Young Writers Society

So, for a while now I have been plotting out a novel which uses a character briefly mentioned about in the beginning of Beowulf, called King Scyld by the Beowulf poet. His life is pretty awesome, but there exists less than fifty lines describing it. I thought it might be interesting to turn it into a novel. Since I don't really think of this as a fanfic, I am just posting it here. I hope it's enjoyable.

Book I: Nameless

In the blood of spirits the words are spoken.

You have listened to the songs of valor, to the fierce wars and faithful loves, to the wandering twists and turns. It has been asked, and so it has been told, of the choice between pasture and glory, emblazoned on an endless shield on a war-story unfinished. Then someone, singing of arms and a man, let his pen still when his hero’s rage overwhelmed them both. Silent before a nameless bard we have heard tell of the king’s grief at the hands of a wretched monster, and how noble kindred came to great relief. The hall-strife, the struggle in the deep tarn, and the heat-blasted cavern echo to us. He lived and died a great hero, that Geatish king. But his tale is told. New blood stirs in history, and forges ahead to a time before.

No muse yet heard, she is reborn for you, and now you, her child, will make her sing. He kissed her and called her sin to hide his shame, but why? Why, brooding master of fire, do you condemn her boundless song? She must be heard. I know this from the simple piper, the ancient bard who married angels and demons, works of a prophet-poet. But prophecy is his.

I sing of a good king.

I

Briny waves crashed into the breaking sand, the stark lamplight radiant on the sea like the glimmer on a sword’s metal as it breaks to the hilt. The beach lay like a great, white-bellied beast that reclines in the sun, stretching, unworried by what goes on about it, for no creature dares match its might or question its place. There stood a humble dwelling, home to a fisherman, a stout and strange hermit who had lived there always, people said. His net was full of shimmering fish, when the light came. It was not the light of the sun or the moon, not the light of fire. It was the light of prophecy, of gods, of worlds other and times unknown. The hermit let his net drop, and the fish went free, and he turned from himself and answered the call.

“My son comes to you,” said a voice in the light. “He flees from Saturn, the older Urizen, and from a jealous king. His story has been told in different ways, but you must bring him to a new destiny.”

“My power is fading. All of us dim, our kind, for they do not listen.” The hermit sighed. “How will I make them listen?”

The once-king smiled. “Gods do not fade; it is the hearts of men that fade, and they call false divine truth when they can no longer see from the darkness. I no longer may serve the duties of a king, but the younger Urizen has nodded his head as I grasped at his knees. Jupiter has granted a new kingdom to my son. Teach him piety, teach him balance, teach him reason. Your duty is to make him kinglike, not king.”

The ancient hermit nodded in obedience, and the once-king left, as did the light of visions. He returned to his net, and bided his time.

II

When the tiger walks, the forest quiets and stills in a reverence that goes deeper than fear, though not without fear. The deer, the rabit, the trees and even the wind know the steps of that sylvan lord and tremble at his roar, and so they bow and hide, for tooth and claw tear flesh, but kingship is in his golden eyes. Even so, the waves of the sea were gentle, awed, as they brought in the dark, briny vessel, the wood stuck with barnacles. Heavy as a tomb, it settled into the sand.

The hermit saw it land, and nodded once. His measured stride brought him closer, and he knew what that ship held, though not who. He knew the name of the father, not the son. There was a moment of silence as his big, gnarled hands, fingernails dirty with sand and palms stained with fish oils, rested on the lid of the strangely designed ark. It was not made to be sailed, not by its passengers.

“Not to direct his own step,” whispered the hermit, breaking the silence. Then he opened the wooden portal. The smell was musty, of the unwashed, untended but not sickly. Light revealed the cargo: golden coins hammered thin, cups crusted with gems, swords made well but not ornamental, shields inlaid with careful design. It was the treasure fit for a lord. And there, beside the mast, he lay unconscious, dressed regally, but unmoving.

The old man approached his lord, inspecting the motionless body. He was young in years, his face barely graced with the first signs of manhood. A strange heaviness was holding shut his eyes, a sleep not natural, and his body was not without battle-wounds, though none serious. Grim, silent, the hermit began his duty without pause.

III

In sleep the mind coils so tight around itself, all embarrassed self-consciousness is lost. Ideas are not looked at from abstraction, but eyes and object become one magnificent hum of deep feeling. In sleep this intimacy of ignorance and oneness is a comfort. In daylight, it is terror and madness, if not death. Imagine the loveliness, the despair of your darkest hour. In that day, at that time, you were you and could look down on your despair as yours. But not him, not this strange orphan. He awoke in pain, but the pain was him, not his, and he was despair. But he could not hold the despair in his mind’s eye, for an eye can not look upon itself. This is what it is to be nameless, if you despair.

The hermit was quiet and offered food. He was not a man of words, for words made spaces between things, spaces he considered cumbersome. Extra words, at least, were dangerous The right words, however, were indespensible. So they did not talk. They ate. The meal was fish, some fruit, biscuits. Simplicity was his choice, always.

“Who are you?” asked the orphan.

“I am a fisherman.” The words came with a totality that somehow closed the question.

“Do you know who I am?”

“The son of someone great, with duties as great or greater.”

“Why can I not remember who I am, or where I am from? I know the names of things, and something of the world, but I know not my name, and little of myself.”

“You have not yet fully woken from the sleep that brought you here.”

“Why do you not answer my questions fully?” His young voice held authoritative impatience.

“Because answers are as empty or as full as their questions. When I end a sentence, I am done with your question.”

Somehow the words were not unkind. Still, the orphan wanted to not like the grizzly old man, wanted to hate his sun-baked, wizened face and grey beard filled with sand and drifting, careful eyes. But he liked him anyway.

IV

There is something special about orphan stories. Poets need parents to create their characters somewhere along the way, even orphans. But there is something different here. It keeps showing up. Why? Maybe we like to sing our own stories, and the orphans become our own children. The tragedy might be a useful device to employ, to get sympathy. But when it really happens, there it is. An orphan won’t sit at a poet’s side; keeping pace with him takes endurance. You have to follow close, or the space will grow too big.

The hermit taught him what he knew. He taught him how to fish, how to weave, how to forage. The boy already knew how to hunt, and was better at it than the old man. But the hermit discouraged hunting.

“Do you think it is wrong to kill animals for food?”

“No.”

“Then why are you against hunting?”

The hermit sat up, inhaling slowly, then exhaling slowly. “I am not against it. But it should not be the center of a way of life. It is not balanced. Hunting favors the rush of blood, the call of Urizen, trains you into a way of thinking that is not proper for civilization.”

“There is no civilization here,” scoffed the orphan.

“It only takes one man to be civil, or savage,” said the hermit patiently.

“And hunting is savage?”

“Living life as a hunter, yes. Letting the hunt be part of you is not. You must find the middle way.”

“What is Urizen? You say it often.”

The hermit gazed off with cool eyes. “There are powers behind all things in this world. Some people worship them as gods, others recognize them as companion forces, and still others ignore them completely. But they are real, whatever stance you take. Each power has its place, and is connected to others of its kind. I am connected to the sea, to the beach. Urizen’s pure prophet has not yet been born, but when he is, many things will change. Prophets until now have only served the lesser faces of Urizen, lesser powers who are him, but less than him.”

“Is Urizen good?”

“No. Not by himself. He is broken.”

“You speak as if you were one of these powers.”

The hermit looked at him calmly. “I am.”

The orphan smirked, looking at the old man’s graying hairs and wrinkled mouth, skin deeply touched by the sun and body bent with age. “You do not look like a god to me.”

The hermit smiled. “How many have you seen?”