http://www.scribd.com/doc/51680927/Whistle-Bones
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Let me provide context for this next story.
Rattling around in my brain is a long fairy tale called "The King's Captain" set in a Kingdom surrounded by an endless forest. Most of it takes place in the forest which I dubbed The Perilous Woods.
I'll back up a bit. It has always been my desire to create a set of fairy tales with their own unique pantheonic hierarchy, set in a fantastical universe of my own making, but still grounded in the age old morality (and more interestingly, immorality) that you would find in the traditional fairy tale (therefore making it digestible and meaningful to a modern person). So, I thought The Perilous Woods and the Hermit Kingdom would be a fantastic place to create such tales. At the top of this hierarchy stands the Lady of the Woods and the Great Stag.
"The King's Captain" deals heavily with the downfall of these two powerful beings. I've written several of these fairy tales so far and most of them involve either the Lady or the Stag. It's a nice way to provide a depth and history to "The King's Captain" that might not otherwise be there (that is, if I ever do write the thing).
Anyway, here it is, the first of many (hopefully)...WHISTLE BONES...let me know what you think.
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There once was a Piper of ill repute who plied his trade in every backhouse and alley from here to there. One thing that everyone could agree upon, when hearing his music, was that he had a distinct talent for making the most disgusting noises issue from his ragged oak flute. For years he wandered from district to district, thieving, mugging, and scraping by on the refuse left for him by his fellow man. And so it was finally that a mob of angry citizens drove him from the city and into the perilous woods beyond.
Angry and spiteful he went, lamenting aloud to the birds and the beast at the wrongs bestowed upon him by the people, cursing their names and vowing revenge every step of the way. He wandered so long and took such a winding course that the Piper found himself lost in the darkening forest.
First he shouted for help, but when his voice grew raw and no one came he sat down and wept. When his strength returned he thrashed about the woods in such a racket that someone was bound to hear him. But when nothing stirred he fell down and began to cry. And thus, hungry and tired, with nothing to sustain him, he pulled out his flute and played his final dirge.
The sound went up into the forest and nothing was outside of its horrible reach. As the music (if that is what it can be called) continued with no end in sight, a creature finally appeared as if from the fallen leaves. She was beautiful and pale, wearing only a dress of stitched together leaves that never seemed to ripen or rot, and her hair was made up of the most beautiful wild flowers you could ever hope to find. She was the Lady of the Wood and the Piper nearly fainted at the terrible look on her face.
“Little man, why do you play such an awful tune?”
“Aye me, lady, that is what the townsfolk say and have cast me out into your perilous woods,” replied the Piper for he was sure that she could have done away with him in an instant had he chosen that moment to be rude.
“I see,” she opined and began to gracefully pace back and forth before him. The Piper waited for his judgment, flute in hand. “I can’t very well have you playing your music in my woods. You’ll scare away all the creatures that have made a home here.” She thought a moment, “I could end you, but what is the sport in that?”
The Piper closed his eyes and held out his hands in supplication. “Oh great Lady of the woods, I apologize for my lack of skill. Were I capable I would play you such a tune that spring would ever be in your heart.”
“Such a tune, you say?” came the Lady, a devilish smile on her rose colored lips.
“Aye, such a tune,” squirmed the Piper.
“Then this is what shall be done!” Her voice boomed through the woods as if proclaiming her edict. “I shall not kill you for your blood would stain the ground in such a nasty way. Instead I shall give you a choice. I will make a path for you back to the Kingdom and along the way you will come to three houses. Use the bones you find at those places to create a new flute and I promise, your people will happily have you back.” The Piper jumped for joy and went to hug the Lady but he was held in place by a series of vines that had suddenly wound up his limps and rooted him to the ground.
“I am not finished,” the Lady said her playfulness a distant memory. “In one year’s time you will return to the forest and play me a tune from your flute. If it is to my liking you will have another reward.”
“And if it is not?” The Piper struggled for breath as the vines stretched across his throat.
The Lady of the woods smiled her melodious smile and arched a mossy eyebrow. “Then you shall have another reward.” And with that she was gone and the vines fell away.
In time the panicked Piper found a path wide enough and straight enough to allow for unhindered travel, even in his terrible state. And it was not long after that he came across a small hut of sticks and hay with a little clay chimney piping out the sweet aroma of hot stew. Thinking nothing of the Lady and her words the tired and hungry Piper knocked on the door of the little hut.
Opening the door a plump red faced woman appeared beckoning the shivering man inside for a nice dinner and a soft bed. It was not long before the Piper was feeling more well fed and well rested than he could remember; it was at this moment that the Lady’s words came back to him. “A choice,” he thought, “What did she mean?” He saw no choice in the matter.
Sneaking into the living area he spied the warm pot sitting above the glowing coals of the hearth. Several bones were still swimming in the stew. Then the Piper saw the kindly plump woman sleeping on a mound of hay in the corner, having given up her own bed for the poor tired Piper. Bypassing the pot of bones and stew he plunged the sharp end of his wooden flute into the sleeping woman’s neck.
In the morning the Piper left with a shiny new shin bone, neatly whittled into the shaft of a new flute.
The day waned, morning turned to night and the tired, hungry Piper happened upon the second home. It was a simple wooden cottage but looked ever more so in the Piper’s exhaustive state. He knocked thrice on the door and from within appeared a beautiful woman, golden hair to her waist, and all alone. As she led him inside and placed him in front of an entire side of mutton, bone and all, wicked thoughts began to circle in his mind of a decidedly more devious nature.
So it was, after a night of ripping and tearing, the delighted Piper left the cottage with a new bone for the horn of his flute.
Again the hours passed and the path wound on and on until it seemed most likely that the Piper would have to spend a night out under the stars in the cold, dark forest. That is until the soft beautiful voice of a young girl drifted through the silent wood and entered his ears. Off in the distance, not more than several dozen feet from the path, the sparkling glow of a tiny shack glittered in the wood. Sneaking up to the door made of thin, fragile wood, he listened and smiled. Oh what wonderful tunes he would play with his flute made of the most precious bone. He would enchant the townsfolk, the mayor, the King even, and then he would have his revenge for being cast out in such a shameful way.
When the singing stopped he did not bother to knock on the door, he merely kicked it down with his booted foot and beheld a young girl, no more than eleven, cowering in the corner next to the bones of her dead dog.
It was with a finely chiseled mouthpiece, and a full stomach on an unmentionable meal, that the Piper left the house and proceeded down the path.
In no time he was before the city gates and calling up to the guardsmen to let him pass. But the guardsmen had been warned about the wicked Piper with his terrible songs and forbade his entrance.
“Go away little man and find another way, you’ll not enter this city again.”
The Piper laughed and pulled out his flute of bone that he had decided to name Marrow. He played a tune of such loveliness that the guardsmen immediately opened the gate and let him through.
And so it went, wherever the Piper played a crowd soon followed and he became rich beyond measure. Women flocked to him, children made up rhymes to his songs, and the King requested an audience. Everyone was so impressed with his transformation into the finest composer the city had seen in a millennium, that his erratic and often disturbing behavior was overlooked.
A year passed quickly enough. The Piper had built a home, vagrants and beggars disappeared into it without a trace, but none spoke a word of what that might mean. The Piper had quite forgotten his vengeance, instead reveling in the praise of his former persecutors. One day they would pay, but not today, today he would enjoy his new life.
But then a strange voice came skimming off the trees on a fine summer’s night, beckoning the Piper to follow and bring Marrow; he did. He followed the voice out of his home, past his servants, past the guardsmen at the gate and through the perilous forest; past the shack with the broken door, around the cottage, and beyond the home with the clay chimney, until he reached a familiar clearing in the forest where the beautiful Lady of the woods awaited him.
“Come, play me a tune on the flute you name Marrow.”
“Yes my Lady.” The Piper lifted Marrow to his lips all the while quietly cursing the woman for treating him like a common minstrel.
The music he played was somber and true, quite unlike anything he had meant to create. In fact, the sound coming from his flute was not coming from him at all. The Lady watched with a knowing smile on her face, a chill in her stare.
“I hear the story of a hard working farmer’s wife, recently widowed, letting a stranger sleep in her bed out of the kindness of her own heart.”
The stricken Piper played on.
“I hear the tale of a young woman searching for a good husband, undone by her innocence.”
The Piper played on.
“And I hear the voice of a little girl, crying in the night, all she loved taken from her.”
The Piper was frozen in place, by magic or fear, none could tell, but still he played on.
“You chose poorly.”
From the misty night three luminous shapes appeared; a widowed farmer’s wife, a young woman with golden hair to her waist, and a singing child. The Piper screamed, or rather tried to scream; in truth he merely played on. They approached, beckoned by his tune, dead-eyed and slack jawed, hungry for retribution.
In horror the Piper played on.
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