Forest, Snow, Memory, By Patricia Scott

Editor's note: For our final winning work, Patricia creates a Krampus myth, complete with how he came to be with St. Nicholas. Every character like Krampus needs a mythology and Patricia provides a lyrical, detailed framework.

I was powerful once. I was a God to them. They feared me as much as they worshiped me, the ancient diety of their deep, mysterious forests. In the darkest reaches of the wildest over-growths I was rumored to dwell, waiting to slake my unending thirst on those unwary and foolish enough to risk my displeasure by forgetting to do me proper honor.

They would bring their offerings as far into the forests as they dared. Creeping as silently as they could, they would come upon a clearing in the forest that was still. Such were my altars, those quiet places where sunlight barely intruded. Standing in the center of those clearings where not even the sounds of the birds reached there would be a stump, black and gnarled, remnants of branches reaching unevenly to the obscured sky. Always, upon such stumps would be a perfectly level place, a single, unnatural shelf that had been carved by no man.

Then, they all knew such places were my cathedrals and they were awed. What match were spires of stone, created painstakingly by grunting, sweating men over the course of years when my groves seemed to have always been there. For all they knew, those clearings moved every night, the paths through the forest twisting in upon themselves in knots. People got lost in my forests all the time. People that they knew who had lived there and traveled them their entire lives.

Even as it grows, the forest consumes itself. That is the way of things. The old growth weakens and topples to the leaf-littered floor where it feeds the new shoots just emerging from the dirt. Everything happens in its time. The cycles build upon each other and continue ever onward.

As their new God rose up, he proved himself to be jealous, unwilling to share worshippers with any of those still dwelling amongst the peasants. While those who still wished to seek me dwindled, they never quite disappeared. They still had need to travel through my forests and, so, they found themselves with daily reminders of their old customs. Superstitions reign fiercely in isolation and dark. Away from the pretty colored glass and the golden embroidery of priestly robes, they believed more firmly in the dark mysteries surrounding them and less in that kind, benevolent God who wanted only their devotion.

Then, science came forth, chasing away those shadows as man sought dominion over nature. Mathematics and chemistry showed them enough of the ways of the cosmos to make them shed their belief like so much overused clothing. No longer did they come to my groves as supplicants. Science informed them that I, and so many of my brethren did not exist, that we never had, and that Fate and Grand Design could be explained in terms of simple processes. Men felt themselves as Gods as they pushed themselves to unlock the very secrets of the Universe.

As with all Gods whose devotees begin to flag, I began to weaken. Where once I could inspire obedience through the felling of a tree with a single thought, instead I could only snap twigs already lying on the forest floor. No longer did they fear, instead convincing themselves that what they heard was a deer or rabbit, perhaps a fox passing through the forest on their own way home.

The ancient, gnarled stumps became nothing more than curiosities, never more to inspire that crawling sense of fear and awe. They were as quickly bypassed as the sunlit margins of the woods. Prayers were not offered, tithes were not made. Trees were harvested with little thought to replacements being grown. I starved, growing less substantial with every passing season.

Then, one day, a man with hair and beard as white as snow came to one of my altars. He wore fur-trimmed robes and carried his wisdom as easily as the bit of bread and cheese he carried with him for his meal. I waited, far back in the undergrowth, to see what he wished.

“I know you're there,” he said, not loudly, but clearly enough to carry.

“What do you want, Nicholas?” for I knew him to be one of the men of that jealous, singular God.

“I have come to make you an offer,” Nicholas declared.

“An offer of what, pray tell? For years you have been encouraging my followers to desert me. Do you bring me death, then? Some small mercy to an already wounded and dying animal?” I could not help but ask.

“No. No. I do not believe that you are so far gone just yet. I offer you a way to save some bit of your strength. Belief in you will remain and you shall not perish from this existence.”

“And why, Nicholas, would you offer me such opportunity? Has your church weakened so with its demands of money from peasants?"

“The notions that fly into your minds, you devils,” Nicholas laughed, “No, no. God is good and the church thrives. The people need it. As for why, well, I believe that with your help, I can remake the world or, at least, this corner of it. As this new generation of children grow, they need reminded of what awaits them should they stray from the path of good. And that is where you come in.”

“I? What can I do to help your God take over a world he already owns?”

“Come with me on the eve of the Christ Child's birth. I mean to distribute some of the wealth of our church to the villages around us. They are in need of food and clothing and I shall journey forth to give them these. If you accompany me and frighten the children who behave poorly then, perhaps, they shall be better behaved in the future. I know what you are. You feed on fear and worry. I offer you a chance to feast again.”

“Feast? You offer to allow me to follow in your wake, groveling for mere scraps. Once, Nicholas, I had mighty feasts and nothing passed through these trees that I did not know. There was little that happened in my forests that I could not affect. I could fell them where they stood for setting foot in my forest and they all knew it,” I snarled.

“Yes. Once. You were a force to be reckoned with. No longer. Come then. Once a year, feast and be mighty again. Strike fear into the hearts of those who are blasphemous and unworthy and bring them back to my church. Remind them of the face of God and all that is holy.”

I wanted to turn my back on him. Desire coursed through me to simply walk away and trust in the length of memory to ensure my continued existence. Instead, I looked at my forest. Contours that had once been lush and green were beginning to wither and fade. My groves were no longer safe. While the heart of the earth beat beneath my hooves, the song of its life was growing fainter. My heart grew heavy as I thought, surrounded by the waning remnants of once perpetually verdant splendor. Finally, I turned to him.

“Let us strike your bargain, Nicholas,” I spat, “and we shall see how your feast suits me.”

He agreed.

Thus, I found myself trotted out every year at Yuletide to be displayed as a dark figure as much ridiculed as he was feared. Never did I truly steal naughty children, though they were snatched up and pushed into the wicker basket strapped to my back, carried out into the snow to be striped once or twice for their insolence. Their fear tasted sweet, but it was no feast, not compared to what had been so long ago.

Nicholas began venturing farther afield to other villages. Word spread around us. Words became stories. Stories became legend. Soon, parents cautioned their children that if they misbehaved I would come knocking at the door and take them away. My forests faded from the story's memory, lost to the imaginings of dank and dismal caverns where I would work naughty children to their deaths. I grew stronger, though never quite strong enough to break the pact I had made with Nicholas in that grove all those ages ago.

The story of Nicholas spread. His generosity became kindness. His kindness became benevolence. The benevolence translated into jolliness. As their belief in him and his tradition of Yuletide gifts grew, the legend surrounding him became ever more fantastic. He became a saint, this man who struck deals with a forest devil. He began to live in the North Pole. He gained a workshop and a wife. Elves were gainfully employed in the arts of manufacture in order to ensure that demand was met.

I, with my dark skin and cloven hooves and horns atop my head, did not fit this new image of Christmas. Nicholas did not have need of me as he became the one to determine if a child received a gift or not. It seemed that the absence of the gift was punishment enough. Soon, they forgot to tell my part of the story at all and, once again, I began to fade.

The dusty tomes of historians and the fragile memories of antiquarians became my domain. I was relegated to the footnotes of histories, a curiosity to be considered quaint, though never charming. I became nothing more than a bit of trivia to be paraded about for the purposes of impressing those less well-informed or woefully under-read. There was nothing left of Nicholas's bargain but this lingering malaise. Science grew ever stronger and I feared that my only presence in the world would be brief mentions in text here or there in print nearly too small to see.

Recent years, however, have begun to prove otherwise. A strange fascination has arisen, spurred on by artists and writers. It seems that the old stories have begun to take root again. A stray image here, a tiny phrase mentioned in passing, a bit of half-heard song, and a spark takes hold. Suddenly, they are gripped by inspiration and they create. Oh, such things they create!

Where references cannot be found, they invent. My image draws them as it never did before and they have begun to remake me. As they are driven to tell my story and share my image, so does belief in me grow. They are building me as strongly as ever did my followers in the dim recesses of time. With each new piece, I feel power surge through me and I become more with each passing day.

An ancient, languishing God can still hope, and hope, I surely do. Creative works have a way of spreading and I have begun to reach those who would never have heard even the barest whisper of me in the past. So, I let them write and draw and paint. I draw nourishment from them as surely as they answer their own drives. And, someday, I will once again return to my forests. There, I shall wait in the deepest, darkest, most silent part, in the groves where sunlight barely penetrates. If you are brave enough to come looking, then, perhaps, you shall find me there.

Patricia Scott lives in the Midwest with a collection of dragons and what normal people insist is "too many books".  She writes a bi-monthly column, "Geek Girl Navigating the World" for boomtron.com and doesn't believe there is such a thing as too many books.

Fleet Is the Sand, By Patricia Scott

Editor's Note: I've got some catching up to do on publishing (sometimes my own writing gets in the way of EC). Today, we have a mystical, touching story from Patricia Scott. It's not often we get stories set in the Middle East, so this delightful story is an intriguing change of pace.

As they grow, the boys of Mahdjikistan play a particular game found only in their culture. Once they are old enough to play away from the watchful eyes of their mothers, they go tumbling and brawling, as little boys everywhere are wont to do, to a corner where there is nothing to be found but sand. The older boys teach the younger the words to say and they practice, focusing their will as they chant. Eventually, sometimes only after days of trying, the boys will summon sand wraiths.

 

The sand wraiths look like nothing more than a tendril of grains writhing with the currents of the air, especially to the untrained eye. The boys of Mahdjikistan know better, though. These creatures, born of magic and the desert, know every thing that comes into contact with the dunes that surround the only city in all of the country. A pact was made, long ago, by the Mahdjikistani men. The sand wraiths would serve as guides and protectors for the men who summoned them and they, in turn, would be kept alive and thriving by the unshakable belief in them that the men carried. That promise, made so many years earlier had led to a towering reputation for the men of Mahdjikistan as infallible escorts for either trade or travel.

Anyone who practices magic would be able to assert that in order to give something form and strength, it must have a name. Once a boy has managed to summon his sand wraith, he promptly gives it a name, fostering the connection between them. With each successive summoning, the sand wraith grows more defined and lingers about its chosen boy longer. For many of the boys, the sand wraith is the closest thing to a pet that any of them will ever have.

And, so it was, that a boy named Hassim, born to a seller of books and a baker of flatbread, summoned the sand wraith that he named Fleet only three days after his sixth birthday. Upon that first time that it rose into the warm golden sunlight of the morning and twined curiously about Hassim's skinny ankles, Hassim named it Fleet, and thereafter, he was never seen without the swift eddy of sand at his heels. His parents gave no more thought to the presence of the sand wraith than any other parent of Mahdjikistan. It was simply part of their way of life.

Hassim was too little to understand what it meant when a tyrant seized power of the nation. When the dictator slaughtered all of the Mahdjikistani poets in the city square in front of his people, the little boy hid his face in his mother's robes and turned away, trembling. He tried to cover his ears against the blood-curdling sound of the emotional heart of their country being destroyed. Fleet never left its position at Hassim's toes.

Time passed and, little by little, the tyrant tore away the fabric of Mahdjikistani existence. The magics the people used every day as a matter of course were banned and those caught using them were put to death. 

The men did not forget about their wraiths. Instead, they waited until they were out in the desert to summon them. Without the wraiths, however, the tyrant could seize no more money, for without the hiring of guides, no money would come into Mahdjikistan. He saw little threat in the creatures. They were, after all, common. The dictator himself had one that he had named Skirmish.

As with any tyrant, he made enemies, and he soon found himself in need of an army. Hassim was fifteen years old when his mother and father received the official summons to bring him to the armory near the palace and present him for military duty. His mother wept silently as she folded his clothes into a small cloth bundle and would only say, “It is all right. It must be. When they see him, they will see he is too small and much too young for their army.”

Hassim's father said nothing. When the day arrived when they were expected to report to the army, Hassim kissed his mother's cheek and tried not to be afraid when the hug she gave him crushed the air from his lungs. She was not allowed to accompany them to the headquarters of the army, and so, she stood and watched as her husband and her son walked down the streets, away from the house. His father's hand was heavy on Hassim's shoulder, the weight of it doubled by the weight of a father's love for his only child and trebled by the complete loss of hope.

As Hassim's father had feared, Hassim was ushered into the gates by imposing men in dark uniforms who informed him that upon delivery of his son he must leave. Later that night, in a crowded barracks that stank of sweat and fear, Hassim wept onto the hard tiles of the floor. It was the first time he had ever been away from his parents and the first time that Fleet did not come when summoned. Across the city, in a small house on a narrow street, Hassim's parents wept into each other as they feared for the life of their sweet, gentle boy.

Fleet tried for days to find a way into the army base to see the boy to whom it was tied. There was no entry, though Fleet nearly dashed itself to scattered grains against the heavily warded walls. Great pains had been taken to prevent the wraiths from accessing the men they looked after and many of the creatures languished in the shadows of the walls, waiting to hear the call of the ones who gave them form.

As battles erupted, the men were called forth to fight. Most of them were still little better than boys. At each opportunity, Hassim would immediately summon Fleet. The sand wraith was the only measure of comfort he had left. Attempting to see his parents would require Hassim to run away from the barracks and to do so would mean that his parents would die at the tyrant's hand. So, he made no plans, wanting, instead, to be able to think that his parents were still alive and still in the city.

It happened, from time to time, that on border patrols, soldiers would disappear. They were snatched by rebels, it was assumed. All that would be found was a pair of boots abandoned at the edge of the desert and a gun emptied of its clip and flung out of reach. Hassim was nearly nineteen years old when he was allowed to stand guard at the border. He had come to understand, over those brutal years of warfare, that if he wished to survive to his twentieth birthday, he would have to find a way out of the army.

He planned for months, storing away a few canteens he took as battle trophies and building a supply of food. The night before his escape, Hassim sat in the sand, his back against the brick wall. He summoned Fleet and explained in a hushed, fearful voice that as much as he wanted to, he could not take the sand wraith with him. Mahdjikistani men could never be lost in the desert through either treachery or disorientation because the sand wraiths left traces of magic along the path. That magic carried a signature unique to the wraith and the man bound to it and could be tracked for two weeks. Were Fleet to accompany him, they would be found quickly and Hassim and his parents would be publicly executed.

Two days later, in a small house, on a narrow street, in the only city in Mahdjikistan, a scuffed pair of black army boots were presented to a woman who took them without a word. Once the door was shut and the uniformed man was well away from her home, she cursed the tyrant soundly as had all of the other mothers who had lost children to his senseless greed. The boots themselves were placed carefully beside the door to wait, unclaimed, by a boy who would never come home. When Hassim's father came home and saw them, he dropped to his knees in the middle of the room and poured his shattered heart to the tiles in a burning stream of tears.

Hassim made his way across the desert, relying on nonexistent instincts and blind luck. Each day, when he stopped to rest in the heat, Fleet rose from the sands, unsummoned to keep watch over him. Without the spell to track, they would not be able to find the sand wraith or the boy. Hassim walked, finding his way into the neighboring country and sneaking onto a ship bound across the ocean. Fleet could not follow him onto the water and so it turned back, returning to Mahdjikistan and the small house on the narrow street.

The sand wraith took great comfort in knowing that Hassim was safe across an ocean on another continent, where the tyrant would likely never find him. As it watched Hassim's mother and father struggle to learn how to live without him, it longed to tell them that Hassim was not dead. It was unsure, however, if the knowledge that their son was still alive but unable to contact them at all would only be another cruelty to already broken hearts.

Fleet mourned his absence as much as they did. It longed for the confessions Hassim offered up under the stars when he had been young. They had chased each other in the waning light over dunes and down the streets, Hassim's laughter ringing against the stone walls. When the pain of loss became too great, a tendril of sand could be seen sliding under the door and winnowing across the floor, curling its way into the battered boots which still stood where the footsteps of a grown man should have echoed. The sand wraith would stay there, encased in the leather and cloth which no longer carried the familiar feel of the boy who had owned them, but remained the only physical reminder of the young man who was no longer fifteen. Years passed and the sand wraith waited, hoping for the miracle of Hassim's return.

It happened, one night, that Fleet felt a familiar tug at its senses. As the sand wraith roused, it recognized a familiar call it thought to never hear again. All it once, Fleet gathered itself and rushed out into the desert, speeding with all the power of its name to the border where a man who wore a familiar shape waited under the light of a full moon.

The sand wraith twined itself around thee ankles of the man who had finally returned home, smelling of deep and foreign magics and knowledge gained for the purpose of overturning an injustice. Hassim laughed with delight and explained that he needed Fleet to take him to the cave where the Djinn could be summoned, that he might enlist their aid against the tyrant still in power. Fleet agreed as easily and as readily as he always had to the boy asking him for a game of chase before bedtime.

“Then we will go, my oldest friend, but we will go in the morning, with the light of the sun upon us so that all will know that we do not act in fear and anger, but instead with bravery and utmost faith in our purpose,” he said, the smile on his face coloring his voice.

And so, bathed in the silver glow of the moon, the sand wraith and the boy whom it had waited for over so many years danced across the sands of their homeland.

Patricia Scott writes primarily fantasy works, though she also writes a bi-monthly column called "Geek Girl Navigating the World" at Boomtron.com. She rides a moped, collects dragons and books, and still has a day job.