Heldon's Hope

This is an excerpt from a book i am writing.

"Oh!" she shouted, "I do have something else for you! It would be useless for you to take it, but maybe what I can tell you about it will be of some help." She scuttled to a far corner of her shop and moments later was back before Sessa.

"This! This is Heldon's Hope, an incredibly useful little plant, if you can ever find it." She held up a small jar for Sessa to study. Inside was a single leave, rolled up and dried. The veins of the leaf were a pale yellow against the ashen green of the flaking leaf.

"It's said to grow all over the known world. History, or legend, as the younger families call it now, has it that when Heldon the Hopeless, the youngest and most disappointing of sons to his father Sir Sij, left the capitol, it was before the roads had been completed and maps were not yet commonly sold. He was lost the moment he set foot out the gates and he wandered for years, one misfortune after the next. They say he was robbed so often that he was walking naked for the last year. When he finally found the N'hari dessert in the south he thought he had found the place where he would die. He walked into that wasteland prepared to die of thirst, but a storm followed him and before he had lost sight of the trees the waters poured down on him like they have never done before, and he was swept away in a wave so strong it would have taken buildings with it. Deeper into the dessert he tumbled, for so long he couldn't begin to guess where he had been taken, and when the water calmed and sank into the sand Heldon opened his eyes for the first time since the rains began to protect them from the mud. What he saw was endless, an infinite wasteland of watery sand and dirt."

Ghillie apologized and slipped away for a moment before returning while chewing some grass Sessa was not familiar with.

"Stark Grass," Ghillie said, "fairly useless stuff, but it keeps your mouth moist. When you're old like me it's a rather useful thing, you'll see. One day! Now, where was Heldon when I stopped… yes, when he tried to look down all he saw was sand, he had no body. It was that he was buried up to his neck in the now drying mud. He was utterly stuck. What did he do? What could he do? He stayed right where he was. For two days he stood there, vigilant, watching for any speck on the horizon that might save him, and preying they didn't. Then on the third day he was spotted, not by any would-be rescuer mind you, no. It was the Jekkers what found him, those nasty birds. They swooped down at him and tore his face open in the sun. one sat down beside him and pecked his eye right out of his skull!"

Ghillie pretended to do the same to Sessa with her hand.

"Hey!" The quick word was all she could get out before the story continued.

"They pecked and they clawed for two more days. Heldon had only shreds of his scalp left to him, one eye, and no lips. It was only after the Jekkers had started their toying with him did Heldon the Hopeless wish not to die. If that was the pain of death he felt, he wished to put it off forever. So he prayed and he prayed for another flood to wash him up out of the sand and out of N'hari, but no such rain came. He kept his eye trained on the horizon in search of clouds but no clouds came. He stayed focused for so long, even through the jekker attacks, that he failed to notice something happening right below his nose.. A small single leaf, very much like the one you hold in your hand now, grew in front of him. When these leaves are fresh they are very plump and those yellow veins shine brightly, even at night. And it was the night of the fourth day that Heldon spied the glow just beneath him.

He tried and tried but could not reach the leaf, for it was too small to reach his mouth. He tried until his neck was sore and his muscles ached. Soon he found himself awakening once more.

On the fifth day the jekkers descended upon him a final time, tearing his ears off and deafening him with the sound of their beaks beating against his skull. On and on this lasted, all through the day until Heldon had thought he had gone mad and the beating he heard were the drums of the demons of hell.

As the jekkers left him for the night Heldon was as good as dead, he could no longer muster the strength to hold his head up or to open his eye. But as the moon sailed across the sky the small leaf in front of him grew. And it grew and it grew, right into his mouth! When he awoke he did so from a dream wherein he was a whirlpool in the ocean and was drinking all the sea, leviathans and ships too. When he opened his eyes his mouth was watering so much he had to cough to allow himself to breath. He chewed and he drank and he chewed and he drank. When there was no more of the leaf for him to chew he could feel his body once more, right down to his toes. He could move them and in moments could wiggle his fingers. Soon he was moving his arms and legs, little by little, lifting them only small amounts and having the sand fill the gap underneath them, slowly moving his way out of the ground. Half a day went by before he was fully out of the sand, and when he was he looked at himself, he looked as though he had been baked in an oven for 5 days, and he had been! But everything functioned as well as it did before he left the capitol, save for his eye which he was still missing. The leaf had healed him of everything, but it did not return to him what he had lost. Covering his face and the rest of his head were horrendous scars, fully healed but garish. His ears were still missing and had only few places where hair still grew on his head.

Yet still, he was so thankful that he had not known the pain of death that he sank to his knees and dug through the sand which he had just fought to be released from, and there, in the sand that had been his captor, his jailor, was his savior. A small pod, like that of a nutshell, was in his fingers when he brought them up from sifting through the sand. In that pod were numerous seeds for the leaf that had saved his life, and he vowed then and there to all the gods that cared to witness the birth of Heldon the Hopeful that he would spend the rest of his life giving these seeds to the people of this land.

With the strength he was given by both the leaf and his second life, Heldon made it out of the dessert. No one knows for sure which people or which village he happened upon first, but whoever was there was so afraid of Heldon's new visage that they ran from him or they would drive him away with flaming pikes or dogs, afraid that he carried with him a disease that would corrupt their towns."

"But," Sessa spoke up, "he just wanted to help.."

Ghillie only nodded.

"Heldon was heartbroken at this, but not defeated. He had vowed to a jury what would not be denied, and so he set out to the wilderness where no one would find him, where he would not scare anyone. It was there, and everywhere all across the land that Heldon the Hopeful planted his seeds, in the most remote of places, where he was safest and where if anyone found them, they would need it most.

Some say that Heldon roams the wildlands still, living an extraordinarily long life by nibbling on only the leaves his seeds would grow."

Sessa didn't know what to say, this sounded like incredible magic to her.

"If they're so powerful, why have I never heard of them before? And if they glow, why have I never seen them before when it is dark?"

Ghillie shook her head. "Darling, tell me… how far into the true wild have you travelled? How many mountain peaks have you kissed? When was the last time you were farther away from Brook than Lee's Lake? This journey of yours will be something quite different from what you're used to, and if ever you find yourself in absolute peril, look for this leaf. It is not common, but it seems to have a funny way of showing up just when it's needed most… That is my gift to you, free of charge so long as you bring me back a good story when you return. The leaf in that jar is too dried up to be any good to you now, but if I can use it show people what to look for, then it has many uses for me. Take that story with you and do not forget it. A long and fat leaf with veins that glow yellow."

"I will." Sessa assured, "I will not forget! Thank you so much Ghillie, your wisdom for these matters is always appreciated and I can only wish to one day be as knowing about them as you are."

Sessa headed towards the door and turned under the entrance.

"Ghillie?" She asked.

"Yes my dear?"

"How old are you?"

Ghillie just smiled. "old enough to know that how rude it is to ask that question, now get going!"

Sessa laughed as she turned and set out on her way.

"AND REMEMBER, THE LEAVES ARE PLUMP! AND FAT!" Ghillie called after her. When Sessa heard this she turned and walked backwards as she called back, "And the veins glow!"

"YELLOW!" Ghillie shouted, "THEY GLOW YELLOW!" but Sessa was already out of sight having rounded the corner of the tavern.

 

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