Elgaboth, the Kidnapping: Chapter 3

Once she knew Judy and John were gone Anna grabbed Kurt’s arms and began to drag him farther into the woods. She could not see any likely hiding places but she kept on dragging her friend with the determination of one whose hope will stubbornly live on without reason. This time, however, Anna’s unreasoning hope did not betray her. As she stepped backward there came a sinking under her. Anna had discovered one of the many secrets of Elgaboth, though this one was an accident.

Long ago in Greyland there lived a weaver. He was not poor nor was he rich. He lived alone because his wife had died but his children and grandchildren visited often and he did not long for more company.

Now in Greyland there was a law that all redheads belonged to the king. Every time a redhead was born they were officially recorded and every year their parents received a visit on the child’s birthday. If the child’s hair was still red the child was taken.

This particular weaver had a granddaughter who was so condemned. As her first birthday approached everyone prayed and hoped that her hair would change, but day after day each strand of her beautiful rose-colored hair remained.

A month before her birthday her grandfather began the tunnel which Anna had just discovered and two days before the young girl’s birthday she and her grandfather were absorbed by the ruin that was Elgaboth. Just as forty years later the authoritarian country of Greyland absorbed two refugees of the burning fortress, Elgaboth.

Anna was able to pull Kurt’s inert form through the tunnel and cover it again with branches. Long after the soldiers had combed the woods, after they had bound the instructors, and after they had marched a caravan full of princes, lordlings, and the loved daughters of half the kings on the continent. After all these things Anna again found the courage to move. She did not, could not, know that the dark men she so feared had no intention of staying more than a moment longer then he had to in Elgaboth. She did not, could not, know that this was not an invasion but a hostage exchange. So as it was the idea of going back held to much terror for her to contemplate.

In History lectures they had learned a little of the history of Greyland. When the founders had come to the continent a thousand and some years ago it had been the only country that would not take one of that race for king and hence the demons were not bound there. The kings of that country set out to stamp out the demons and their spawn. With great and terrible magic their sorcerers banished color from the grass, the sky, even the dirt was grey in that land. Somehow this did manage to hold the demons at bay but not their children. Demonspawn wreaked havoc in the lad even centuries after color was banished. This led to the kings taking even more drastic actions. It began with the twins. Everyone knows that the children of demons are always twins down to the fifth or sixth generation and they decided that the only way to ensure peace in the land was to keep all twins under guard. This also solved the problem of Labor in to build the great cities they had planned. The people were too terrified of the demons and the violence of their descendants to protest when a small fraction of their children were taken to do the king’s work.

This policy seemed to work for a period of about fifty years. The capital city of Greyland was built, people enjoyed more peace than they had known before. But because of that peace mothers began to question why it was that they had to give up their children to a king who really had no business making slaves out of his own people. People stopped reporting their twins. They would hide one for a year and say they were nine months apart. Some would be sent off to relatives and passed as another’s child. It was one of these who changed Greyland forever.

Al Keder was a twin sent to live with his great aunt. She was old and senile but many said she had been a witch. Whether that is true or not under her lackluster car Al Keder grew up to be a man known for his cruelty. He was known to torture animals and no one in the town had ever heard him utter one word of kindness or even civility. When he was seventeen they drove him out of town with curses and blows. That seemed to put the final touch on his madness. He used the dark powers inside him to destroy the village. If you go there today there is only a scorch mark about a mile wide where the town once was. But he was not finished.

He traveled to the king’s summer home where the king’s favorite daughter was residing while she waited to be married to one of the Lords. There he smashed his way through the guards, took the princess and murdered her in cold blood.

He was finally caught, laughing to himself in a pool of her blood. The king was devastated. He had Al Kader slowly tortured to death and he himself struck the death blow. Then he did something extreme. Al Kadar had been a redhead, so had several well-known demonspawn and it was known that the demons of that area when they appeared to men had flames on their heads. The king ordered all redheads rounded up and put in work camps. Those who could not work were to be killed.

Now to issue a decree that applies only to future children is on thing but to actually round up, neighbors, friends, and relatives of your citizens is another. Most were too horrified by recent events to protest but a group of rebels fought the king’s troops.  They fought bravely but were badly defeated. The remnant of that army fled into the mountains with their families.

After the rebellion the king grew even more bitter. He issued more decrees banning anyone from owning anything of color. Over time people began regarding color itself as the enemy. Children with green or blue eyes were looked on as suspicious and women were forced to cover their hair and sometimes their faces to avoid showing color.

So when Anna, a twin, found herself lying on grey grass in a country suspicious of everything she was in no little danger. Fortunately she was wearing her white nightgown and nothing colorful. Neither was Kurt as his clothing of choice that night had been black.

There was nothing she felt she could do. Dragging Kurt farther would be extremely difficult and she had no idea where they would go. She decided to wait until he woke up and fell into an exhausted sleep with her hand on his arm so she would wake if he did. Many hours passed in that colorless land before either stirred.