Land of Bone

Rachel Rozelle

 

Across the vast turquoise sea perched on the edge of the world, a city clung to a white cliff face. The houses were a mixture, some whitewashed and some carved into cool cavernous rock. They climbed all the way up the cliff, and at the very top stood a perfectly round house, distinct from all the rest. In the house lived a powerful witch named Agrona. She was the only witch in the village, and tonight, while everyone was asleep, she was standing in her tower, listening to the whispers of the wind, and the wind was telling her of a great storm, turning the calm turquoise ocean black and tumultuous. The white village had no contact with anyone off the island, and though there were ancient tales of outsiders, they were nothing but legends. The wind warned the witch of a storm which brought a scaly monstrous beast that attacked the village once every generation, and it was the witch’s purpose to protect the people. As the sea serpent drew closer, Agrona could feel her power growing stronger. Usually, her purpose on the island was to cast small healing spells, put charms on boats to make sure they were always watertight and had wind in their sails, and coax crops and livestock to grow fast and strong. But now she served a much greater purpose, one for which she had been preparing her whole life. Ever since Agrona was little, she had been groomed by the resident witch before her to take her place as the witch of the island and one day defeat the serpent. Agrona was a young witch still, so she had yet to meet her eventual replacement, but she knew there would be a little girl, different from the rest, who would begin to show her powers, and Agrona would teach her everything she knew.

She stood outside her house facing the North, the wind blowing her long, dark hair and black robe into a frenzy, but her expression was perfectly frozen in icy determination. The sea serpent was coming, and it brought a great storm. It was her destiny to fight the sea serpent in order to save every single man, woman, child, and animal on the island, lest it be returned to the ocean from whence it came. Agrona was ready.

With the townspeople safe in their houses, shutters tightly closed and doors locked, Agrona walked down the smooth, white stone steps that led from the top of the island to the white rocky and sandy beach. She took a deep breath of the crisp, salty ocean air, the smell all at once familiar and strange, and took a step into the sea. Icy waves throbbed against her ankles, soaking the hem of her robe, but instead of growing colder and weaker, she drew power from the water, and it bubbled up inside her, yearning to be used. Filling her lungs with sea air one more time, she sang a simple octatonic melody in the old tongue, the Call of the Sea Serpent. No one in memory had sung this song, as it would summon the most feared beast, but Agrona had memorized it from the ancient book that was passed down to every witch of the island. She had sung this song in her head every day and every night since she began training to be a witch, so when she sang it with her feet in the ocean, her voice rang loud and clear, each note the piercing ring of a bell. The sea serpent had been summoned.

Underneath shiny black scales, hard muscles contracted and expanded as the serpent swam lithely towards the island. The beast burst from the black depths of the sea, its head the size of a white cliff house, the water white and frothing around its body. Agrona, tiny against the serpent’s looming figure, did not flinch. In a voice as old and cracked as time and as deep as the ocean, the serpent sang in the old tongue,

“In the Land of Bone there stands a mountain,
One thousand miles in the air.
From edge to edge, this mountain measures
One thousand miles square.

A little bird comes winging
Once in every million years,
Sharpens his beak on the mountain,
And swiftly disappears.

Thus when this mountain was worn away,
This to eternity will be one single day[1].”

His voice made waves radiate from where he stood. Agrona answered in like, singing in the old tongue.

“This to eternity will be one single day,
But the people of the Land of Bone did not stray
From chalk they came, and from chalk died,
Never fleeing from the pulsing tide.
With the white witch’s song
They feared nothing wrong.”

Her voice cut through the air like a knife, delicate yet strong like a spider’s web. In an instant the serpent’s eyes burned bright as fire, and a great heat coursed through its body, steam rising from the murky sea. A steely warmth, like the alcohol made from the tough island plants, came over Agrona, and a vibrating sensation stemming from the ocean crept up her robes and into her chest, and she was momentarily stunned until she realized it was the serpent singing, its voice so low it sent waves coursing through the water. The serpent replied to the witch’s song,

“When thus the mountain is worn away,
The Land of Bone will soon decay.
Island people will be returned to the ocean,
Setting the tides of time back in motion.”

Agrona sang,

“The Land of Bone harbors a secret,
A dormant volcano lies in its summit.
The mountain grows every year,
Quelling the islander’s fear.

Your eternal prophecy will never ring true
The mountain will never wear through.”

The serpent lowered its heinous head so it was eye to eye with the witch, and barred its teeth. Each black fang was as long as she was tall, as if carved from obsidian, and she could see her full reflection, like a shadow in the sea at night. It ran its purple black tongue over its teeth, straightened its neck, and then suddenly bowed its gigantic head in a sign of deep respect. Without another word, the serpent turned and in a terrible but beautiful movement, dove back into the sea from whence it came.

Turning on her heel, Agrona waded through the water back to the shore, and as she did so, the water turned from murky and dark to clear and turquoise and the sky that sat like a bowl over the island became deep blue and devoid of rain-filled clouds. The people of the Land of Bone unshuttered their windows, opened their doors, and went about their daily lives once more, and Agrona laid herself on the white beach and let the hot sun dry her dripping robes. Tomorrow, she would seek out the new witch that would keep the island safe for the next generation.

 

[1] Grimm, Jacob, Wilhelm Grimm, Edgar Lucas, Lucy Crane, Marian Edwardes, and Fritz Kredel. Grimms’ Fairy Tales. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1945. Print. From “The Shepherd Boy.”

 

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