The Tale of Canu Baraksson

I have seen great wonders in my time, marvelous occurences to thrill the heart and soul or to drive one mad. I have seen the joy reflected from the face of the Mother, Siberlee, as she gazed for the first time upon her newborn child. I have glimpsed the heavens of the gods, and seen the Fathers driven from its grandeur. If truth be told, I perished as a reult of that eviction. I live on now, if life it may be rightly called, thanks to the offices of the Lord Barak, Father of Darkness. Though there is pain in this, my existence, I cannot be other than grateful to him. When all is said and done, he is my father. They call me Canu Baraksson.

My natal day fell upon the 30th of Moroven in the year 649. My mother, Carolyneesa, was of humankind, a widow woman or so she claimed. She never once that I can recall spoke of my missing father other that to say that he was the most powerful man she had ever known, that he was gone now, and that it made her sad to think about him. At times I mused that thinking about anything made her sad; she was one of those seemingly not made for thought. She did, however, teach me my notes and how to play competently upon the lute. How was she to know, or I for that matter, that it would be both my fortune and my doom?

One day passed much like another in my youth. My mother and I would rise early each morning, eat a hasty breakfast, then leave the house; she to work in the fields and me to stand upon street corners, playing and singing for a few coppers. Sometimes the take was quite respectable (once a fat merchant, pleased with my tunes, magnanimously tossed a silver into my hat); other times the money came to but a miserly pittance. Still I was proud to be able to contribute to the household funds, and not act the layabout like some others of the young men my age in the village. At day's end we would return home to share the evening meal before retiring to our straw pallets to sleep.

It was in my 16th season that the world as I knew it changed forever. My mother was just removing our empty bowls from the table when there came a thunderous knocking at the door. We looked at one another, half fearfully as we were hardly expecting guests at this hour. Finally I arose and tiptoed across the room to the window. I drew back the curtain and peered out, trying to ascertain the identity of the person at the door, but the night was too dark and I could see nothing. Suddenly, with a splintering sound, the door burst inward, and a strange towering figure strode into the house. It was caparisoned all in black, cloaked, its face invisible beneath a hood.

My mother stared at the stranger and began to sob softly. The man, if man it was, ignored her, turning to me.

"In the name of Barak, boy," the stranger spoke, its voice a harsh metallic whisper. "Pack what belongings you have and come with me immediately. Your father wants you."

My mother gave a short shriek and crumpled in a heap upon the floor. I tried to argue that my father was dead, that my mother needed my help, but my pleas feel on deaf ears. Almost before I knew what was happening I was being escorted, not especially gently or respectfully, down the cobbled street, a small bundle in my hand containing all my worldly possessions. I never saw my mother again.

The night was black as any cavern and the path we traveled twisted and turned until I had lost all sense of where we might be. My guide or guard, whichever was its role, refused all attempts at conversation and would answer no questions. "Your father, when you see him, will make all plain," was all that it would say, and with that I was forced to be content.

At length we entered a certain street, a cul de sac. The dark figure,
still clutching tightly my left arm, approached a wall, barren of any opening so far as I could see. Raising its other arm, it slowly and purposefully sketched a set of arcane symbols that seemed to hang in the night air, emitting a faint greenish radiance. Then it spoke strange words, not in the Common tongue, which I could not understand. As if in answer, there came a deep rumbling sound, seeming to emanate from the very wall before us, and a dim outline appeared on the wall's surface. This proved in a few moments' time to be a doorway, and the figure stepped back a pace and motioned that I should enter. Fearfully, I did so.

Still to come: The meeting between Father and son. Baraksson is set upon the path of a Disciple. His attempts to soothe his Father's pain over the loss of Siberlee. Involvement in the great war between the Mothers and Fathers. The accident through which Baraksson falls from the heavens when the Fathers are ejected, and how Barak refuses to let him die, making him Undead. Sorting of loose ends.