Roland's Castle (26 page)

“You can’t think of everything –not
in a situation like that,” Savitri said reassuringly, “You have
done what you could.”

At that moment the horn sounded
again, in a long, long blast.

The captain of the team announced,
“Ladies and gentlemen, the mythtelling!”

“What is this mythtelling?” Oliver
asked the captain as they hurried towards the door.

“The mythtelling is – why, it’s the
mythtelling! Attendance is compulsory on pain of death!”

“We’d better attend then,” Oliver
said

“The death penalty is another thing
I have qualms about,” Roland said.

“Lets just not push our luck,
okay!” Oliver replied.

These are the myths that were heard
by Roland and his friends during the mythtelling in the moon.

Order And Chaos

There were once two sisters called
Order and Chaos. They fought continually and their rivalry never
faded, even when they grew up.

Order tried to contain Chaos by
putting her in a box, then she decided to kill her by throwing the
box into The Great River, but the box broke open on the rapids and
Chaos escaped. Out of the bits of the box Chaos fashioned a weapon
to kill Order.

She beat Order to death and threw
her body into The Great River, but when Order was gone she wept at
the emptiness that was left where once her sister had been. The
Great River heard her crying and restored Order to life. Once this
was done they resolved never to fight again but to join together
and work on something together that would keep them from fighting.
Their answer was to create the world, with its careful balance of
Order and Chaos, so that both sisters could be happy, each have
what they wanted and learn to compromise with each other.

The Great River

As the world grew the Great River
found it was a good place to flow through, but it was unruly and
ill-disciplined. Sometimes it went this way, sometimes that. When
it flowed along its normal path the plants grew and the people were
happy. But if the river flowed too much in one place people drowned
and plants and animals were swept away, if it stopped flowing in a
place then there was drought and the people died of thirst and
hunger.

Order and Chaos sat down to plan
the path of The Great River so that everyone could be sure where it
would flow, where its water would be most useful and to stop it
harming anyone. But The Great River was older than Order and Chaos,
and disliked being told what to do by them. In protest it stopped
flowing altogether, causing much suffering and death. It stored up
its water, then let it out again, causing a great flood and yet
more suffering. It flooded the whole world killing most of the
people and creatures on it.

So Order and Chaos decided to break
up The Great River. They divided it into many different rivers and
streams so that it could not destroy the whole world again, and
would be useful to everyone, everywhere.

The Whales Of The Sky

Once the earth flooded to such a
depth that the waters reached the moon, and the moon became an
island in the Sea of the Earth.

Many people drowned, but many were
saved by the great whales who carried them up to the moon where
some made new lives, whilst others chose to go back down to the
Earth when the waters had subsided.

In gratitude for saving their lives
the moon-dwellers granted the whales the wisdom of the moon, and
called them "moonwise". The whales took the wisdom of the moon and
used it to evolve. They chose the freedom of the air over the
freedom of the water, and whenever they took to the sky of a
night-time, and looked upon the shining moon, they said, “We are
moonwise.”

The Thief Who Stole the Sun

There was once a thief who stole
the sun. He plucked it from the sky and put it in his pocket, then
took it deep underground to his lair where no one else dared to go,
where he grew precious jewels and forged precious metals.

Without the sun the world was a
dark, cold and barren place so the tribe asked their greatest
hunter to find the sun again. She took to the winter sky and sought
for it throughout the stars, then she took to the earth and
searched for it from one end of the world to the other. Finally she
looked underground and found the thief’s lair. After a fierce
battle she returned the sun to its rightful place.

But the thief was angry at being
robbed of his prize. He made thunder in the earth which caused the
ground to shake and the mountains to spew boiling red rivers.

The people were frightened by this
display, so they sent the hunter back down into the underworld to
bargain with the thief. It was agreed that the sun would spend the
days above ground, and the nights below, and that the sun would
shine above ground for longer in the summer, and below ground for
longer in the winter.

So, everyone was satisfied.

“
Catchfire”

“Catchfire” was not his birth name,
but it was what the tribe came to call him. One day he had returned
from the woods bearing a stick on which a flickering, dancing flame
was perched like a bird. The others did not know how fire was made,
and when the weather was cold, they were cold, and they always ate
meat raw

“How have you got fire to perch
upon a stick, like a bird?” Catchfire was asked.

He told how he been in the forest
and the suns rays had shone down, strong and bright, through the
fluttering leaves. Within them he had seen tiny fires hovering and
flittering, like a swarm of insects.

He had chased them, leaping up to
try and catch one. The first time he caught one it had been too hot
for his hands and he had let it go with a cry. Then he had thought
of making something to trap them out of leaves and a branch, but
the moment he caught one the trap burned and the fire escaped. Then
he found that a part of the fire had remained on the branch, so he
brought it home.

He showed the tribe how to make the
fire grow by putting one stick beside another so that the fire
spread to it, then to another stick, then another. So the tribe
learned how to build a fire to keep them warm, and learned how to
cook meat and boil water.

Sometimes the fire went out,
however well it was minded. It could not be helped when it rained
heavily or the wind blew. Then Catchfire went into the woods and
returned with another fire, freshly caught, its young life burning
brightly at the end of a stick. Sometimes the others went out into
the forest and looked for the clearing with the fires, but could
not find it.

“How do you catch fire? Where do
you catch it?” the others asked, “We must know, for when you die,
as you one day must, we will not know how to catch the fire.”

But he refused to reveal his
secret.

One day, two of the children
decided to follow him into the woods. There they saw him, not
leaping to clutch fire out of the sun’s beams, but crouching on a
mound rubbing twigs and sticks together until a flame appeared and
grew. They ran back to tell their parents, and showed them how it
was done.

When Catchfire returned his secret
was known, but the people were not angry. He had given them fire,
and they were not angry at him for wanting to keep his secret.

How the Gods Died Out

As Order and Chaos mixed together
they reached out beyond themselves and the world they had created.
Chaos reached the heavens and mingled with the gods, so that their
perfection was diminished and they descended to the earth. They
walked amongst mortals until, eventually, they themselves became
mortal. One by one they died, and as they died they became the dust
itself, which spread throughout the cosmos, filling it with their
spirit.

The Great Stith

The people of the world were once a
single tribe, and they only had one story. They never tired of
hearing it, and made up different versions until they realised that
they had made two stories. As there were now two stories the people
who told one of the stories became one tribe, the people who told
the other story became another tribe.

Soon there were more than two
stories, and more than two tribes. The stories increased and
divided, and the tribes increased and divided and spread across the
world.

One day the Great Stith looked at
all the stories from across the world and saw that all the stories
had parts that were the same as parts in other stories. People
across the world were all telling the same stories but in different
ways. Now the people of the world could see that although they told
many different stories, they were really the same stories, and that
people everywhere were all the same.

Those were the myths that were
heard by Roland and his friends during the mythtelling in the
moon.

“That was beautiful,” Oliver
said.

“It was okay,” said Savitri, “You
should hear the Upanishads.”

“Even Stith the Myth got a
mention,” said Botherworth, approvingly.

“One day, I shall write poetry,”
said Oliver

“You were born to be a poet,
Oliver, I swear, and I ways knew it,” Roland told him.

After the mythtelling they ate,
then slept, then woke, then waited. They ate and slept and waited
again, then again. They wished for another game of Ogleforth just
to pass the time, but there was only more eating, sleeping and
waiting. Then, as they were beginning to despair, a messenger from
the Great Mistress of the Lighthouse arrived to summon Roland to
her presence.

“A sun sentinel has answered our
request,” she told him.

“Will it take us to the sun?”
Roland asked, delighted but anxious.

“Yes it will.”

“Great!” said Roland.

The Great Mistress of the
Lighthouse lent forwards, “You must understand how this will be
done. The sentinels are able to wrap a piece of darkness within
them, to carry it within them. It is an essential ability they have
that enables them to foster life at the boundaries – creatures that
can be used in the fight against the darkness.

‘Because they are so contaminated
with darkness they are not allowed within the inner limits of the
sun – that is to approach The Very Hearth which is the capital of
the sun — where you must go. They are not even allowed to be heard
by those within the sun, in case of infection, so the sentinel
cannot mediate for you.

‘It will wrap you within itself, in
the coolness and shade within it, then you will be shielded from
the great heat and light of the sun. Now you must remember, never
to look at the sun without its shielding – not even from the earth
as you will be blinded by its light. That is not magic but
science.”

‘You will find that the Great
Council will be focused on their great war between light and dark
and care little for the people in between. They do not care, right
now, that mixtures of light and dark, heat and cold are necessary
for most life. If they had their way they would end up destroying
it.”

“Then surely they are our enemies
as much as anyone?” Roland cried, astonished and horrified at this
revelation.

“Not really,” replied the Great
Mistress, reassuringly, “They are rational, amenable, not motivated
by hate, as the creatures of the darkness are. The flames may yet
come to understand and back down. The creatures of the darkness
never will. As I say, the flames have allowed the sentinels to
foster creatures at the edges – such as yourself – to use as
proxies in the fight. The creatures of the darkness have done the
same, as you have experienced for yourself. This is your strength;
you are part of their fight and they are bound to help you in some
way, even if they don’t see it at first. You must make them see it,
make them understand your cause and its importance; use all your
powers of speech and persuasion – use them as you would a weapon
against a foe!”

Roland gulped, unsure he would be
up to such a challenge.

The Great Mistress continued, “As
the sentinel will not be able to take you right into The Very
Hearth there is something else you must have – come with me.”

She rose from her throne and led
Roland down through a doorway and down a narrow passage. The
passage led to stairs which spiralled downwards, deep into the
moon. Here there was a cavern, filled with dim but unearthly light.
At its sides, low down, were pools of darkness, as if radiated from
a source too dark to see. The Great Mistress led Roland to one of
these pools and suggested he put his hand into it. He did so and
felt something soft. He gripped it and pulled it out. He saw that
it was a tiny, dark blue flower which he had picked and now held in
his hand. It radiated darkness as a torch radiates light.

“They are Moon gentians – The Great
Mistress said, “They were Pluto’s gift to the world, brought here
to the moon by the Whales of the Sky. Now they grow only on the
moon. No other gentian is like them. Take a gentian with you – and
one for each of you friends. When you leave the protection of the
sun sentinel, these flowers will wrap you in their own shade and
they will even keep you safe in the heat and light of The Very
Hearth.

“These tiny flowers?” Asked Roland,
sceptically.

“Yes, they are tiny but with great
power.”

“But if they spread darkness –
aren’t they evil?” Roland asked.

“They are of the darkness, but have
no will of their own. They are just plants, and can serve anyone’s
purpose. They will protect you – but they will also draw upon you
all the defensive forces of the sun. These forces will view you as
a contamination, as an enemy, they will be enraged by the shadow
the flowers cast. You will see the warriors of the sun at their
fiercest and they will come at you with no mercy in their hearts.
All of the furious energy, heat and light of the sun will be
against you. Do not be daunted, they cannot get into the shadow,
just hold the flowers high and keep to the centre of the shadows
they cast. Do this and even the most ferocious flames cannot harm
you. You must thus make your way to The Very Hearth. Now, pick a
flower for each of your fellows,” The great mistress
instructed.