One-Minute Epics are poetic micro tales from John Klobucher’s Lore of the Underlings, a lyrical fantasy-fiction world. Please enjoy this installment…

Lam’s Song

Jury stood watch at the edge of a lonely outpost, far from the heart of Nord. It was midnight but lit by a full blue moon that turned the nearby forest into a netherworld, dancing with shadowed things that came to life at the slightest wind. He was dead on his feet, having paced the same stretch for days. He fought back an epic yawn.

But then he heard something, a noise from the blue, and Jury drew his pike. “Who goes there?!” He heard it again, this time more clearly — a voice… a voice he thought he knew. “But it can’t be.”

Lam Lan called his name.

Jury squinted and listened harder. “This is a trick or some kind of witchcraft,” he muttered. “It’s been seventeen years…”

“Dearest,” she beckoned him. He couldn’t help but harken. Soon he was in the woods.

“Show yourself,” Jury cried from an ancient grove of pynes and swaying swillows. He sensed that something was watching him, like a hawk, and somehow he’d lost his weapon. But then an angel appeared amidst the trees — and all was well again.

She whispered softly the same way his long lost love had the day the specter took her. Yet it was her visage that left Jury stricken, too dumbstruck to understand her words. Those eyes, the shiny black hair, her mischievous smile — the memories flooded his mind like honey wine. Jury was good as drunk by the time the siren started singing.

She sang him a love song he could not resist, the music of his dreams.

We’ll be wed by the evening star
One someday when
The end of time is near
And skylarks sing our names
Till moonfall
Till forever dawns…

Jury awoke with the morning sun in a soft bed of lillylorn, all but naked. The vision was gone, his only companion a songbird. It chirped a familiar tune.

And he wondered. Was she an echo or a prophecy?

He would soon find out.

One-Minute Epics are poetic micro tales from John Klobucher’s Lore of the Underlings, a lyrical fantasy-fiction world. Please enjoy this installment…

Children’s Day

It had become an annual ritual, one special day on the Ides of Lune when Lord Plesh summoned the children of Nord to gather and celebrate his reign. This was the thirteenth by most counts and in honor a vast new parade ground had been cleared in the Underland’s very heart, denuding the wood beneath the Pendant. That specter, the coming of which had set the Governor’s rise to power in motion, loomed above it still like an alien moon. The tribute was meant to mock it.

Today a throng of thousands strong encircled the sunbaked site like a restless sea, some having waited weeks or more. At last they had something to cheer for. The younglings, the wee ones, marched in with songs on their lips and flowers in their hair. They waved and bowed and the crowd ooed back adoringly, as if graced by angels.

That’s when the Lord himself appeared — from out of nowhere. And he spoke.

“Welcome!” gestured the dark-robed man, “You honor me, Underlings, with your presence. Yes…” The multitude rose in a great ovation. “Ah,” he drank it in. “Women, men, and tender spawn of Nord, I treasure this adulation and more so your subjugation to our cause — the end of this phantom menace.” The Governor shook his fist at the sky while the celebrants fell to their knees before him. “The heavens shall be ours again, this home world purged of the specter’s agents, I promise — my Legion will see to that…”

Then Lord Plesh suddenly paused a moment. “But this is a day meant for child’s play,” he laughed. “Let the festivities begin!”

On cue, a column of captives in chains was led out onto the plain by guardsmen with whips, the Governor’s own Grim Stormtroopers, who were known to show no mercy. The prisoners, all from the Wide Eyed cult, were skin and bone — they barely looked human. Those too weak to walk were dragged by the Grims. The cherubs danced out to greet them and showered the chain gang with petals of lillylorn white as snow. The crowd was enchanted.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” somebody swooned. “Precious, just precious,” another one gushed.

Then the younglings, wielding child-size gutting knives, gored and quartered their Wide Eyed guests.

“We’ve taught our children well,” the proud Lord nodded. “Treat them all to sweets.”

One-Minute Epics are poetic micro tales from John Klobucher’s Lore of the Underlings, a lyrical fantasy-fiction world. Please enjoy this installment…

Grimhaven

To say that Jury and Morio were not the finest foot soldiers in the Nord Lord’s dreaded Legion would be an understatement of epic proportions. And yet they were given a plum assignment — to take a special cargo by ox cart to the Governor’s secret retreat, Grimhaven. They’d heard it was a place of wonder, a palace with spires that rose to the sky and fountains that flowed with sweet red wine. So neither one could wait to see it.

“It’s said there are gardens beyond your wildest dreams,” chirped Jury, who steered the oxen.

Morio studied a map. “We must be near! I hope they serve refreshments…”

They came to a great stone arch and passed under it, leaving the highway to follow a winding road that climbed through a wood to a wide plateau where something used to be. Now it was barren except for a gash in the ground where the long lane seemed to continue. So they headed down below deep into the shadows and stopped at two huge doors.

“Hello!” sang Morio. “Anyone home?”

Jury knocked three times. The doors opened.

They entered and found themselves in an underground chamber as vast as the sky itself. In the distance churned a crimson ocean beyond which loomed a castle with towers like spikes that stabbed at the pregnant storm clouds above them. It thundered and started to rain. But it was not a rain like any they’d seen. “It’s red,” said Jury. “Blood.”

Just then the doors slammed shut behind them.

Morio shrugged, “I’m sure there’s an explanation… Ah! Here’s someone now.” And he waved to the tall cloaked figure gliding toward them. “Where should we unload?” The figure howled and pointed down the road. “Much obliged,” Jury shuddered.

The ox cart creaked up a rocky slope that was strewn with bones and shards of brimstone. It made for a bumpy ride, upsetting their cargo, which thumped around behind. But they crested the hill nonetheless to discover a freshly plowed farm field ready for sowing.

Somehow the same dark figure awaited them there. “Plant here!” it shrieked like a banshee.

Jury shielded his mouth with the blade of his hand. “Must mean what’s in the wagon,” he whispered, “plumpkin seeds or something.” Morio cheered, “I do fancy farming; I’d say that things are looking up!”

So they broke the locks on the ox cart’s tailgate and out rolled its load of unmarked blackwood casks. One hit a brimstone boulder and spilled its contents on the soil. It was a pile of something unthinkable. “Are those really… hearts?” gasped Jury. Morio nodded, “And they’re still beating.”

“Plant them!” ordered the angry wraith. Jury and Morio had no choice.

They dutifully buried the hearts in thirteen rows. “Whatever they’re trying to grow,” muttered Jury, “they won’t need scarecrows here.” Morio wiped the blood from his hands. “That’s the last of them,” he announced to the howler — but it was nowhere to be found. Jury jumped up. “Looks like our friend is gone. Hurry, let’s get going!”

They ran for an adjacent sea of beanstalks, which stretched back toward the giant doors. But what really lurked there was a sight beyond their wildest nightmares. “These aren’t peapods, are they,” Morio stared. “No, man, they’re pods of men… warriors by the looks of them,” blinked Jury, inspecting a big ripe pair.

Just then a hand poked out of the closest husk and clawed at the dumbstruck chums. They didn’t look back as they raced for the exit but Grimhaven’s bloody reign had come.

One-Minute Epics are poetic micro tales from John Klobucher’s Lore of the Underlings, a lyrical fantasy-fiction world. Please enjoy this installment…

The Underlore

Shosha the young scribe boy looked puzzled. He’d been practicing runes on the dungeon’s dirt floor for hours as all beginners did, but this shape was odd; he’d not seen it before. It was simple yet hurt his hand to draw and made him drop his wooden stylus. “Master,” he asked of the gaunt monk sitting nearby, “what is it?” His fingers burned.

“Ah!” said the sallow-skinned man, not needing to look, “You’ve met the devil’s mark, I see.” He stood. “It’s the same for every apprentice. You’ll learn to take the pain.” The bald monk pushed back the hood of his thick, brown robe. “Let’s check your progress, boy.”

A cluster of candles lit the dim dank room, which washed it in muted gold. The monk inspected Shosha’s work and nodded, “Faithfully done — not bad. Just mind your cusps on lunar runes like this one.” He gestured with his hand.

The boy beamed. “Thank you, Master Garn, but…”

“Yes, lad?”

“May I ask a question?”

“Surely.”

Shosha glanced at the parchment he’d copied his text from. “What does it say?”

The cleric stepped to the scroll unfurled on the table and kissed it solemnly. “This, my son, is the vow of our Order, a pledge to the black-eyed Woman of the Wood, which you shall take one day. It’s written in secret language like her prophecies, full of rhyme and riddle. We guard those songs with our mortal lives to keep their verses safe and pure — for there comes a time when they’ll be needed…”

Shosha was curious. “What did this seer foretell?” His deep brown eyes were wide.

A shadow crossed the monk’s long face. “A future world that’s come to be called the Underlore; pray you’re dead by then. For a great black bird shall block the sun while a Dark Lord rules the lands below it. And heroes yet unborn must give their souls, or join the living dead.”

“Oh!” said the boy scribe, awed by what he’d heard. “But how do we know it’s so?”

Brother Garn opened an ancient, dusty tome. “Let me show you something.” He ran his finger down the page then tapped three times with its yellowed nail. “This list predicts the keepers of Anak’s prophecies. Tell me, what do you see?”

The pupil looked and blinked his eyes. “It’s my name, Shosha. When was this written?”

The monk smiled. “A thousand years ago.”

One-Minute Epics are poetic micro tales from John Klobucher’s Lore of the Underlings, a lyrical fantasy-fiction world. Please enjoy this installment…

Anak the Prophet

In an age before the written rune when the lands of the world had names now forgotten and empires rose or fell at the magi’s whim, a girl named Anak lived. She and her sisters, all bronze-skinned and blond, were water maids for their family’s village of shepherds. They climbed the hill each day to fill their jugs at the sacred well.

But one fair morn as they frolicked and sang by the headspring, the sisters three were beset by monsters, bear-wolves from the wild with fangs like daggers and claws like scythes. The older two, Lanak and Pran, both bravely fought the beasts to spare sweet Anak. “Run love! Don’t look back!” they cried. So Anak ran till she was lost.

She found herself on the edge of a deep dark wood, which beckoned her to enter. “Girl,” it whispered gently, “we’ll protect you…” And innocent Anak believed it. She followed the voice to an opening in the trees and vanished out of sight.

A thousand suns rose, shrouded in clouds, without her. A thousand blue moons set.

Then one day as Pran, the sole survivor, mourned for her sisters and scars by the spring, Anak appeared on the hilltop strangely changed, her green eyes turned to black. The siblings embraced. Anak’s touch was magic and healed Pran’s deepest wounds. Then together they went to Lanak’s tomb with holy water and brought her back. The villagers fell to their knees and kissed the ground the risen sisters walked.

Before long the song of Anak spread far and wide, beyond the hill folk’s world, and multitudes set out seeking the black-eyed witch, their hearts set on hope, gold, or vengeance. Though her hamlet was so remote that none could find it — till a warlock did.

The jealous Wizard upon the Mountain came down with darkness on his mind and a staff full of spells he planned to use on Anak, his rival sorceress. He set the village afire. “Surrender the girl!” he roared as people ran.

Anak beckoned from high on the hill to draw him away from her sisters and kin. Then she fled back to the dark wood, the source of her power. The sorcerer caught her there. The trees shielded Anak from view, still the conjurer sensed her, “No use hiding, child. Show yourself and I’ll spare your precious folk. I promise that death will be painless.”

But Anak stayed concealed and the wind sent her answer on a summer breeze. “Great wizard, I don’t deserve such a generous offer. I have a gift for you too.” And suddenly music filled the air.

She sang of things to come in the voice of an angel, for prophecy was his weakness. The wizard stood enchanted until she was done. He begged for another one, “Please…” The voice from the forest laughed, “Of course. Tomorrow. When the sun rests in the west.” So the warlock sat to wait, under the spell of Anak the Prophet.

Some say the wizard wasted away to nothing but a cold gray mist that lingered by the wood each evening waiting for the siren’s song. But the songstress was long, long gone — a black-eyed ghost who frolics still with her sisters high on a moonlit hill by a spring.