The Golems Of The Tall Wood

An old man tells a local fairy story to his grandchildren, one in which he has more than a passing interest. The story of the golems came first, but I always wanted to wrap it in something to give it a slight spin. 3,600 words Writing time :5 days Finished :15th May 2006 Download as Word file

“Grandfather! Grandfather! Tell us the story of the golems, again! Tell us!”

Abel Shvur frowned as the children leapt and tugged at his suit, but they saw the twinkle in his eyes and just shouted louder and leapt all the more. He put his rucksack down carefully and raised his long, bony hands. “Where’s the Piper of Hamlin when you need him, ah? Let an old man rest. I’ll tell you the story tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

He made to walk into the house, but the children knew the script. The smaller ones wrapped themselves around Shvur’s legs, and clung to him, giggling gleefully.

Shvur rolled his eyes and feigned weary capitulation. “Alright, alright, alright. Anything so I can get a rest.” The children cheered. Shvur bent down, and they quietened, faces tilting back to look up at him, anticipation making wide circles of their eyes. “I’ll do better than just tell you, though. This time – this time I can show you.” A collective gasp. “Get your shoes on – yes, Evie, I see you have yours on already – the rest of you get your shoes on, get a snack from your mother and meet me here on the porch in two minutes. We’re going for a walk up the Tall Wood.”

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The children had been to the Tall Wood before, of course. Some of them had even gone in, some so far they could no longer hear the taunts and whistles of their siblings and cousins standing at the edge, but they had always come back running, white–faced and silent, chased by rustles in the undergrowth with a thousand teeth, scratches against bark made by bone–dry talons and the snapping of twigs under the weight of dark imagination. And so that was how the children of Balebridge proved their bravery, at least until other, more mature, concerns turned their heads from such childish pursuits. Strange then that, as adults, none in Balebridge ever went for a walk in the Tall Wood.

Before meeting again on the porch, the children had put on their shoes and filled their pockets in hushed silence. Shvur lead the way along the path that sloped up the hill, the children close behind him, the sounds of cars and lorries fading as they went.

“Are we going into the Tall Wood?” they would ask, but Shvur did not answer, just pointing onwards and upwards with his cane in the bright summer sunshine.

Once in sight of the wood he led them off the path, through the bracken, following the tree line around the hill. The children thought they knew the edge of the Tall Wood like they knew the back streets and gardens of Balebridge, but Shvur led them a curious path through the gorse and heather, over rocky knolls they had somehow never climbed before, and down into a deep gorge that none of them had ever seen.

The gorge cut into the hillside, its steep slopes crowned with the silver trees of the Tall Wood and its base dancing with ice–cold water rushed from above. Shvur led the children along the stream, over stones and past deep, swirling pools. The trees of the Tall Wood looked down on them, and the scent of sap and shadowed forest floor descended in the warm air.

“Are we in the Tall Wood?” the children asked, their voices low, but Shvur just pointed onwards with his cane.

A faint tremor in the earth pushed ripples into the deepest pools, and pebbles skittering down the walls of the gorge. The children paid it as little attention as they usually did, but Shvur quickened his pace.

The sides of the gorge shallowed, and the trees drew nearer. Shvur stopped, his cane resting on a rotten log that half lay in the sky–bright stream, and then pointed. A deer–path led out of the gorge and the children saw a clearing in the trees, dark rock looming above it. He led the way.

“We’re in the Tall Wood, we’re in the Tall Wood, we’re in the Tall Wood,” the children whispered to each other as they followed, and Shvur did not deny it.

The clearing lay before a high bluff of rock, split and riven countless times from head to foot by endless frosts and spring thaws. Tall as the trees around the clearing were, they could not overlook the top of the cliff, but the children did not remember ever seeing the rock from the town below.

They gathered around Shvur, who was looking up at two columns of stone that rose out of the leaf litter at the base of the cliff. The stone was dark grey–brown, with streaks and bands of red and pale gold and might – to a wanderer alone in the woods, in the right half–light and with perhaps just the tiniest amount of fear fuelled by walking alone amongst the creaking trees – have looked like two people, reaching out for one another.

Shvur turned, and sat, and the children did the same. A spiderweb of ancient roots knitted a solid base under the dry, discarded leaves, and the sun hung heavy in the golden sky as Shvur began his tale.

“A thousand years ago and more, a clever and powerful magician lived in a castle at the top of this hill. The men and women who lived in Balebridge called him the Bone King, because it was said he had the power of life and death over all things. They called him many other names, before and since, and the town was not then called Balebridge, but that is another tale.

“The Bone King was powerful, yes, and clever, yes, but he was not wise. Oh, no. He knew he had but a shadow of the true magic of life and death, for there is only One who has that true magic, but he thought in his cleverness this meant he must have more. So the Bone King lived alone, in his castle, and gathered magic for ten times ten years, while wisdom gathered dust.

“And what did the Bone King hope to achieve with his magic? What indeed. He hoped to create life itself, to do that which only the Real Magician can do, for had He not made us in his image, the better to praise Him? And how better to be like Him, than to do as only He does? As I said, clever, but not wise.

“At last, the Bone King learned of old and fearful spells from hard–baked lands far to the east, where the sun is born, and he worked these spells, forming mud and clay and more into two bodies. One he called Cyssan, and shaped him broad like a man, and the other Philema, and shaped her round, like a woman. And he engraved these spells into tablets of stone and placed one in the head of Cyssan and the other in the head of Philema. Then he breathed once into each of their mouths and –”

“The golems!” Evie cried, clapping her hands.

Shvur nodded, smiling. “The golems. And, as I promised, here they are. Cyssan –” he nodded to his left, “– and Philema,” to his right.

The children, the Tall Wood around them forgotten, looked up at the pillars of stone and gaped in awe. Another tiny tremor went unnoticed as it hissed through the dry leaves, and Shvur continued with his story.

“Cyssan and Philema, as I live and breathe. And the men and women of Balebridge were afraid when they saw them, for they did not look like you or I. They were tall, for the Bone King wanted them to be strong, and they were misshapen, for the Bone King had been hasty as well as unwise. But they were alive, and so he was truly the most powerful magician there had ever been, and the men and women of Balebridge knelt before him. And before the golems, Cyssan and Philema.

“The golems worked hard for the Bone King for many years, as silent and steady as the oceans and as obedient as time itself. The Bone King grew tired of their silence, however, and wrought his magic once more, giving each of them the gift of speech. But, being golems, made of mud and ash and stones, they had little to say, or rather, they had little to say to him.

“Cyssan and Philema carried on with their tasks as the months and years passed, serving the Bone King’s every command, carrying the mighty stones that enlarged his castle and hewing the rock –”

“Where’s the castle now, grandfather?” asked Adam, the oldest of the children.

Shvur paused. “The magician made it sink back into the hill, when he realised how empty it was. But that is another story. Where was I? Ah. The kiss. Yes. The kiss. Where it all went wrong. The golems would go down to Balebridge and gather the gifts of the men and women who lived there, lavish gifts for the Bone King, and carry them back up to the endless rooms of the castle. And Cyssan it was who saw the men and women of the town, and how they lived, and saw the young couples, kissing, in the town square. Are you blushing, Adam? You’ll know what I’m talking about soon enough, young man. And Cyssan wondered about this.

“He went to see the Bone King, and spoke to him. This was surprising in itself, but more surprising to the Bone King than that was what Cyssan had to say. The golem asked the Bone King to grant him a wish – to tell Cyssan how he might acquire a kiss, such as the townspeople had, to give to Philema.

“Well, the Bone King laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh. He laughed so hard it hurt, and he nearly choked, but he kept on laughing anyway. You see, a golem’s mouth has no lips, it is simple clay and mud. A golem cannot kiss any more than you or I can sprout grass from our heads. The Bone King told the golem this, when he finished laughing, and sent him away.

“But Cyssan would not be put off so easily. This was more than an idle request. What the Bone King did not know was that the magic from the sun–hardened lands to the east had been older and more powerful than even he had thought. It had been crafted by men and women wiser by far, who had known that life and death, the power the Bone King sought to control, was nothing without one vital ingredient. Something of which the Bone King, in all his cleverness, knew nothing.”

“What was that, grandfather?” asked Rachel, the eldest girl.

“Nothing more or less than love, little Rachel. And, knowing nothing of it, it had danced unseen before the Bone King in the magic he had breathed into the golems.

“He sent Cyssan away, but the golem did not end his quest there. Whenever he could, the golem asked where he could acquire a kiss. He asked the trees in the Tall Wood, but they do not speak to golems. He asked the wind, but it talks too high and fast for a golem to hear. He asked the stream that ran from the well, which is now just a spring near the brow of this hill, but water is foolish and forgetful, and just laughed at the young golem. Then he asked the stars in the cold, night sky, and they answered.

“’We will help you, little golem, if you will help us,’ they said. Cyssan nodded.

“’One of us has fallen, a daughter of the sky lies cold and fading on your hill. We cannot see her anymore. She who would live forever cannot endure the coming of the sun if it finds her below the sheltering sky. Find her first. Return her to her sisters before the sun rises, and we will grant you your wish.’

“So Cyssan searched the Tall Wood, which was much larger in those days, but he could not find the fallen star. As the night grew old he approached the well, sadness aching his dry, clay bones, and saw the coming of the sun gilding the overhanging leaves. Then Cyssan looked east, where the sky was still blackest velvet, the sun not yet risen. But still the light glimmered on the leaves. Puzzled, the golem looked down the well, and at the bottom, nearly quenched under the cool, clear water, was the star. Cyssan reached in and lifted it out in one lumpen hand.

“The star was sharp and small and breathtakingly beautiful, and her fire was nearly gone. Cyssan knew what he had to do. He drew back his mighty arm and hurled the star as hard as he could, straight up into the sky. The star flashed across the night and rejoined her sisters as the first colours of the rising sun appeared in the east.

“’I have returned your sister to you,” shouted Cyssan. “Will you keep your bargain?’

“’We have,” said the stars, and then the sun came and they hid from its glory.

“Cyssan looked down, and there, in his massive hand was a kiss; sweet as summer and as tender as the dawn.

“Now, a kiss is a powerful thing. If the Bone King had known this, he would have ordered Cyssan not to pursue it, but I think we know by now that the Bone King was blind to many things you and I can see clearly. A kiss is magic from the beginning of the world; some even say the world was begun with a kiss. They are mistaken, although it will certainly end with one, but that is another story. Not this kiss, though. This kiss was pure and perfect and Cyssan ran to Philema, to where she stood standing guard outside the bed chambers of the Bone King.

“Golems cannot smile, for the same reasons they cannot kiss like you or I, but Philema would have when she saw Cyssan run into that long, dark hall, holding the kiss. Philema saw the kiss glittering in the golem’s hand and knew at once what it was.

“As I said, a kiss is a powerful thing, not to be given lightly, but Cyssan had thought long and hard about it, and had no doubt. The golem bowed, ever so slightly, and handed the kiss to Philema, who took it. The kiss sank slowly into her dusty hand, and vanished from sight.

“The Bone King had seen none of this and, even if he had, would he have understood it? I do not know. As it was, Cyssan was surprised and disappointed. He had given the kiss to Philema, and Philema had accepted it gladly, but neither of them felt any different. If anything, they both felt sadder than they had before. What had gone wrong? Were the golems not like the people in the town below? Could no kiss, no matter how powerful, truly affect them in any way? What more could they do?

“They did not go to the Bone King for help, that was for certain. Cyssan had already learned how pointless that was, so they decided themselves what they must do next.

“In the days that followed something happened that puzzled the Bone King. As he wandered with the draughts among the halls of his castle he found a small lump of clay, dry and brittle to the touch, sitting on a table. The next day as he wandered with the restless winds among the boles of the Tall Wood he found another in the fork of a tree. Then another, the next day, and another. Each one was larger than the last, and they seemed to have a common shape, but he could not tell what they were.

“One day, in his wanderings he went to the well and there he saw Cyssan and Philema. They were kneeling down, with a lump of soft clay between them, kneading it and forming it with their large, clumsy fingers. He watched them for a while until, as if he was somehow frustrated – and how could a mere golem feel frustration, thought the Bone King – Cyssan picked up the clay shape and tore it to pieces, flinging the clumps here and there. He watched as both golems left the well together, and returned to the castle. If he had not known any better, he would have said they were sad.

“He should not have been surprised, however, when Cyssan and Philema came to him a week later, as he sat by his high window, thoughts drifting on the lonely night. When they came to him and silently showed him the baby they had fashioned from clay. The tiny clay body, more exact than anything the Bone King had fashioned when he built them, had been dried in the sun and polished with care. Philema held up the clay baby, and then bent towards it, her large, coarse mouth touching the tiny mouth of the clay figure. She made a sound like sandpaper on brick, and the Bone King realised she was attempting to breathe into the figure’s mouth. But golems have no need to breathe and no means to either, and Philema looked at the Bone King, and held the clay baby out to him.

“He knew what the golems wanted, then, and it enraged him. He was the master of life and death, not they. He was the creator, not they. They lived to serve him, as proof of his power and might, and his fury was frightening to behold. He seized the clay figure and dashed it on the flagstones of his castle as lightening flashed in the night sky outside. He forbad them from ever crafting such a figure again and, being golems, they had to obey, whatever the cost.

“But his anger did not end there. Fearful of what the golems might do next, he separated them. Philema stayed within the castle, working always within its walls, while Cyssan remained outside, collecting the gifts from the townspeople. They met only at the castle door, and then only for a moment every day, but it was enough, and that was how it was for many years.

“One night, Philema was standing guard high in the castle, when a star spoke to her.

“’When I fell,’ she said, ‘my sisters gave my saviour his wish; a single kiss. Why do you keep it?’

“Philema was puzzled. ‘I do not have it. The kiss disappeared. It did not work.’

“The star laughed, like glass beads in the wind. ‘A kiss only works if it is returned, my young golem. You must return it in kind.’

“‘But I do not know where it went,’ Philema said despairingly.

“‘It went where all true kisses go. You must want to return it, with all your heart, and then you shall both be free.’

“And Philema knew what the star meant, and looked within herself, and found the kiss exactly where the star had said it would be. She brought it out and there it was, sitting in her massive hand; sweet as rain and fragile as trust.

“‘Now return the kiss, my young golem. Return it,’ said the star, and Philema ran to the castle door where she knew Cyssan would be waiting.

“But the Bone King had overheard the star and the golem talking, and he understood now the ancient magic that would rob him of his priceless servants. Bellowing his rage to the night sky he leapt from the castle tower and landed outside its door as Philema ran towards Cyssan, the kiss held in her outstretched hand.

“A second before they touched the Bone King uttered one dark, fateful word, erasing the magic written on the tablets within the heads of the golems, turning them in an instant back into mindless mud and stone. Back into the two pillars of rock you see behind me.

“The stars were furious. ‘It is not for you to interfere with our gift, Bone King,’ they cried. ‘We do not live and die as you do, and your magic cannot touch us – our gift will not be denied. In ten times a hundred years, the golems will touch. In ten times a hundred years the kiss will be returned, and they will be free of you!’

“The Bone King cursed the stars for their treachery, but his magic could not reach them and eventually he returned to his large, empty castle and closed the door for the last time. No–one in the town ever saw him alive again, and these two pillars of stone have been here ever since, watched over by the stars themselves.”

Shvur smiled and rested his cane across his knees. “So now you know where the old story of the two golems comes from. Two pillars of stone in the woods, ah! As I live and breathe, you are the first children in this clearing for as long as I can remember. Now, promise me, each of you, that when you grow up, you will tell your children the story of the golems, and of the Bone King.”

The children promised, and Shvur sighed. “That is good. Now, it is time to go back.”

The children leapt to their feet and began running around the clearing, and around the two stone columns, their shouts and squeals echoing off the dark cliff–face. Shvur reached into his rucksack and removed a small cloth bundle, tightly wrapped. He placed it on the leaf–litter, and glanced up to see Adam looking at him.

“Go now, young man. Take your brothers and sisters home. I will remain here a while, rest these old legs.”

“Grandfather, what happened to the Bone King?”

“Some say he vanished when his castle sank back into the rock, and he died along with it. Fewer say he found wisdom at last, and abandoned his magic. Hardly any say he learned to regret what he had done, and resolved to live long enough to see it undone. Now, go. Follow the stream we came up, you’ll find the path soon enough.”

Adam called to his brothers and sisters, turned to go and then hesitated. “What’s in that bundle, grandfather?”

Shvur smiled, and his eyes were sad and full of wonder. “Something I broke, a long time ago. Something I’ve been saving my last breath for. Farewell, Adam. Remember the story I told you.”

“Farewell, grandfather.”

Adam led the children back down into the gorge, and left the Tall Wood for the last time.

In the clearing on the hill above, another tremor in the earth sent the tall trees creaking. Dust trickled from the two stone pillars, and one seemed to sway. Abel Shvur sat back, the fragile bundle in his old arms, and waited for the golems to touch.

THE END

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