Myth continued

This is the second part of a five day post.  If you haven't read the first one take the time to go back and read it.  It will make more sense that way.




                                                                  2

The boy’s father often would ask him, “What is the difference between a poison and a medicine?”  The first time he had been asked he had said that medicine was good and poison was bad.  His father shook his head slowly and said after a pause, “They are the same thing, except for the dosage.”  It wasn’t until a later day that he had explained that taking the right amount of something will be helpful, but too much of same thing would be harmful and sometimes even deadly.   That was the baseline for the boy’s instruction and tutoring.

As the son of the kingdom’s medicine man (the sage) it was expected that he would take over for his father when the time came.  That time would be when he was ready. And that would mean when he knew all that there was to know about healing and medicine in the kingdom.  His father was training him and had been for the last two years.  He would take the boy out to gather plants and herbs in the forest.  He would be taken on the royal hunting trips where strange beasts were killed; his father would take certain parts of the animals before they were cleaned and butchered for feasts.  All the things that were collected were prepared to be stored in the study.  Some things were dried, like the stringy fruit of the Agælton to be used as a remedy for skin sores.  Other plants were ground into fine powder to be inhaled, like the leaves of the Chîmpuur tree.  Some animal parts were kept immersed in water or alcohol.  Others were not stored at all, needing to he harvested fresh to be of any potency.

After any expedition to gather or collect his father would show the boy in the book the pages that contained all there was to know about the plants they had before them.  The explanations of his father were always easier to understand than the words of the page.

It was for its difficulty to understand that the book held so much mystery.  It was an enigma to the boy, one that would take years and years to begin to grasp.  Though while it remained an enigma the boy had always believed that it was complete and whole, there was nothing lacking.  If his father found something that wasn’t known he would add it to the book and it would be complete—though that hadn’t happened for many years.

Because it was so engrained in his mind that the book was omniscient it was more than a simple shock when he saw what he saw.  While flipping absent-mindedly through the pages he noticed that something was missing.  He stood staring at the book not moving, his hands hanging at his sides.  The feeling of power that he felt for having held the book drained from his body.  He was left cold and his skin went clammy.  A deep shiver ran from the base of his skull down the length of his spine and then to the bottom of his feet and to his toes.  A fear gripped him and made it hard to breath.  He drew short shallow breaths and began to feel light-headed.

He tried to focus and understand what he was seeing.  He closed his eyes, clamping his eyelids hard, hoping that they were playing tricks on him.  He left them closed and focused on the black of the insides of his eyelids.  He told himself that when he opened his eyes he wouldn’t see what he thought he had seen.  He would see everything exactly as it should be.  But when he opened his eyes everything was the same.

There in front of him in the book was the work of malfeasance.  Pages had been removed. It was almost impossible to see because of the expertise that had been employed to do it, but at the close range of the boy’s eyes it was noticeable.  Someone had cut pages from the book, two whole pages, front and back, were missing.  The book was not whole.  Someone was trying to hide something, had gone to great lengths to hide something.  The boy immediately thought of his father.  He had never had any reason not to trust the man he loved and had always looked up to.  But now a doubt began to grow.

The boy began to wonder what manner of man his father really was and what secrets were locked in his head.  He began to think of his father as evil and malicious—a plotter and a schemer.  The man must be up to no good if he would take pages from the book, even to allow that pages be taken was enough to tarnish his reputation and make him a cheat.  The boy began to feel trapped and closed in.  While the room was spacious, he felt a growing feeling of claustrophobia.  He needed to get outside, get fresh air.  He needed open spaces where he could think.  He turned toward the door to leave, but before he could move in that direction he heard a sound that kept his feet anchored to the ground.  From the lock in the door he heard the sound of a key being inserted and turned.  The knob turned and he heard a click as the door began to open.