riding skill yet. She had only taken a few steps when Felger tucked at the reigns, forcing the horse to stop once more.
With obvious restraint, he slowly turned around on the horse's back to take one last look at the charred spot of ground where the flowers had grown. A little black smoke hung above the spot, already fleeting as the wind cought a hold of it. Apart from a few very little blackened sticks sticking out of the ground, nothing gave any hint any more of the flowers that had, untill very shortly, occupied that space.
Felger sighed with relief, and urged his horse on again, ever onward. Perhaps this latest lead he'd gotten from a wandering troubadour would prove to be the one leading to his prey.
He could do no other but hope, and carry on with his mission of hate for the love of his lost ones.

The end.

-This story's deticated to a very special young woman.

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Marcel de Graaf
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1852 CG Heiloo 
Holland (the Netherlands)

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