The Rose's Garden and the Sea Read online

The Rose’s Garden and the Sea

  the first in The Rose’s Garden and the Sea series

  by Jackie McCarthy

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  Copyright 2013 Jaclyn McCarthy

  This ebook is licensed for personal use only. This ebook may be reproduced, copied, or distributed for any non-commercial purposes, or commercial purposes with the permission of the author. Thank you for your support.

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  Dedication

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  To my mom for her questions. To Chad for his ideas.

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  Prologue:

  The Rose’s Garden

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  Everyone in the office of Krevlin & Nobbs agreed that Mr. E.B. Cree was an odd sort of fellow. He never spoke (or at least no one could remember him speaking). They supposed, as an accountant, he didn’t really have to. He was the kind of person who could be utterly forgotten, if not for one strange behavior. Every afternoon, like clockwork, Mr. E.B. Cree set down his pencil, pushed his ledger to the side, took up his coat and hat, and left the office for one hour.

  The bosses had told Mr. Cree several times that he ought to stay put. There was no such thing as a ‘lunch hour’ at Krevlin and Nobbs, you see. At these times, Mr. Cree answered with a nod and a smile, and then proceeded to go out anyway. Ultimately, his co-workers could find no cause to complain of Mr. Cree’s daily absences, since his work was always both impeccable and on time (which they could not say of themselves).

  Few believed there was a thing in the world for which Mr. Cree felt passion or excitement. People are, on a whole, fairly small-minded that way. When Mr. E.B. Cree left the office, I will have you know, he was going in search of a story.

  When an Illian is in want of a tale, there is only one place he need try: a maze of lanes and courtyards nestled beneath the soaring towers of the Old Palace, called The Rose’s Garden. So it is that every day, Mr. Cree saunters under the park’s wrought iron gate—a pair of eagles holding a bridge of entwined thorny roses—and chooses one of the winding paths on which to go a-walking.

  Selecting a path in the Rose’s Garden is much like choosing a book from a shelf. Like a book, each winding lane contains its own distinct collection of stories. If he turns to the right, for instance, Mr. Cree might find himself swept into a pirate’s battle at sea—if he turns to the left, he may come to rest under the generous gaze of a gleaming goddess. More often than not, however, Mr. E.B. Cree finds himself choosing the path that bends slightly to the north and slightly to the west, known to such frequent ramblers as “The Lover’s Walk.”

  To the first-time visitor, a trail in The Rose’s Garden may seem like any other park’s path. It is, after all, little more than a rough cobbled lane containing a set of well-crafted statues, each meant to depict a hero of Illian Legend. What makes The Rose’s Garden special, however, is the dedicated society of storytellers that bring each statue to life. All Mr. Cree need do in his search for a tale is wend his way through the saga-stitchers and the myth-mongers, the tale-crafters and the wordsmiths, the stuttering re-hashers and the fable-forging masters, until he finds just the right story to fit his mood.

  First on this path is a bronze figure of the rakish Gallidore who watches over a tiered courtyard of shaded benches and swings. He is, as Mr. Cree knows well, the earthly representation of adventurous young love. It is here that couples flock to be lost in their own worlds of adoration. They entwine their fingers beneath the chirping birds and listen to the winking wordsmith, who strums a small harp and recites softly:

  “Ah, Gallidore, so lovely and so loved—the legendary lover of a thousand beautiful women. ‘A thousand,’ you say? ‘How can you talk of love? That is mere lust!’ To this I say only, ‘how small of you!’ When your heart is pure, dear children, your love is boundless. Each of Gallidore’s lovers was as precious to him as his own self, and he as precious to them.”

  Mr. E.B. Cree waves fondly at the wordsmith as he passes, since he is too old to find tales of Gallidore as titillating as they once were. He comes next upon the Pavilion of Courtivon, the storytelling center of the known world. It is here that poets and prophets gather under the protection of the scholarly Courtivon, now a marble masterpiece with arms outstretched. With one open palm he gathers knowledge from the stars, and with the other he extends this wisdom to the scholars below.

  “Words, words,” begins a particularly ancient bard, his back bent by a long, full life. Mr. Cree hears a murmur of excited shushing as the crowd of minstrels grows reverently silent. “Were there ever such intangible, unintelligible things as words? And yet, were there ever things more powerful or lasting? Some men may scoff at us—we who give our lives to words, but has not our mentor—this brilliant man memorialized in stone—proven time and again that a well-placed word may cause the heavens to weep and the earth to tremble?”

  Mr. E.B. Cree, more of a listener than a storyteller, continues on his way, and he soon enters the thickly walled and overgrown hollow of Old Ben Cripple. Old Ben’s hunchbacked stone carving depicts the ghoul of vengeance, the protector of silent mourning. Out of respect for the dead, it is here and here alone that storytellers are not allowed. Despite frequenting this path, Mr. Cree is always unnerved by the silence that so quickly falls upon the hollow. It is a place for those who have lost—for widows and for widowers, for children who have lost their parents and for parents who have lost their children, for any and all who feel the that the spirits of Death and Destruction have done them a great wrong. The Losts, as they’re called, feed themselves on Old Ben’s vengeful grief, recalling the countless ghost stories in which Old Ben is called from beyond the grave to claim vengeance on a death or injury wrongly dealt.

  At Old Ben’s feet, however, there is proof that not all respect the storytelling ban. Beneath the deeply hooded figure molders the ash of a thousand campfires, stretching back through the ages and rebuilt many a night by the naughty children of Illiam. The young boys and girls watch each darting shadow with trepidation, endeavoring to frighten their friends and siblings into fits of screaming, thus appearing fearless in comparison. Mr. Cree, for his part, still believed in ghosts, and so he hurries past on the path, his head bent low in respect.

  At some point the eeriness of Old Ben’s hollow wears off, and Mr. Cree finds himself in the wide and abstract memorial to the Spy of the Pharuses. There is no sculpture here in the shape of a man, only a complex composition of shape and air. The spy’s face is everywhere and nowhere at the same time—to be seen for what it is only by the unsuspecting observer out of the corner of his eye.

  As Mr. Cree approaches, he hears the roaring laughter of a jolly myth-monger who has gathered to him a group of cheerful listeners. “And that is how,” he orates, coming to the end of his tale, “moving silently as an apparition, the Spy of the Pharuses lifted the royal crown from the King’s own head without being caught! He continued to hide from all who sought him, even from Death. There are some who insist that he remains alive to this day.”

  Mr. Cree walks on, passing this and dozens of other heroic statues with increasing urgency. Before long, we are left with no doubt as to his destination. Like so many before him, Mr. Cree seeks the story of Illaimna’s most beloved hero and the park’s namesake: the sailor Benson Rose.

  As he moves further into the park, the cobbled path grows wider and the towering tunnel of tree branches opens dramatically to a brilliant sky and sprawling green. At the center, sparkling in sunlight, is an enormous bronze ship shaped like an eagle in flight. It is a fountain upon which sits, larger than life and caught heroically mid-stride, the equally brilliant figure of Benson Rose.

  Though he has seen it countless times,
Mr. Cree’s breath catches. His heart beats faster and his smile grows wide. Something—a thing very deep and primal—celebrates his coming home.

  Mr. Cree sits among the picnicking young mothers and fathers and watches the adventurous children who climb and swing upon the ship’s decorative ropes, acting out scenes of adventurers and Kings. A nearby mother, with passion if not polish, begins the tale:

  “Benson Rose was a brave sailor who saved the world in its darkest days,” she informs her small son. “Eat your lunch and I will tell you. Once upon a time…”

  Mr. Cree smiles at the boy who, with an envious eye on the older children at play, gums despondently at an apple slice. It is a difficult thing, Mr. Cree knows, to be kept from the game. He can remember many such a sunny afternoon with his own young mother. She had loved to tell him that he, Elias Benson Cree, was named after the strident bronze hero before him, and he had loved to hear it.

  Mr. Cree closes his eyes and listens to the woman’s story, happy to have found what he came here for.

  We shall leave Mr. Cree to his tale and go along our own path now. We too shall head towards the figure of Benson Rose, but ours is not a garden path full of statues. Instead, we shall traverse the trails of time and find the source of legends among men. I am a historian, you see—a distant cousin of storytellers—and I believe the truth to be every bit as compelling as fictions.

  All legends are, in their own way, based on true events. Fame and notoriety come from the fulfilling of a need—the desire to be entertained, scandalized, taught, or even saved. So it is that some people pass through life unrecorded and others live on forever in our memories. There is a use, through the generations, for tales of a ghost that frighten us into being kind and for sagas of a sailor that show us to be stalwart and strong. There is also use for legends that jump from the written pages and inspire a nation to act.

  It is easy to find mention in historical documents of our favorite heroes. Benson Rose is mentioned with great regularity, Courtivon’s poems fill entire library shelves, Gallidore was the source of anxiety in many new husbands’ journals, and the pirate Black Roses left his treasure to the state. There is, however, one person—one name—who is only to be found if one knows where to look.

  The name belongs to an individual without whom we would have no Rose’s Garden—without whom we would be less a beloved poet, and deprived of our steadfast sailor. It is the name of the person who helped create all these masks.

  We’ll pause here for a moment. It is enough of a stretch to consider what each of our heroes must have been like in life, but it is quite another to think that they may have been different facets of the same person. What kind of creature would he have been, after all, to be the origin of so many legends? What kind of soul could be both lover and ghoul, poet and warrior, hero and pirate? How is it that all these things were contained within one man?

  Well that is simple: he was a woman. Her name was Rose.

  *

  Benson Rose and the Man of the Mountain

  The Book of Magical Histories

  Volume 1, 91st Edition

  By Marrie Loo Jonh

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  Once upon a time, in the barren, rocky province of Kentshore, there lived a fisherman and his wife. The fisherman had seven children who all worked happily day after day catching fish and tending their gardens. All, that is, except for the youngest son, named Benson Rose, who longed for a life of adventure.

  Not a day that would pass in the small fishing village when Benson Rose was not at the center of one problem or another. The other fisherman would shake their heads, smiling wryly as their neighbors tripped over his forgotten crook or found themselves beneath an overturned bucket of fish bones. Sometimes these pranks were done on purpose, but more often they were the result of a distant, daydreaming mind.

  Though generally well liked, Benson Rose and his carelessness put an undeniable strain on the villagers. His many inadvertent victims gathered in discussion, seeking a kind but reliable way to be rid of him from time to time. It was suggested that Benson Rose take over the task of herding the family’s two goats into the mountains to graze, which would take him from town for weeks at a time. All were agreed.

  For many years Benson Rose attended happily to this chore, disappearing into the craggy hills. Not only were these outings a chance for the villagers to go about their lives without concern, it was also a time for Benson Rose to let his thoughts venture far and wide, unencumbered by such troublesome things as “trying to behave.” While he wandered, he pulled many worlds from his imagination—worlds of dragons and crowns, wizards and knights, sea serpents and pirates. He contemplated other lives not yet lived, other lands not yet tread upon, other dreams not yet dreamed. As he grew older, there was one musing he returned to again and again: the fantasy that he was the captain of a great sailing ship.

  One fateful day, Benson Rose crested a hill and saw a plume of smoke in the distance. It snaked menacingly into the sky, marking the place he knew his village to be. From a distance he could see, amidst burning fishing boats, a dark sailing ship sitting in the river. Leaving his goats, Benson Rose rushed home.

  In his absence, the bustling fishing village had been reduced to ashes. His family hut was a pile of cinders and his father’s stately fishing boat was a charred wooden skeleton in the water. The dark ship was gone. Benson Rose saw other horrors as soot rained from the sky, things of which we will not speak—things he himself blocked from his memory for many years—but he did not see his family. Assuming the worst in his wild grief, he fled.

  For forty long nights, Benson Rose wandered over the craggy hills, lost in the deepest despair. He neither ate nor drank, but placed one foot desperately in front of the other. When his shoes fell apart, he discarded them and walked on. When his feet bled too badly to take another step, he crawled. By the time Benson Rose realized that he wanted to live, there was no food or water to be found in the canyon interior of Kentshore. He felt that his life must surely be over.

  On the forty-first night, being more tired and hungry than he had ever been, Benson Rose collapsed on a thorny bed of stout mountain roses. The roses belonged to a garden, the garden to a house, and the house to The Man of the Mountain.

  The hermit lifted Benson Rose from his thorny bed and brought the starved figure inside his modest hut. He fed the boy on Shadowroot and Pickleberries and cleaned his bloody feet, slowly returning the boy to health. Before long, the two became friends. Benson Rose helped the old man with his chores and they shared many late night conversations.

  One night, Benson Rose felt strong enough to speak of his family for the first time. He spoke of them with some difficulty and much regret, berating himself for having been absent in their time of need. He spoke of his brave brothers and sweet sisters, and of his ever-patient parents, now gone.

  The Man of the Mountain, who had been waiting for this moment, held up a finger. Benson Rose grew silent and watched as the hermit produced a small, simple box. The box was placed in his lap and he was told to open it. Inside was a large pile of sparkling gold coins.

  “You have been a great friend to me these past months, and now I want to give you a gift,” said the Hermit. “But I am a man of magic and magic must always come with a choice, so I must offer two gifts of which you may have only one. I will either give you this magic box, which, though overflowing now with gold, will fill itself each time it is opened with the thing you need most, or I will point you in the direction of your family, though I can give no guarantee that you will find them.”

  “Old man, I worry about your hearing,” said Benson Rose, assuming the Hermit had made a mistake. “Or I fear that you would point me to the underworld, where I am not ready to go. My family is dead.”

  “Don’t offend my hearing or intentions when it is your young head that is at fault,” chided the Hermit, knocking on the boy’s skull. “I say they are alive.”

  “But how can that be?” asked an unbelieving Benson R
ose.

  “They were taken captive and are far away. That is all I can tell you,” the Man of the Mountain offered. “And so this is your choice: if you take the box, you and your children will live forever as kings, but you will never know what became of your father and brothers; or, as I said before, I will point you in the direction of your family. It is, I suppose, the choice between choosing your fate and letting your fate choose you.”

  “You say that magic requires a choice,” said Benson Rose kindly. “But if it’s true that my family still lives, you must understand, there is no choice at all. Please, my friend, where can I find them?”

  The Man of the Mountain smiled broadly at the young man’s generous wisdom. He stood and walked outside where he began to gather small branches and brush from the ground, which he bent and braided until they formed a small but sturdy raft. The Hermit sat all that night speaking spells over his work. In the morning, he turned again to Benson Rose.

  “You have a great destiny. If you remain true, it will lead you to the ones you love,” the Hermit said. “And if you trust in this truth, my raft cannot help taking you there. Still”—he held up a warning finger—“magic always comes with a choice. I will give you my enchanted box to carry. If ever you believe the path too difficult or the future too uncertain, it will save you from all pain and poverty, if only you so choose.”

  Benson Rose, placing the raft in the steady river current and stepping aboard, accepted the box and vowed never to open it. From the moment he touched it, however, the box began to work its magic upon him. Benson Rose pushed away from the riverbank and began to float downstream before realizing that he still had questions for his friend the hermit.

  “How will I know if I have found my destiny?” he called, turning back as the current carried him away.

  “It will ride towards you on eagle’s wings!” responded the Man of the Mountain.

  Benson Rose turned again to thank his benefactor, but the hermit and his hut had already turned back into a craggy cliff.

  For forty days, Benson Rose sat on his small raft as the current carried him down the river and out upon the sea. He neither ate nor drank, but pushed one oar and then the other. When his hands bled, he tied the oars to his arms. When the oars broke, he kicked at the water with his feet.