Chapter 10 – The Harvest
Three days and I’d managed to do very little with my magic. I seemed to be hitting a roadblock. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not concentrate properly on whatever I was trying to manipulate. As a result, my room looked like a war had taken place inside, complete with dents in the walls and shattered glass all over the place. I had to be very careful wherever I stepped.
Now, however, the waiting was over. The librarian came up to my room with a long package wrapped in brownish cloth. As I took it from his hands, a flutter of energy coursed through my body. I unwrapped the cloth and gasped.
My staff was about two and a half feet long, china blue in color. Darker blue patterns ran up and down the sides while one of the tips curved into a cup-like formation. Directly in the center of that cup was a diamond-shaped sapphire that glinted in the meager light from the windows and sent azure beams scattering on the walls. As soon as I laid both hands on it, a flurry of blue mist swirled around my hands and the staff. I saw the librarian give a small smile.
“It’s perfect…” I breathed. The mist disappeared but the staff still possessed a faint aura. This was just incredible.
“You’ll be practicing in the library again?” the man asked quietly.
“Yep. But this time, I won’t be causing catastrophes.”
Of course, my new staff was a bit in the way at times. I had to be careful to not hit the objects I was messing with while swirling the thing around. And yet, my energy was being channeled so much better. Activities that had caused me to sweat and gain massive headaches now only took a modicum of effort. Now I was up to hovering three heavy books at a time (one flipping open to certain pages, one spinning slowly, and one simply floating). Bliss.
Until the morning Alye came racing into the library.
“What’s up?” I asked as she screeched to a stop in front of my desk.
“Aubrey’s been gone for a while, I’m bored, and I think we should take a break.”
I blinked. Alye walk away from her swordplay? “Has someone hit you on the head recently?”
“No. I just…I need to take a break. I’m sick of just flooring all my opponents. Until Aubrey comes back, the only people practicing are a couple wannabe soldiers-in-training who can’t tell a broadsword from a rapier.”
“A wha from a wha?”
“Never mind!” she hissed. “Get away from your books and let’s go. Philipia’s coming too.”
Yes, as if that would just change my mind. But obediently, I stood up, stacked my books, and took my staff. Alye eyed it with a surprised expression.
“You’re really turning into the genuine article, huh?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Come on, next thing I know you’ll be dressing up in a cloak and pointy hat, Miss Mage.”
That did it. I conjured a bolt of blue energy that slapped her upside the head. Best of all, it was from a distance of about four feet, farther than she could reach immediately without leaping. Again, bliss.
“So where are we going?” I ventured as we walked down the halls. Alye gave a silent chuckle.
“First the armory, where my swords are.” Oh god. “And then we’re going to the Candlebar Inn. Change of scenery.”
Great, more drunken soldiers. Just what we needed.
The armory was a gleaming place of dazzling steel, a haven for pointy objects that shouldn’t fall into the hands of crazy teenagers *cough*Alye*cough*. But if Aubrey decided to give her stuff like that, not my problem.
I didn’t know much about swords, but the two that Alye took were admittedly very nice, with long, gleaming blades and strong handles. In the hands of a master, they were deadly weapons. In the hands of Alye…well…run for the hills. But enough of my griping.
Alye led me through the halls with a practiced gait, as if she knew the castle perfectly. Knowing her, she’d probably spent hours running through the halls and committing to memory every passage she could possibly find. So in a matter of minutes, we were headed out the front doors, where a gleaming black horse with a white star on its forehead waited for us. I was turning to Alye to comment on the nice ride when something about the horse caught my eye. Was it…no…was it grinning at me? Of course not, my brain told me, horses don’t smile! But my optic nerves were loudly proclaiming it, and when the horse whinnied and reared, I nearly panicked.
And then it began to change, shrinking, limbs reforming, and molding itself into the familiar shape of Philipia, who gave a grin that practically outshone the sun. She burst out laughing at the sight of our hanging jaws.
“Amazing what two weeks worth of getting in touch with nature can do,” she giggled.
“Lucky,” Alye nearly snarled, very peeved at her friend’s new ability.
“I need a pick-me-up,” I gasped, managing to force my jaws to move again.
Candlebar Inn was a very different place when we entered. What looked like the entire village was crammed inside and Clance and his serving girls were overloaded with work. A layer of mud covered the hard wooden floor and we had to watch our steps in order to not slip. As soon as we entered, a blanket of silence suffocated the conversation and all eyes turned nervously towards us. Undaunted, we strode to the bar while Alye pulled coins out of her pocket.
“Where did you get those?” I asked suspiciously.
“Never leave your collection box open,” she answered with a cryptic smile and dumped the money onto the counter. “What’ve you got?” she demanded.
Clance hesitated but the glinting of the coins opened his vocal cords. He went on a long list of available liquor but Philipia stopped him.
“Anything that doesn’t get you drunk?”
The innkeeper paused. Whispers floated around the room and I felt a general air of hostility begin creeping over the patrons. I braced myself for something, anything. But I didn’t expect to hear…
“Hallo, people!” Redmond. Again.
A cheery greeting echoed from the people and the tense atmosphere evaporated. The jester leaned up against the bar and flashed us smiles.
“What are you doing here?” Philipia ventured as Clance poured our wacky acquaintance a glass of something fizzy. Redmond tossed down the contents before answering.
“Harvest helping, of course. Didn’t you know?”
“No,” we chorused. A look of surprise flashed across his face for an instant before he laughed.
“Today’s the day that we harvest! I always help out by providing entertainment and keeping people’s spirits up.” he added in a more serious tone, glancing out one of the windows. “Going to be difficult out there. It’s not raining yet but I have a feeling it will later. We have to hurry and get the wheat in first or else the horses will get stuck in the mud.”
“Horses?” Philipia interjected. “I could help! I can change into a horse!” Needless to say, that pronouncement brought the inn back to silence, but this time in pure shock. Alye fingered her blades.
“Got two lovely sickles…or is it scythes…right here.” Pointed shuffling as the villagers tried to move away as surreptitiously as possible.
“And I can cut the stalks using magic,” I announced. “It’s a simple process. Easier than some other stuff I’ve been trying.”
“Not going to ask,” Redmond laughed. “But we probably need all the help we can get.”
“Redmond!” one of the villagers exclaimed, a tall redhead with several small scars on his face. “You’re asking us to accept the help of these three?” he continued. “They’re dangerous! They’ll hurt the crops!”
“Excuse me?” I growled. “When have we done ANYTHING to hurt you?”
“We saved that one girl, remember?” Alye snarled, fists tightening over her twin blades.
“And we’re offering to help you!” Philipia spat, blue eyes flashing. “If you’re so scared of us, then I guess we’ll just take ourselves back to the castle and let you harvest your stupid crops yourselves!” She swiped back the coins Alye had plunked onto the counter and we headed towards the door.
“Enjoy yourselves,” I said. We were just stepping outside when someone called us back.
“Wait!” It was another guy, one with light brown curly hair and pale blue eyes. He sheepishly smiled and his hand stole to his mussed hair.
“I…I think that…we should let them help…” he stammered. “We…um…we really do need the help…and they…well…they haven’t done anything wrong.”
“And I can vouch for them,” Redmond announced, a stern look creeping onto his usually mirthful face. “We can’t afford to turn down aid just because said aid is a bit…unusual.”
Cutting the wheat was a simple process. All I had to do was move my staff in a cutting motion and blue ribbons of energy cut the stalks quickly and efficiently. Each time, the stalks would fall to the ground and I’d pile them into a wagon-like thing that an old, patient horse was pulling. As I worked, I could hear Alye’s twin swords slicing through the wheat far faster than the hacks of the villagers’ scythes. To my right, Philipia in her horse form was biting off the wheat and dumping the stalks into the box she dragged behind her. Smarter than the average equine, she knew exactly where to bite so that she wouldn’t inadvertently swallow the grain she was trying to harvest.
Redmond was right, however. It wasn’t raining yet but the air was hot and humid. An oppressive blanket of damp heat settled over the group of harvesters. Fifty villagers hacked and piled as fast as they could, anxious to get the wheat in before the rain began. If they didn’t finish before the rain started to fall, their harvest would be completely screwed up.
Slice. Hack. Swish. “GAAAH!!!” Alye had narrowly missed chopping off the head of one of the villagers as he passed by with a bucket of water. Distracted, I swung my staff the wrong way and sent a blue bolt of magic hurtling at Philipia’s head. She barely managed to duck.
But other than that, everything was just peachy.
Done. Finally, after harvesting several fields’ worth of wheat, we’d managed to complete our harvest. And just in time to. As I hurried off to the water bucket, I glanced in apprehension at the dark sky. Sure enough, as I put down my mug, a drop of warm water splashed onto my nose.
“Now we have to do the corn,” a guy groaned, twitching at the raindrops. Great.
“I can’t believe I volunteered for this,” I muttered, plodding through the thick mud that covered the spaces between the wheat. Rain poured down and soaked us completely. If not for my eye adjustment, I would have been completely blind. As it was, I couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of me. The ghostly shapes of villagers flickered in and out of sight as they hacked at the stalks of corn that grew up on both sides like a fragile wall. Wind was whipping the stalks all over the place, making it inanely difficult to cut them in a straight line. I could hear faint cries of frustration all over the place and my horse kept shaking his head as he tried to get his sopping mane out of his face. On a scale of 1 to 10 of my least favorite activities, I think that harvesting corn in the pouring rain definitely ranked on the bottom.
As I turned to put some more corn into the horse’s little wagon thing, I slipped on the slimy mud and fell into the sludge, splattering goop everywhere. With a groan and a glare, I managed to push myself out of the brown muck and went back to harvesting, complaints raging through my head.
At last, the harvest was done. The rain was letting up and I surveyed the landscape. Instead of the previous yellow-brown and green fields, plots of mud and broken stalks littered the ground, some swirling in the newly-formed puddles. The villagers clustered together, bagging up the precious wheat and corn into smelly bushel bags. Even in the rain, I could see that their faces were disappointed. Philipia (back in human form) and Alye stood with blankly exhausted expressions on their faces. Only Redmond still had some semblance of cheer.
“Candlebar Inn for drinks?” he called. A wave of agreement passed over the peasants and we surged towards the inn like a mass of lemmings toward a cliff.
Clance glanced up at the crowd of worn out, muddy, rain-soaked people that came pouring in through the door. Tired masses practically collapsed into their seats and there was a momentary silence as people gulped down liquid of any kind. Philipia, Alye, and I stayed with Redmond, sipping that fizzy stuff he had drunk earlier (a kind of pseudo-soda-ginger-ale-thing with no alcohol). And suddenly an angry shout broke the quiet.
“We’re ruined!” It was the redhead from before. He passed a muddy hand over his face, leaving lines of brown on his cheeks. “Lord Delroy’s tribute equals over a third of our harvest this year! And what do we have? Almost nothing!”
“That’s not true,” a girl with soaking dirty blond hair piped up. “We harvested several fields’ worth of corn and wheat and more will come later when the other crops are ready to be picked.
The redhead rolled his eyes. “Yes but what we have won’t be enough. This year has been too dry and rain comes at exactly the wrong times…like TODAY. Our wheat is poor and short, and I saw that the grain is shrunken.”
“He’s right,” another guy said. “And the corn is no better. I’ve rarely seen such a pathetic amount of kernels.”
“But why is Delroy demanding so much?” Philipia interjected.
“Lord Delroy!” someone hissed.
“And why did you harvest today?” I asked. “Couldn’t the harvest have waited until tomorrow when the weather would be clearer?”
“We had no choice,” a middle-aged women with gray around her temples sighed. “Lord Delroy said it had to be done today, no excuses. I don’t know why…”
“And as for the tribute, he can take as much as he wants. After all, he owns the entire village and our lands,” a tall man spoke up from the corner. “Wasn’t it like that where you come from?” he queried, a look of puzzlement inching up his face.
“No,” Alye replied. “Where we come from, you don’t have to give away half your food supply just because some high-and-mighty guy up in a castle demands it.”
A ripple of fear swept across the room and scared eyes stared at us.
“Are you mad?”
“Speaking that way about the lord!”
“You’ll bring injury upon us!”
“GET A GRIP!” I suddenly exclaimed. “He may be Lord Delroy, but that doesn’t mean he has the right to take away your food and let you starve!” I felt myself working up to a fever pitch and I glared back at the crowd. Redmond goggled at me, blue eyes nearly bugging out of his head. Philipia and Alye exchanged looks that said here comes another rant.
I moved away from the counter. “What kind of man takes away a third of the food supply? What kind of man refuses to listen to reason when weather conditions would make the harvest nearly impossible? And what kind of man allows his people to waste away?” I took a breath. “When was the last time you lot had any decent clothes or decent meals? Can you remember ever being out from under the thumb of an unreasonable nut like Delroy? What about your children? Are you going to let them go hungry because you can’t stand up to a man that hides in his castle all day and does nothing but give out absurd proclamations?”
As my eyes went over the stunned audience, I spotted looks of surprise, shock, and…agreement. Several nodded their heads and others frowned as they listened closely.
“No one should have to live under the rule of someone that cares nothing for the well-being of the people under his control. There comes a time when people must stand up and take away the right to rule from those in charge because those in charge do NOT have the ability to rule fairly and competently! You should not keep knuckling under when you can stop and say ‘No. We’re not going to deal with this mess anymore.’ For the sake of your children and yourselves, you can’t just complain about the unjust rule. You have to do something! Stand up for your rights, don’t keep putting up with this rubbish, and declare your independence! You don’t need Lord Delroy, but he needs you! You can survive, even thrive, without his unreasonable decrees, but he cannot survive without the food and supplies that you pour your sweat out for! So revolt against him! Stop him from squeezing you dry! You know you can, and if you value the well-being of yourselves and your families, you’ll see that this is the time to cease allowing him to trample you into the mud.”
I ended my speech and took several deep breaths. A silence thicker than pea soup fog lay over the room. And then someone clapped. And another. And then the whole room exploded in applause.
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