(no subject)

[smokingboot]

Well, this little thing is about 12 years old, and very different to the story for Chambers in the prior post.

*I wrote it for OOOBM all those years ago, a little pseudo-archaic fairy tale type thing, which I now copy out/pick away at. Despite all its flaws - and it has so many that I daren't correct for fear of it falling apart like an onion - I write it here to get myself in the right mood. Comparing it to the Chambers piece encourages me. This piece still has a little charm, but I am a better writer now than I was then. Any other conclusion would be deeply depressing!

I can't imagine it interesting many, so I'll use the cut.

Anyone wondering at my sudden bursts of creativity may posit the theory that I am currently blanking out on my project and that these are diversions. They'd be right!




And so in his dream he picked up the book, opened it and tried to read.

At first the letters confused him, for they were scrolled in black and red and gold, and each word seemed to lose itself in a tapestry of tiny pictures; flowers and faces and cities and tall towers, ships and birds and the sun and the moon, all rich in colours glowing like jewels. For a moment they dazzled him but then he settled himself to finding a word he knew and his eyes travelled down the page until he saw something that made him stop.

Among the blaze of pictures, someone had scribbled in charcoal a huge ugly face, granite pocked and sour as bad beer. As he watched, the eyes scowled at him, and the mouth opened; He could almost hear it bellow, a bee-buzzing sound far away, when to his amazement, a second face, hideous as the first, popped onto the page and he realised that both heads were much bigger than aught else he had seen in the story. Out of the scribble formed two thick necks joining onto one body with four huge muscled arms, the upper two bearing axes each as big as a man - but small in the hands of the monster - and in the lower two...

Now Brillig began to read.


...With a roar of fury, Two-Head the Giant picked up the ruined body of the warrior and flung it far over the Cliffs of Groan, where it fell a thousand leagues and more. And when his comrades saw his fall, they fled the giant's wrath and thought no more of Brillig, for to them he was a dead man. But he did not die.

He fell and he fell, the ground spinning towards his head, the sky whirling at his feet, his heart burst with pain and shock, for of his limbs but one leg remained unscathed and that broke at his fall's end. The flash of freezing water in his mouth told him he had tumbled headlong into the mighty river Orrun at the foot of the cliffs, as it wound its way from the mountains of the white kingdoms to the southern lands of Brandegore. Then he closed his eyes, and they stayed closed a long while.

The wild spirits of the stream pulled him here and pulled him there, down the rapids of Tir-Na-Coll the fair, and round the foaming whirlpools they call her daughters, a trail of crimson in the waters behind him and salmon scattering before him. Many a sight would he have seen if fever and death had not been shining on his brow. Once he awoke when the river was in torrent, and he saw, straddling a great waterfall, a castle of darkest stone with jagged towers and stern battlements. The stars shone above and he heard the hiss and rush of the river singing in his ears. Then the song died away, and two huge and perfectly round eyes set in a small shiny face stared swimming into his.

'Brillig!' Said the face, 'BrilligBrillig?'
'Uh?' said Brillig.
'Take off iron.' Said the face, 'BrilligBrillig! Take off iron.'

But the fever rushed into Brillig's head again, and he fainted.

A long time later he woke to find himself on the river no longer, but lying still among pebbles and red earth, water trickling through his armour. In front of him stood a knot mound covered in green grass, and carved into the mound half hidden by weed was the red clay face of a man, fishes in his hair and water pouring out of his mouth. A gull had landed nearby and was tearing the guts out of a trout with its beak. The bird stopped when he looked at it, and lifted its white head until its eyes met his. They were the colour of amber and wild as the sky. For some reason, Brillig spoke.

'You're a long way from home,' He said. The bird stared at him for a moment and he could almost swear he heard a sound, far away like the wind keening out across -

The Sea, The Sea!

He shook his head like a dog shaking water from it's ears.
'The -?'

Ssssseeeeeeeeeeee sssshhhhh ssssshhhheea eea eea sea

He tried to lift himself up onto one arm. 'Fever,' he said, 'I don't know dreaming from waking anymore. First the frogs talk, then the birds join in. I don't need this!' He yelled at the gull, 'I need to know where to go from here!'

From here all roads lead to the sea

'She can't help you,' Came the voice from behind him, 'Her head is empty save for clouds and light and water. You'd do better talking to me.'

And when he turned, the red clay face of the man was grinning at him, eyeballs white and livid blue.

'Oh God!'
The smile seemed to widen.
'This is a nightmare!' Cried Brillig.
The eyes rolled back at him.
'I could say the same. How goes it with you, Master Brillig, dead son of a dead blacksmith? How can I be of assistance?'
Billig coughed and caught his breath.
'I'm not dead yet -'
'Almost dead then. Any minute now.'
'- And I don't want to die. Can you help me?'

The face poked out its tongue and waggled it from side to side.
'Maybe, maybe not!'
The face changed and lost its smile. A deeper voice rumbled out from under the hill.
'You come here with iron and blood and you stain my sweet clean spring! Why should I help you?'

'I - I...'Brillig faltered and then had a sudden burst of inspiration, 'Because I'll die here and rot if you don't! Imagine what that'll do to your sweet clean spring!'

He looked back and caught a glimpse of the gull's beak as it cracked a snail against a stone. There was a quiet chuckle behind him.

'Fear not, fear not, that you'll be left to rot!' Came the voice,
'But twas a good answer for all that. Come then, let us bargain. Life for you and what for me?'

A moment's pause and Brillig thought hard, his first answer the child of habit.

'I am a warrior.'
'Mmm.'
'I have a sword.'
'Mmm.'
'And some money.'
'Mmm.'
'And a ready wit.'
'Ah! A ready wit! Now that,' Said the face, 'Is more interesting. Perhaps I have use for a ready wit.'

Brillig pressed his advantage and spoke like a strutting bard.

'I am the cleverest man for forty leagues and forty more,' said he, 'There is no riddle I cannot solve, no scholar I cannot out-think, no bard I cannot outspeak. Ask among all the cities of men and they will tell you, faults he may have and learning he has none, but no finer mind you'll find than that of Brillig, Blacksmith's son.'

And the face was silent for a while. At last it spoke;

'Very well. Here's the bargain. I'll give you life and health as you had it at best, but here's my price: For a year and a day, I'll take your wits right out of your head, and keep them to please myself, and come the end of the year and day, you'll have them back. And that is all. How like you this?'

Now Brillig wanted to say he liked this not at all, for suppose the face found it liked his wits and never gave them back? But as he tried to speak, his thoughts began to whirl in his head and it came to his mind that for all his bold talk, there was little breath left in him to argue. So, in a voice like that of a faint child, he agreed.

And the face laughed. 'Good!' It said, 'Now shall I be well paid for my trouble! Come across then, Beauty!' It called, and the gull hopped down the water's edge and up onto the bank of clay just behind Brillig's head. And suddenly he was very frightened.

Crack! Oh, and such a sharp blow he felt on his skull, and such a sharp pain, hot and needle grinding!

And a little golden fish fell out of his head and onto the floor of the stream.
And a deep red rose fell out of his head and onto the floor of the stream.
And a tiny dashing stag fell out of his head and onto the floor of the stream.
And a shimmering green snake fell out of his head and onto the floor of the stream.
And a diamond shining with a rainbow in it fell out of his head and onto the floor of the stream.

Now when the fish and the rose and the stag and the snake fell out, he was amazed at what he saw. But when the diamond fell, he saw and felt nothing at all. And a year and a day later...

He awoke in the caravan of the blind man and his grandaughter, to find his body cured and strong, but of who he was and where he came from, he remembered not a thing. Still, Brillig thanked the blind man who said his grand-daughter had found him at the foot of Mabon's Well, a haunted place. Now said Brillig to the man; 'You've saved my life. How can I ever repay you?'

And the man said, 'Nothing could be easier. I am blind and have never been able to read my daughter a tale from the book she loves so well. If you would be so kind as to pick a page - just a page - and read it to her, I'm sure she would be delighted.'

Brillig bowed his head and said, 'It would be easier for me to kill a giant. I don't know how - that is, I am sure I have never been taught to read.'

The man said; 'Don't know how? You've had fever. You've been dreaming. Why don't you try?'

And Brillig looked at the gentle face of the blind man and the little girl already pulling a huge book out from a wooden shelf, excitement lighting up her eyes, her strange amber eyes.

And so in his dream he picked up the book, opened it, and tried to read.





*And yes, Copyright Debbie Gallagher, right here right now, 2004, July... doing this is so embarrassing!