Beelie’s Tear

In the deepest recesses of a golden forest where none of the world’s malice had yet to trespass, songs of celebration rang pure between trees of old. For decades the wood had gone without mirth as the realms fell to the scorn of Muurekelle, the Black Flame. But now, on a day where the sun was given leave from the expanse of infinite grey, the tiny race of wide-eyed Yupketeps sang proudly, preparing the final component of their summoning ritual. This day would herald the beginning of change, where a hero of unspoken virtue may offer the broken denizens of this world a fraction of hope. 

It was Beelie who stepped forward to offer the remaining piece of the ritual, a frozen tear scraped from the goddess Eiris, whose body remained in the high mountains of a distant realm, betrayed and slain by her brother Yuleg. So pure was her heartache that it persisted in death, her tears an endless reminder of shattered bonds.

A hole had been dug at the center of their mushroom village, its threshold outlined by glint stones. Beelie now stood before it, surrounded by both the villagers and the party of seekers who ventured with him to reclaim the tear. And after so long, with the tear resting large in his tiny hands, it somehow felt wrong to discard it after carrying it home for such a time.

But the eager faces of his kin dispelled this anxious attachment. They were ready for their hero to arrive. And so was he.

Beelie spoke the words and tossed the tear into the depths before him.

None spoke as it fell. Even the trees ceased to rustle.

Not even the wisest of their people could have surmised what the tear would bring forth, nor the lands from which it would have plucked it. Many speculated a warrior of immense power, endowed with an arsenal of godlike weaponry. Others imagined a being of intellect, capable of dismantling the very foundations of the Black Flame by mere suggestion. Their imaginings ran like a torrent.

And as a light burst from the earth’s cavity, jettisoning mist and soil alike, absolutely none had expected to see a human child standing before them.

He bore no weapons, and wore only a red wool-knit jumper and beige pants. A curiosity settled upon his features as he took in his surroundings. He did not seem frightened.

His curiosity became elation as his eyes settled on the Yupketeps, his pale face and black bowl-cut hair swinging from one villager to the next. 

The child’s smile was…odd to Beelie. He looked to be in pain.

“What’s happened?” the child said. “Where am I?”

Beelie looked to the trunk of the great oak, where their elder Offalos emerged, followed by the seven great sages, each of them adorned in flower petals. Offalos’ steps rang the raiments of his ceremonial chestnut armour like bells.

The Tarum Goa-Lux swung gallantly from his neck, the Yupketep’s most valued and powerful treasure. It was recovered as one of the many pieces of a desecrated weapon, destroyed in a war that was more legend than history. The trinket was a simple silver, but every so often a spark of blue magic would jolt from its core.

Offalos and the seven great sages planted themselves upon a small stone dais before the child, extending their arms towards him in warm welcome.

“Hail, our most honoured and welcome guest!” Offalos sang. “Hail! You stand in the realm of the Yupketeps, a wooded sanctuary untouched by the malice of Muurekelle. We are friends!”

The child flashed his teeth in a rictus smile.

“You talk funny.”

The elder failed to suppress an embarrassed laugh, looking back towards his people to share in the social pitfall of such a forced introduction.

“I suppose we do!” the elder said. “And where might you be from?”

The child brought his hand to his mouth as he considered the question.

“I’m not supposed to say. But it’s much nicer here.”

“Your words honour us, hero!”

“Hero?”

“Why yes! It was foretold that whoever appeared here would undo the tyranny of Muurekelle, the Black Flame. Might you know of him?”

“Nope.”

“Have you any familiarity with the realms of Helveria?”

“Uh uh.”

Offalos looked to his sages in uncertainty, then back to the child.

“Erm…well either way, we have toiled for some months to bring you here, hero. Might you possess an aptitude for vanquishing great evils? The flames engulfing this world will soon have nothing left to feed on.”

“Hmm,” the child pondered. “No. I don’t play those kinda games with my friends.”

Beelie saw a great sage lean towards Offalos and whisper, “This creature could not possibly be the end to Muurekelle. He is a simple child.”

The elder waved him away.

“What he lacks in brute strength I’m sure will be made up in fortitude and courage.”

He turned back towards the child.

“Now, then! Won’t you do us the honour of following us-“

“I like your shiny thing,” the child interrupted.

Like a snake leaping for its prey, the child’s arm shot out and clasped Offalos in his entirety.

The villagers gasped in fright as the child brought him closer to his face.

“It’s alright, it’s alright!” the elder assured. “The boy’s just curious.”

“What is it?”

Offalos gripped the twine necklace and held the trinket before him.

“We call it the Tarum Goa-Lux. It is our most prized possession.”

“Hm.”

“Heh. Now…you might not be accustomed to our ways, hero, but we aren’t overly fond of being picked up in such a way. Might you do me the courtesy of putting me back down?”

The child’s rictus smile appeared once more.

“Okay.”

The child’s fingers became snow white as they crushed the elder in a horrifying death grip, his innards popping upwards in a misted mess of viscera.

Villagers cried out, fleeing in panic, yet Beelie could not look away as the child took pleasure in the mess of sinew and pulped flesh sticking to his hand.

“What fun!’ he said, tossing the elder’s corpse aside and reaching for others. 

The sages held their positions, praying for salvation from the horror they unleashed.

They were answered by none other than the child.

With both hands he gathered five of the sages, hoisting them up towards his face, relishing both their terror and efforts of escape.

One had fallen, landing against the edge of the hole in which the child stood. Beelie made to help her, but the child’s knee quickly found and pinned her against it. Blood burst from her mouth and the life quickly fell from her eyes.

Beelie fell back from the onslaught, still incapable of looking away as the child shook the sages with enough force to kill.

It was Beelie who delivered this ruin. It was he who threw the tear. Had he spoken the wrong words? Was there a missing detail to the summoning that had damned them?

The child’s giggle was a series of cackles.

“Fly!” he shouted playfully, tossing the sages at the great oak tree.

Their bodies shattered against the bark, and fell to the earth in a mass of red wetness.

Beelie grabbed one sage and hoisted him from his knees, dragging him towards the base of the great oak as the child emerged from the hole. 

He was a towering meat grinder, moving at the speed of excitable youth. He drove his feet down like hammers, crushing those looking for loved ones amidst the chaos. No trace was left as his feet rose from the craters, their bodies hewn well into the mudded ground like mulch. 

“Why is this happening!?” the sage beside Beelie cried.

Beelie had no answer. His only thoughts were on the safety of the great oak’s roots.

So close.

“Wait! The Tarum! We have to grab the-“

The sage’s voice was cut as the child’s foot swung at him like a hyper pendulum, launching his body beyond the perimeter of the village.

Beelie did not look back. 

He dove head first into the tangle of roots, narrowly avoiding the death stomp of the child, who only missed due to time wasted on recovering from the momentum of the kick.

Beelie was pulled in further by a group of survivors, their pink skin almost pale against the horrors. One of the women pulling him fell back against others and cradled him in protection.

But no sooner had they taken a breath that the child’s hand was thrust into the undercroft of the great oak, scraping towards the survivors with animalistic ferocity. The hand patted and scraped the earth, coming further as the child dropped to his shoulder. The stumpy flesh claw twitched in the shadows.

As it drew near, Beelie grabbed a nearby twig and rammed it beneath one of the hand’s fingernails.

It withdrew immediately.

“Owww!” the child cried. “What did you do that for!?”

The survivor’s patted Beelie’s back, thanking him for his intervention.

“What did you do that for!?” the child cried again, launching kicks at the great oak to no avail. 

He stood there for what seemed an eternity, inspecting his finger. Sucking noises could be heard before a final tut at his denial. He turned away and put his attention towards others who had yet to find safety.

The village was now the stage for an orchestra of giant’s feet jumping to and fro, accompanied by the despondent cries of those in hiding - broken every so often by the scream of one who was found.

“Where did it come from!?” one of the men hissed.

“Muurekelle’s flame has finally found us,” another said.

“Does the child look like an agent of the Flame?” someone from the back called.

“Quiet down.” Beelie demanded.

It took his rescuers by surprise. Few within the village spoke with such authority. For Beelie, venturing beyond the forest had given him a distinctive mind for survival. It required a terse command every once in a while, something the sing-song folk of his home had no experience with.

“What are we going to do?” someone whispered.

“We must wait,” Beelie said. “The child can’t reach us here. We wait until he moves on.”

The child did not tire. He waited patiently until others felt their chances of escape were high, and quickly denied them. The slaughter lasted until dusk, when finally the child yawned and sat down at the center of the village.

Beelie’s heart pounded in anticipation. If the child slept, they could certainly escape.

As the child sat there, pondering things that none could guess, his attention fell to the elder’s corpse. He reached for it slowly, flicking it this way and that in boredom, until a blue spark erupted from the elder’s chest. With two fingers he pinched the Tarum Goa-Lux, hoisting it to eye level, the elder’s body strung up by the chain it was attached to. The child shook the relic until the corpse came free, landing in the summoning hole without a sound. 

The silver fragment was now a dull maroon in the child’s hands as he prodded it, the occasional blue spark perking an eyebrow. He eventually grew bored with this as well, and hoisted himself up to toss it. Its blue radiance swelled as it soared between the shadows of the trees.

Beelie and the others did not see or hear the relic land, but were not surprised when that same blue radiance engulfed the child and transported him to the place in which it landed.

“Woah!” they heard him shout. 

He threw it again, teleporting himself back to the center of the village.

“He knows how to use it…” someone behind Beelie said. “It is over.”

The survivors beneath the tree stifled their cries of despair as best they could.

The darkness continued to rupture with bursts of blue as the child celebrated his newfound ability.

An abhorrent stillness had taken the village in the night. Beelie hoped it to be a sign that the child had grown bored and abandoned their home - a hope racked with guilt, wondering what horrors might befall another stead that welcomes the creature. He imagined the child accidentally stumbling upon a clan of Leewards, the spindly trunk-legged giants that most mistake for trees. The weather had been hot lately, so of course the child would seek respite, nestling the roots, looking for water, not expecting a pair of horridly long limbs reaching down to break his neck. 

The thought gave Beelie a sliver of peace, enough currency to enter the realm of sleep. Others had already dozed, wracked by the trauma of their decimation. The remains of his home became blurry as sleep took him, a muddled fuzz in a losing battle against the black.

His head lulled a bit too forcefully and broke him from that sleep.

And the remains of the village were gone as he stared ahead, hidden behind the eye of the child, the whites around the pupil at full capacity.

It did not blink.

Its stare bound him tighter than any chain could.

“Why don’t you come out?” the child whispered.

His breath plumed the dirt before him.

“I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Teeth flashing.

“You can be the toy that moves on its own. The others can just be regular ones.”

Beelie’s faith in the good of all things had broken.

“Look. Your friend wants you to come out.”

The same hand he batted away presented itself again, holding the corpse of Offalos. It animated him in quick jerks as the child adopted a grown-up voice.

“Stop your crying and come out here before I give you something to cry about! Nothin’ for you to be crying about, is there!?”

The elder was jostled again, then tossed away.

“You’re boring,” the child said, voice back to normal. “I’m gonna play with the other toys for a bit and then I’m leaving.”

And the child did play, giving voice to the dead, dismembering past and body alike as he saw fit. Beelie had nothing left to offer as he watched, as the golden forest swelled with laughter.

*

Elsewhere, in a land where rusted earth cooks beneath a black sun, the fires of Murukelle stirred beneath a towering stone arcade, roused to a scorching pyre as commands of war fell through his domicile.

Thousands of grubwarts stood before him, armoured in crude metals, cutting the air with their hilted obsidian shards. It was a time of great hysteria to stand before the Black Flame, his pale armour writhing with essence of the black sun, his white eyes attending to all. His throne sat high in the center of a domed amphitheatre, surrounded by the void. 

“I have plagued the seasons of this world, taken its sun for my own, and stripped bare the very essence of its creation…and yet I am opposed.”

His voice was the grinding of molten rock.

“I am opposed by a bastion of false promise in the west…by one who gifts nought but lies.”

The grubwarts raged at the mention of their greatest opposer, Eriette of the golden plains.

“She and her own cower across a wild ocean, believing it will stifle the end that I have condemned her to. An ignorance that must be met with equal cruelty.”

The amphitheatre shook with roars of approval.

“I will boil this ocean! And turn red its shores with the blood of their people! Let none who walk its coasts forget that Murukelle’s flame is everlasting!”

He raised a clenched fist.

“Now burn, my children. BURN!”

The earth rattled as his minions stampeded out, where they would begin their long march to the western shores, boarding their metal vessels to deal death in a new land.

Murukelle stood watching as his forces depleted before him, and sat when only the void served as his company.

It manifested as a cloaked shadow beside him, bearing a tarnished scroll of pig flesh.

“Sire,” it hissed.

“Speak, Wraith.”

“Word of movement beyond The Pale.”

“Have the golems finished hiding in their mountains?”

“Further beyond The Pale, sire. The Yupketeps.”

Murukelle scoffed. “Am I to be concerned with gnomes?”

“Our crows witnessed a summoning composed by them, sire. An effort to produce one who would vanquish you.”

“What could snuff the flame of Murukelle?”

“A child, sire.”

“A child?”

“The summoning was not favourable for the Yupketeps, however. The child proved…unusual.”

“Explain, Wraith.”

“It might be best if you read the report yourself, sire. You would not believe me, otherwise.”

Murukelle extended his hand, accepting and unfurling the scroll. The shadow lingered as he read.

“Well,” he chuckled. “I applaud the child’s instincts. Perhaps we should recruit him to our ranks,” he said looking to the Wraith.

The Wraith did not respond.

Murukelle continued reading.

“Hm. A little excessive, to be sure.”

And then his brows furrowed.

“Wait. He didn’t really…”

He brought the scroll closer to his face.

“This must be an exaggeration. With all of them?”

“All who failed to escape him, yes.”

Murukelle brought a hand to his mouth.

“And then he…”

His eyes lost their ferocity. He leaned to the left of his throne and retched violently. 

He composed himself for a moment, and then leaned over to retch again.

“Sire?”

He tossed the scroll to the Wraith.

“Burn this. It shouldn’t exist.”

“Yes, sire.”

“Not even my flame could purge such atrocities,” he said, breathlessly. “Where is this child, now?”

“None can say. The child moves with the Tarum Goa-Lux. Quite difficult to track.”

Murukelle remained silent.

“Sire?”

“Begone from me, Wraith. Now.”

The shadow retreated from him with a bow, taking the scroll with it.

The Black Flame flickered in his throne, shifting an arm or a leg in discomfort. The void surrounding his seat, that liminal space that was an infinite comfort, now bore a weight that he found suffocating. In theory, the Yupketeps had undoubtedly summoned an entity of horror upon the world. But that was just the thing. Why need his undoer be a paragon of virtuous intent? Why be anything other than an undoer in the fullest regard?

Murukelle stood from his throne and paced. For the first time since his death and resurrection, the Black Flame felt the creeping tendrils of fear.

In his distraction he hardly noticed the faint aura of blue ignite behind him. He turned and saw nothing, until a small set of fingers emerged from the void, clasping his throne.