The Light Saga & Other Short Stories

About a century ago, in the county of York there was a small village, Cleome, named after the dainty golden cleome flower which grew in abundance throughout the village and upon the slopes of the nearby mountain. Cleome nestled at the foot of a mountain range that towered blue-grey high above the village. The village had a modest population of about seven hundred souls, give or take half a dozen either way. The villagers were a humble lot, mostly keeping to themselves, living off their modest crops of cabbage, lettuce, beetroot and barley. They regularly took their goods to sell in the market in York itself, earning enough to be content with their life in Cleome. That is, until the devastating year when their crops failed dismally.

The disaster occurred in nearly imperceptible increments. One farmer lost his entire field of cabbage to rot; another found his lettuce decimated and literally turned crisp – as brittle as ice. Yet another farmer came to his field early one morning to find a fallow plot of desiccated soil that had the acrid stench of lye. It was as if he had never planted a single stalk of wheat on it. After a week of these mysterious crop failings, the village was rife with unfounded rumours, and afire with superstitions.

“I tell you,” insisted Farmer Ferreira’s wife, Tania, “it’s those Fey Folk. They’ve returned to claim their ancestral lands, like the legends said they would do.”

“Ach! Nonsense!” blurted out Farmer Madwayi. He was well-known for being the only irate, sour-tempered man in the whole of York who respected nobody’s opinion except his own. He was also viewed with suspicion, as he was a foreigner to those parts.

“Most likely, it’s just a natural phenomenon, maybe something to do with the weather,” he claimed, shaking his head adamantly in confimation of his own opinion.

The villagers had gathered in the Town Hall, a small wooden structure erected in the middle of the village centre. Strathmore was sitting quietly among the crowd, but his mind was working like a rapidly spinning turbine. He had a theory he was contemplating which he wished to explain to his fellow villagers as plainly as possible, seeing that most of them were not particularly sharp, intellectually. Just as Akhon Madwayi finished his apparently irrefutable statement, Strathmore rose to his feet.

“There’s only one logical explanation why the crops are failing,” he announced without preamble. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise and expectation. All of the assembled villagers knew that although Strathmore could be irascible, his logic could seldom be faulted.

Strathmore Fynn was a tall, robust man who resembled a sturdy oak. His skin looked like hardened bark while his face was seamed and craggy from all the time he spent out in the sun. His beard stood out in bristles like dry twigs. And he was as obstinate as the toughest acorn you could ever find. Once he had made up his mind about something, nothing and nobody could sway him from his path. Now that he had the utter and devoted attention of the audience, he ambled slowly up to the front of the Hall. Akhon Madwayi gave him a sidelong glance of dislike as he took a seat in the front row, rudely pushing Old Justin out of his.

“If fewer of you were running around like headless chickens and actually used your noggins, more of you would have realised the reason for our failing crops,” Strathmore began, pausing dramatically to increase the tension already present in the room. A few older farmers grumbled to themselves about the “theatrics”, but the majority simply literally waited with baited breath.

“All the farms have one thing in common, don’t they?” Strathmore now asked rhetorically. Some of the farmers missed that he was being rhetorical; they inanely shouted out in answer.

“Yeah, crops!” Madwayi said sarcastically.

“Aye, they do. Veggies,” hollered Farmer Ferreira.

“’Course they do! Agriculcher,” screamed Old Justin, which had most of the farmers in stitches.

Strathmore looked at his fellow farmers and thought to himself, “Emptier than barns in winter.” Aloud, he continued to expound on his idea.

“All the farms that were affected – Moodie, Pather, Beech, Wesley, Jacobs – all of them are irrigated by one water source, the Elsies River, as are the rest of the farms in Cleome,” Strathmore announced. Before he could continue, Madwayi rudely interjected.

“What are you trying to say, man? Are you claiming that the river is the reason our crops are failing?” The man was belligerent to the extreme; Strathmore felt an overwhelming urge to punch the lout’s lights out, but he maintained his composure.

All the gathered farmers were speaking at once, each trying to outdo the other with their shouted comments. It was pure bedlam for nearly a full two minutes until Strathmore bellowed, “SHUT UP!” That shocked the rowdy lot into instant silence.

“It’s the river; there’s no other logical or rational explanation. Something in the water is affecting our crops, and I for one aim to discover exactly what it is!” Strathmore announced and waited for the farmers’ reaction. He was nonplussed though by their quiet mutterings and surprising sedateness. He had expected them to jeer at him or shower him with scorn, but instead they were all taking him very seriously.

Finally, Mayor Lauren Watson asked on behalf of the gathered folk. “So, what is your plan, exactly? How do you propose to discover what’s causing the water to poison our crops?” she queried.

“I intend to go to the very source of the river, to its origin in the Foxglove Mountains,” Strathmore revealed. “I have the strongest sense that we are running out of time, and if we fail to take action now, we will face utter ruination sooner rather than later. I leave within the hour,” he stated.

It was nearing twilight by the time Strathmore reached the uppermost slopes of the Foxglove Mountains. He was extremely irked that Mayor Watson had insisted that Akhon Madwayi accompany him. He now turned to look at the chubby man panting like a ridiculously corpulent donkey as he followed Strathmore up the slope. The man was insufferable, but Strathmore swallowed his anger and continued climbing.

It wasn’t really much of a climb; it was more like a strenuous walk that caused Strathmore and Akhon to be nearly doubled over as they fought gravity and the steep incline. Their bedrolls and packs were heavy on their backs; inevitably, these unbalanced them occasionally. Strathmore carried his sturdy shepherd’s crook with him, and as he traversed the rough terrain, it was a welcome aid that helped him maintain his balance. Akhon had had no such foresight, therefore he had been forced to simply pick up a fallen tree limb to use as a walking stick.

Both men had been much surprised to find a number of wild goats roaming the upper slopes, far more than they had ever encountered. What was more mysterious was that the animals seemed plump, content and not at all wary of them. In fact, they didn’t even scatter as the men approached them. Some of the goats were clustered in groups of five to seven; when the men reached the group, they merrily carried on grazing, not in the least perturbed by their presence.

“What the hell?” Akhon asked in bewilderment. “These are wild goats, right?” he asked Strathmore, to which the farmer grunted an “Aye” before continuing his steady uphill trudging. He was quite perplexed himself to see the surprising numbers of wild goats, but he wouldn’t grant Madwayi the pleasure of seeing him rattled.

As the two men finally reached the summit of the gradient, the sun disappeared behind a pinnacle that was jutting out like the chin of some warty witch. Strathmore wondered where that image had come from, but then dismissed it as probably a result of the fantastical environment in which they found themselves. The last rays of the sun formed a beautiful halo around the pinnacle, and then the air was abruptly filled with the sweet melodious notes of a flute. All the goats in the vicinity reacted instantly, as if they had been electrified.

The billy goats went stiff as planks, held their short tails erect and dropped their horned heads as if they were about to charge. All the eyes of the nanny goats turned into large, dreamy orbs, which would have been darn hilarious if the entire thing wasn’t so unnervingly weird. When a second flute joined the first in a duet, all the goats – eight of them in total divided equally by gender – sprinted away towards the sound as if they were being pulled violently by a rope across the summit.

Strathmore and Akhon stared at each other in wide-eyed stupefaction before they carefully proceeded towards the top of the mount. They could now also hear a faint burbling, as of water bubbling up to the surface, and both men realised they must have reached the source of the river.

They had seen it meandering all along the left side of the mountain throughout their ascent, but at times it had vanished in the undergrowth or a ravine and they had only picked up its labyrinthine trail again at a different point. The light was failing fast now; Strathmore cautioned Madwayi to tread carefully. When the two farmers reached the lip of the summit, they peered with extreme curiosity and great trepidation over it. Each thought he was hallucinating what he was witnessing.

A full moon had risen and it bathed the scene in glorious, cool luminescence, causing the spectacle to assume an otherworldly, ethereal quality.

On the banks of a deep pool of crystal clear water, surrounded by cavorting goats and attended to by what appeared to be scantily clad women, but unlike any women the two farmers had ever beheld, stood what looked like a man who was naked to the waist, and whose lower body ended in the hairy legs of a goat. On his head sprouted two tiny horns that ended in pointy tips. The man-goat was playing a wonderfully jaunty tune on a reed flute, which seemed to be enchanting the females caressing his body. Lying among the supine ladies was another of these man-goat creatures, this one completing the duet on a pan flute. Both creatures seemed to be in the throes of ecstasy and relishing the way the “women” were fondling them.

Strathmore said, “Bloody hell!” very softly under his breath while Madwayi cursed, “Satan’s balls!” slightly louder. Both men scooted back and retreated further away from the ridge.

“What in the name of heaven are those things?” Akhon asked, his eyes practically popping from their sockets.

“Those, foreigner, are what we folks know to be creatures of nature, and what I had always believed to be mere myths,” Strathmore began. He shook his head as if trying to dislodge the incredible sight he had just observed, then continued to clarify his statement.

“The goat-creatures are satyrs, or fauns as some folks name them, while the women are woodland nymphs. If my very own eyes hadn’t witnessed that effrontery, I would have called anyone who told me satyrs and nymphs were real a contemptible liar,” Strathmore ended in a tone of disbelief.

“So they are creatures of myth, but … real?” Akhon asked in obvious mystification. “I don’t understand,” he added in a whine that annoyed the already agitated Strathmore.

“I don’t either, but not understanding is not going to help us figure out what to do, or what in the name of holy saints is going on,” Strathmore replied in some anger.

Both men decided to venture another gander at the spectacle, creeping carefully to the lip of the overhang. This time they were transfixed by the antics of the creatures in the glen. They were deep in the throes of a most energetic orgy.

The satyrs were rampantly rutting as if there would be no end to the act, grabbing nymph after willing nymph and moving from one partner to another in quick succession. The nubile nymphs were moaning and sighing in orgasmic spasms while the two satyrs ravished them in animalistic couplings. Each satyr proudly flounced a formidable erection, which they expertly thrust energetically into the nymphs, moving on to the next eagerly waiting female as soon as they had brought one to climax. It took only a few vigorous poundings before a nymph climaxed, thus the two satyrs were hard-kept at servicing each female. Strathmore was both disgusted and aroused by the sight while Akhon kept up a continuous muttering of the F-word. The mountain goats were blissfully emulating the copulating couples.

Eventually, when all the nymphs had been satisfied, the satyrs rose from the now flattened grass and brush, exhausted to the point of fatigue but glowing with sexual satisfaction. Both creatures walked to the bubbling pool and proceeded to urinate into the water.

A heavy screen of obscurity was abruptly lifted from Strathmore’s mind when he saw the satyrs’ defilement of the pristine pool. Without even pausing to consider what he was about to do, he reacted as he would have reacted to wayward goats he was herding. He jumped up from his hiding place, bellowed an ear-splitting “Hee-ya!” and ran towards the satyrs, his shepherd’s crook held out horizontally in front of him.

Both satyrs turned in incredulity at the sound. Upon spying the man charging them, they bolted. So did the wild goats. Unfortunately, the satyrs bolted so hard into each other that they knocked themselves to the ground in their desperation to flee the advancing human. The woodland nymphs had vanished like vapour at the first sign of the man.

Quick as a striking viper, Strathmore hooked the crook around the neck of the closest satyr while the other one high-tailed it off to disappear into the woods, but not before ignominiously running down Akhon who had followed Strathmore. By the time Akhon managed to find his feet again, Strathmore had subdued the captured satyr. The creature looked none too happy to have been caught like some errant goat.

“So you have been poisoning the water with your filthy piss!” Strathmore shouted at the satyr, dextrously manipulating his hold on the crook to prevent the creature from escaping.

“Disgusting animal! Urinating in these waters and thus ruining our crops,” he added. He was flummoxed though when the satyr did something neither he nor Akhon could have ever anticipated in their wildest cogitations. It spoke.

“Now hold on just a bloody minute,” the man-creature said in an affronted tone. His voice was a deep, gruff timbre. “Who are you calling an animal, animal?” he asked, emphasising the last word with a sarcastic twist. “I’m not the one who barged into someone’s garden uninvited, like a barbarian! Here now, let go of my neck,” he demanded, nimbly slipping loose of the crook. Strathmore had been so confounded when the satyr spoke that he had lost his firm grip on his stick, thus allowing the satyr to disengage his neck from the hook.

Absurdly and slightly insanely, Akhon stammered, “It speaks. It can speak. Did you hear? It spoke to us. It used words; yes, it did.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can speak. Get over it already,” the satyr said in an offhanded manner as he retrieved his fallen flute. “What were you prattling on about me poisoning your crops?” he now asked the still stunned Strathmore. Akhon had come up behind Strathmore and he gave the speechless man a hard nudge in his ribs. It broke the spell and Strathmore was able to respond.

“Our crops,” he began haltingly, staring in obvious distress at the satyr cleaning some dirt from under his nails, “ahem, our crops have been failing for some unknown reason. I was convinced there must be something in the water which was the cause of it, seeing that all our farms are irrigated by the river. I think your urine is the poison,” he ended, bedazzled by the surreal act of speaking to a creature that had stepped out of myth into reality. Fleetingly, he wondered if he wasn’t perhaps ensnared by the most vivid hallucination he had ever experienced.

“Aah, I see,” said the satyr. “This changes matters completely, yeah?” he asked rhetorically. “See, friend farmer, had I known that my urine would cause such a disaster, I would never have relieved myself in the river. No way, man! I’m into love and fun and jolly good times, not doom and effing gloom,” he added. He looked over Strathmore’s shoulder and called out.

“Reggie! Come here, bro. Listen to this.” To the farmers, the satyr said, “That’s my twin, Reginald. He’s a real coward, but the ladies can’t get enough of his tool,” and winked lasciviously. Strathmore turned as red as the beetroot he farmed, while Akhon said some unintelligible word that sounded like “Ngyuh”.

“I’m Archibald, by the by. Archie to my friends and the wanton wenches,” he introduced himself with a toothy smile to the two tongue-tied farmers.

“Hiya,” said Reggie as he joined his twin. Strathmore saw no facial resemblance between the two, as Reggie had a face like a cherub’s while Archie had sharply angular features; he assumed they must be fraternal twins. Suddenly he laughed loudly at the absurdity of the whole situation. Here he was having a conversation with two satyrs in the flesh, for goodness’ sake, and he was wondering what type of twins they were. The ludicrousness of it all hit him so hard that he was overtaken by an extended fit of laughter. Soon, Akhon and the satyrs joined in, for Strathmore’s guffaws and grunts were seriously infectious.

Once everyone had recovered and the tension had been released by their mirth, Strathmore turned to Archie. Contrary to all expectations, Strathmore had taken a liking to the lustful rascal and felt he might be able to reason with the horny satyr. At least, he fervently hoped he could.

“Archie, now that you know the consequences of your act, could I ask you to refrain from doing it again? As I explained, your urine is so potent that it has made the water toxic and thus ruined our crops. Our farms are our livelihood; if we can’t grow any crops, the entire village will be devastated,” he pleaded.

“Say no more, dude! It’s a done deal,” the satyr said magnanimously. “Reggie and I will never again foul the waters with our piss, and I will do you one better. We will tell all the other satyrs not to effing urinate in the river,” he added, laughing uproariously.

“There are … more of you?” Akhon asked hesitantly and in a near panic.

“Of course, buddy! What? You think the two of us alone can satisfy the insatiable urges of those seductive nymphs? If only!” he hooted. Both brothers once more doubled over in glee. As soon as he had regained enough breath to speak, he said, “Our apologies, friend farmers, for your failed crops. Believe you me, it was never our intention to cause any harm to anyone. We are Lovers, dudes, not louts.”

“Yeah, we’re really sorry about this,” added Reggie, “but hey! We can at least try to make it up to you guys, huh?” he asked somewhat mysteriously. Then he winked roguishly.

Strathmore did not like the sound of that one bit, but Akhon took the bait.

“What do you mean? How would you make it up to us?” the poop-for-brains asked.

“How would you like to join us later in an orgy? We have a tryst set up with some nubile nymphs in Passion Creek lower down the mountain. It will be fun to have some humans join us,” he added in all seriousness.

“And I thought the creek was named for the passion flowers that grow there,” Strathmore murmured in a daze. Then he shook himself physically out of his stupor and said, “Thank you, gentle … goats? But we have to get back to the village. Now that the disaster has been dealt with, we must inform the farmers that things will be right as roots anon. We have your word that you won’t toxify the river again, yes?” Strathmore asked the satyrs.

“You bet your sweet asses we won’t,” Archie promised. His lewd glance at the men’s butts caused them to hasten the need for their departure. They thanked the satyrs heartily and soon they were descending the mountain as the first spears of dawn’s light banished the darkness.