Post by Topaz on Feb 2, 2017 19:04:16 GMT -5
The Lighthouse Keeper was born in the lighthouse. His mother was a
fisherman's daughter and his father was a Lighthouse Keeper, as was his
grandfather and his great-grandfather and all his ancestors as far back as
anyone could tell. In peace and in war, in the Golden Age and through the
darkness of Balthazar, there was always a Lighthouse Keeper of that family,
tending the great beacon at the top of the tower so that the ships at sea
would not founder on the rocks.
But this Lighthouse Keeper did not want to follow in his father's and
ancestors' footsteps. He wanted a horizon other than the one he could see
out the high windows of the lighthouse. He wanted an easier life than that
of a lonely, duty-bound lighthouse keeper. And as he grew older, he wanted
luxuries which his father and mother could not provide and saw no need for
in any case -- delicate foods, fine wines, elegant clothing.
In vain did his mother offer him wholesome bread and fresh fish for dinner.
To no avail did his father tell him that fine clothes were wasted in a
lighthouse, for they would only be rotted away by the unceasing salt spray.
He read his parents' books, and talked with visitors -- merchants and ship's
officers and adventurers -- and he grew more and more discontented.
The old Lighthouse Keeper and his wife seldom, if ever, had a holiday, for
if they were both gone after dark, then who would tend the light? But as
their son grew older, they began to take one day a month to travel north to
the town of Dundee. "You are old enough to take such responsibility once in
awhile," his father said, "so you can come to it gradually, until the day
when you are ready to take full charge. On the day when I see the light of
the great god Cory, that day you must tend this lesser light, and like his,
yours will guide mortals into a safe harbor."
"I want to go to Dundee," said the son.
"You may go when we come back," they promised. And so it became the custom
that they would go to visit Dundee once a month, and when they came back, he
would go in his turn. And every time he went away eagerly and returned
reluctantly, comparing the revelry of the inns, the fine wares of the
market, and the throngs of people with the quiet, lonely lighthouse. He
would spend all his parents would give him, and complain of how little it
was.
One chill November day, his mother and father set off for Dundee. Soon the
weather would turn stormy and cold, so they wanted to make one last journey
before the hard winter set in. "When we return, you may go," they told
their son, "but keep good watch while we are gone, in case an early storm
should blow in." He agreed, and watched eagerly from his high vantage point
for their return along the sands of southern Valorn.
One day he watched and waited, and two days, and by the third day he was
afire with eagerness to be on his way to the inns and markets of Dundee
before the weather became too bad to travel. He went for a walk along the
sands, to see if he could see his father and mother in the distance. When
he could not see them on the beach, he decided to go up to the sandy flats
to see if he might spot them from a little higher up. When he still saw no
trace of them, he mounted the hills, so that he could see all the way to the
sea in one direction, and across the grassy plains in the other direction,
but nowhere did he see his parents returning.
As he gazed north he could see sunlight shining on the Glass Tower, and it
reminded him of the lonely lighthouse and of the town of Dundee, and he
realized that he was halfway between those two places -- the place he had
promised to guard, and the place that drew him with its pleasures and
revelry. And he said to himself, "It will be only for one day and night,
and besides, my father must surely be on his way home," and continued north
to Dundee.
There he found all that he could desire -- inns with fine ale and friendly
young women, markets thronged with people where the merchants sold their
wares, parties and revels with dancing and singing and telling of tales. He
even found news of his father and mother, from the holy cleric in the
temple. "Ah! Your mother was taken ill, and your father brought her here to
stay overnight," the cleric explained, "and she was better, but she was not
well enough for the journey home afoot, so your father found passage for
them in a ship that was leaving today from the Dundee docks, and they will
be home again before this nightfall."
Hearing this, he was at once pleased and displeased. He was pleased to hear
that they were safe and well, but displeased to hear that they would be home
before he was, and would see that he had left his post; and therefore he was
not eager to return home. And when he saw the sky cloud and darken, and
felt the wind rising, and cold drops of rain began to spatter the streets of
Dundee, he was even less eager to travel in such weather, and decided to
spend the night in the Dundee Inn and go home in the morning.
It was still overcast the next morning when he started back toward the
lighthouse. He knew his parents would be angry at his desertion of the
lighthouse, and he carried with him several bottles of fine ale to keep his
spirits up before the talking-to he expected. As he came to the sandy flats
and looked over the beach, he saw, scattered over the sand and floating in
the water, fragments and splinters and chunks of wood, and coils of rope,
and barrels, and all the shattered cargo of a vessel. And on the rocks far
out, he saw the hull of the vessel herself, with a hideous hole in her side.
And as he hurried in horror down the slope, he saw the worst of all -- the
bodies of the dead, washed up on the shore, and among them the bodies of his
father and mother.
It was perhaps a blessing that his mind was fogged with fine ale. In a daze
he wandered to the lighthouse for the tools to dig graves, far up on the
shore where the tide could not wash them back. For his parents he dug two
graves, but for all the others he dug a large pit. He found the body of the
old Admiral who had been master of the ship, and admiring his beautiful
cloak he took it to wear, although the laws and customs of the sea dictated
that the Admiral should be buried in the cloak of his rank, whether on land
or at sea.
Then he stumbled back to the lighthouse, bolting the door behind him, and up
the many stairs, until he collapsed in the room full of scrimshaw which his
father had carved over so many years. At the sight of the beautiful,
patient work of his father's hands he jumped up again clumsily and climbed
again to the bedroom where the lighthouse keepers rested while on duty.
There he sat and drank more ale, hardening his heart against the memory of
his parents' dead faces and of his father's words: "On the day when I see
the light of the great god Cory, that day you must tend this lesser light."
"I leave for Dundee tomorrow," he declared. And he drank more ale, until he
fell into a sodden slumber.
When he woke, it was to see rain and wind lashing at his windows. A sound
had awakened him, but it could not have been the noise of surf or storm, for
he had heard those all his life. He sat up and blinked, and then through
the tumult he heard another sound: footsteps on the stairs.
"Ah, my father and mother have returned," he thought groggily ... then he
remembered what had happened, and also remembered that he had bolted the
heavy door at the bottom of the stairs with his own hands.
With a cold feeling at the marrow of his bones, he rose, lit a lantern, and
went to peer over the landing toward the darkened stairs below. He thought
he saw movement, and smelled a dank smell of seaweed. Then the light of his
lantern was reflected off the pale faces and dead white eyes of a horde of
drowned sailors, climbing the stairs, their wet and dripping hands
outstretched toward him.
With a scream of fear, he backed away into the bedroom and barricaded the
door. All too soon he heard the squelching footsteps and the clawing of
many hands at the door. He had no weapon save an old cutlass, and he was
only one against many of them, and they were already dead ... as the door
began to splinter, he fled to the Beacon Room.
A storm raged against the windows at the top of the lighthouse, and
lightning flashed on his frightened face as he once again barricaded the
door, but with dwindling hope. Besides the lightning, he had only his
lantern to light the darkness of the room. Then he looked at the great deep
firepit, as always made ready with a supply of wood, and with the flame of
his lantern he lit the beacon and fanned the fire, until the light of the
beacon burned through the high windows to guide the ships at sea through the
storm.
The door shuddered on its hinges, and a pale grasping hand clawed its way
through a crack in its panel. He clutched his cutlass, looking here and
there for a way to escape, but there was no way out of the tower save the
door and the drowned sailors. As the door fell away under the onslaught of
the dead hands, he backed away, ready to throw himself through the window to
the rocks below. Then the drowned sailors stopped, on the threshold of the
Beacon Room, with the light of the beacon shining in their empty eyes, and
came no further.
All through that stormy night he tended the beacon, while the dead sailors
stood at the door but did not enter while the light shone, until the
beacon's light faded against the dawn. Then the drowned sailors vanished,
leaving only a strand or two of damp seaweed and the smell of deep ocean.
No one knows why he did not flee, once freed by the dawn. Some say he
feared that once night fell, the drowned sailors could follow him to Dundee
or beyond. Others say that during his long night's vigil he learned to see
things differently. Perhaps it was no longer fear, but shame, that made him
reluctant to face the drowned sailors again. Perhaps he saw the need for
atonement for his deeds. Others yet say that when he dozed during that long
night, he dreamed, and instead of the empty eyes of the drowned sailors
reflecting the beacon's light, he saw the faces of his mother and father,
with the light of Cory shining in their eyes.
And still others declare that there were no drowned sailors, and that the
entire night was a delusion brought on by grief, guilt, and too much ale,
and that wet footprints, seaweed, and a dank smell of ocean are only to be
expected around a lighthouse.
Whatever the reason, the Lighthouse Keeper never again left the great
lighthouse, alive or dead, and it still glows brightly on the southern shore
of Valorn. He remains in the Beacon Room at the top of the lighthouse, and
fends off all intruders with his cutlass, but if he is defeated he will
disappear, leaving behind him only a beautiful cloak, like the one he stole
from the body of the dead Admiral.
fisherman's daughter and his father was a Lighthouse Keeper, as was his
grandfather and his great-grandfather and all his ancestors as far back as
anyone could tell. In peace and in war, in the Golden Age and through the
darkness of Balthazar, there was always a Lighthouse Keeper of that family,
tending the great beacon at the top of the tower so that the ships at sea
would not founder on the rocks.
But this Lighthouse Keeper did not want to follow in his father's and
ancestors' footsteps. He wanted a horizon other than the one he could see
out the high windows of the lighthouse. He wanted an easier life than that
of a lonely, duty-bound lighthouse keeper. And as he grew older, he wanted
luxuries which his father and mother could not provide and saw no need for
in any case -- delicate foods, fine wines, elegant clothing.
In vain did his mother offer him wholesome bread and fresh fish for dinner.
To no avail did his father tell him that fine clothes were wasted in a
lighthouse, for they would only be rotted away by the unceasing salt spray.
He read his parents' books, and talked with visitors -- merchants and ship's
officers and adventurers -- and he grew more and more discontented.
The old Lighthouse Keeper and his wife seldom, if ever, had a holiday, for
if they were both gone after dark, then who would tend the light? But as
their son grew older, they began to take one day a month to travel north to
the town of Dundee. "You are old enough to take such responsibility once in
awhile," his father said, "so you can come to it gradually, until the day
when you are ready to take full charge. On the day when I see the light of
the great god Cory, that day you must tend this lesser light, and like his,
yours will guide mortals into a safe harbor."
"I want to go to Dundee," said the son.
"You may go when we come back," they promised. And so it became the custom
that they would go to visit Dundee once a month, and when they came back, he
would go in his turn. And every time he went away eagerly and returned
reluctantly, comparing the revelry of the inns, the fine wares of the
market, and the throngs of people with the quiet, lonely lighthouse. He
would spend all his parents would give him, and complain of how little it
was.
One chill November day, his mother and father set off for Dundee. Soon the
weather would turn stormy and cold, so they wanted to make one last journey
before the hard winter set in. "When we return, you may go," they told
their son, "but keep good watch while we are gone, in case an early storm
should blow in." He agreed, and watched eagerly from his high vantage point
for their return along the sands of southern Valorn.
One day he watched and waited, and two days, and by the third day he was
afire with eagerness to be on his way to the inns and markets of Dundee
before the weather became too bad to travel. He went for a walk along the
sands, to see if he could see his father and mother in the distance. When
he could not see them on the beach, he decided to go up to the sandy flats
to see if he might spot them from a little higher up. When he still saw no
trace of them, he mounted the hills, so that he could see all the way to the
sea in one direction, and across the grassy plains in the other direction,
but nowhere did he see his parents returning.
As he gazed north he could see sunlight shining on the Glass Tower, and it
reminded him of the lonely lighthouse and of the town of Dundee, and he
realized that he was halfway between those two places -- the place he had
promised to guard, and the place that drew him with its pleasures and
revelry. And he said to himself, "It will be only for one day and night,
and besides, my father must surely be on his way home," and continued north
to Dundee.
There he found all that he could desire -- inns with fine ale and friendly
young women, markets thronged with people where the merchants sold their
wares, parties and revels with dancing and singing and telling of tales. He
even found news of his father and mother, from the holy cleric in the
temple. "Ah! Your mother was taken ill, and your father brought her here to
stay overnight," the cleric explained, "and she was better, but she was not
well enough for the journey home afoot, so your father found passage for
them in a ship that was leaving today from the Dundee docks, and they will
be home again before this nightfall."
Hearing this, he was at once pleased and displeased. He was pleased to hear
that they were safe and well, but displeased to hear that they would be home
before he was, and would see that he had left his post; and therefore he was
not eager to return home. And when he saw the sky cloud and darken, and
felt the wind rising, and cold drops of rain began to spatter the streets of
Dundee, he was even less eager to travel in such weather, and decided to
spend the night in the Dundee Inn and go home in the morning.
It was still overcast the next morning when he started back toward the
lighthouse. He knew his parents would be angry at his desertion of the
lighthouse, and he carried with him several bottles of fine ale to keep his
spirits up before the talking-to he expected. As he came to the sandy flats
and looked over the beach, he saw, scattered over the sand and floating in
the water, fragments and splinters and chunks of wood, and coils of rope,
and barrels, and all the shattered cargo of a vessel. And on the rocks far
out, he saw the hull of the vessel herself, with a hideous hole in her side.
And as he hurried in horror down the slope, he saw the worst of all -- the
bodies of the dead, washed up on the shore, and among them the bodies of his
father and mother.
It was perhaps a blessing that his mind was fogged with fine ale. In a daze
he wandered to the lighthouse for the tools to dig graves, far up on the
shore where the tide could not wash them back. For his parents he dug two
graves, but for all the others he dug a large pit. He found the body of the
old Admiral who had been master of the ship, and admiring his beautiful
cloak he took it to wear, although the laws and customs of the sea dictated
that the Admiral should be buried in the cloak of his rank, whether on land
or at sea.
Then he stumbled back to the lighthouse, bolting the door behind him, and up
the many stairs, until he collapsed in the room full of scrimshaw which his
father had carved over so many years. At the sight of the beautiful,
patient work of his father's hands he jumped up again clumsily and climbed
again to the bedroom where the lighthouse keepers rested while on duty.
There he sat and drank more ale, hardening his heart against the memory of
his parents' dead faces and of his father's words: "On the day when I see
the light of the great god Cory, that day you must tend this lesser light."
"I leave for Dundee tomorrow," he declared. And he drank more ale, until he
fell into a sodden slumber.
When he woke, it was to see rain and wind lashing at his windows. A sound
had awakened him, but it could not have been the noise of surf or storm, for
he had heard those all his life. He sat up and blinked, and then through
the tumult he heard another sound: footsteps on the stairs.
"Ah, my father and mother have returned," he thought groggily ... then he
remembered what had happened, and also remembered that he had bolted the
heavy door at the bottom of the stairs with his own hands.
With a cold feeling at the marrow of his bones, he rose, lit a lantern, and
went to peer over the landing toward the darkened stairs below. He thought
he saw movement, and smelled a dank smell of seaweed. Then the light of his
lantern was reflected off the pale faces and dead white eyes of a horde of
drowned sailors, climbing the stairs, their wet and dripping hands
outstretched toward him.
With a scream of fear, he backed away into the bedroom and barricaded the
door. All too soon he heard the squelching footsteps and the clawing of
many hands at the door. He had no weapon save an old cutlass, and he was
only one against many of them, and they were already dead ... as the door
began to splinter, he fled to the Beacon Room.
A storm raged against the windows at the top of the lighthouse, and
lightning flashed on his frightened face as he once again barricaded the
door, but with dwindling hope. Besides the lightning, he had only his
lantern to light the darkness of the room. Then he looked at the great deep
firepit, as always made ready with a supply of wood, and with the flame of
his lantern he lit the beacon and fanned the fire, until the light of the
beacon burned through the high windows to guide the ships at sea through the
storm.
The door shuddered on its hinges, and a pale grasping hand clawed its way
through a crack in its panel. He clutched his cutlass, looking here and
there for a way to escape, but there was no way out of the tower save the
door and the drowned sailors. As the door fell away under the onslaught of
the dead hands, he backed away, ready to throw himself through the window to
the rocks below. Then the drowned sailors stopped, on the threshold of the
Beacon Room, with the light of the beacon shining in their empty eyes, and
came no further.
All through that stormy night he tended the beacon, while the dead sailors
stood at the door but did not enter while the light shone, until the
beacon's light faded against the dawn. Then the drowned sailors vanished,
leaving only a strand or two of damp seaweed and the smell of deep ocean.
No one knows why he did not flee, once freed by the dawn. Some say he
feared that once night fell, the drowned sailors could follow him to Dundee
or beyond. Others say that during his long night's vigil he learned to see
things differently. Perhaps it was no longer fear, but shame, that made him
reluctant to face the drowned sailors again. Perhaps he saw the need for
atonement for his deeds. Others yet say that when he dozed during that long
night, he dreamed, and instead of the empty eyes of the drowned sailors
reflecting the beacon's light, he saw the faces of his mother and father,
with the light of Cory shining in their eyes.
And still others declare that there were no drowned sailors, and that the
entire night was a delusion brought on by grief, guilt, and too much ale,
and that wet footprints, seaweed, and a dank smell of ocean are only to be
expected around a lighthouse.
Whatever the reason, the Lighthouse Keeper never again left the great
lighthouse, alive or dead, and it still glows brightly on the southern shore
of Valorn. He remains in the Beacon Room at the top of the lighthouse, and
fends off all intruders with his cutlass, but if he is defeated he will
disappear, leaving behind him only a beautiful cloak, like the one he stole
from the body of the dead Admiral.