TheLossOfAshMonkey

parent nodes: AshMonkey | MajorDevelopments

The Loss Of Ash Monkey

from the Chronicles of Fenmere, the Worm (originally published in "Hailing Scales!"):
How AshMonkey was Lost

I’m FenmereTheWorm, the Poet, and I’m telling these
stories because the Storyteller, BoneJackdaw, has his
head up his ass, antlers and all.

As JadeCrow is the Warlord, or I am the Poet, and Bone
Jackdaw is the Storyteller. As GrassDog is the Artist,
PitchWolf is the Singer, Reed is the Cook, and BloodSparrow is
the Vintner. Just as IronTortoise is the Mathematician, and
GhostOwl is the Hunter, we all have our Arts. Ash Monkey
is our Warrior. And he is lost.

I knew him well. Warriors and Poets have always seemed
to share something, if not a similar outlook on life. We have
our disagreements, and we’ve fought bitterly, but we’ve
always been drawn to one another somehow. Maybe it is
because we love in the same way. I do not know.
Ash Monkey was one of those whose Art came late. It
was not until the Breaking of the Sky that Ash Monkey
came to his light. As the Outsiders invaded the land, Ash
Monkey was always where the conflagration was most
fierce. He had a knack. Better than any other Child of the
Great One, he could make his death count. It is an old
cliche of the war hero, played out many times to come by
the Children of Akailea, in their stories and their own vicious
battles. Ash Monkey owned the act, but his true Skill
was in surviving.

Sitting together by a stream, deep in the Eastern Mountains,
he once told me of the most horrible things he’d
endured in the past year, tacking down the evil Jey, in the
company of Jade Crow. He told me of the sacrifices he
had made to keep Jade Crow alive and on the trail of our
worst villain. He told me of the atrocities he had witnessed.
And for the only time in my long existence, I was
left without words. Even now, they fail me.
Ash Monkey has done things that the rest of us could not
do, should not ever have to do. He is not to be envied.
Now he is lost.

It came to pass on the eve of our defeat in our struggle
with Akailea’s Brats. Jade Crow had fallen before their
raging hordes, and Bone Jackdaw had trapped her soul in
her hat. He and I were meeting with their leaders to discuss
the terms of our surrender, a new truce, but never
again an alliance. And Ash Monkey was becoming angry.
The war had been bad. Our third struggle, it had been the
first in which the Great One had not smiled on us. We were
confused, confounded, and finally defeated. The land did
not swallow our enemies before us, and the sky had not
rained fire on their forces. The sea had neither kissed the
hulls of their ships, nor had it dashed them on the rocks.
And the wind had been always still, as if the World had
held Her breath in chill displeasure. And it had drawn the
worst and the best out of Ash Monkey.

As the battles had called for more, he had given it without
thought. He had served his flaming heart to the enemy,
and when that was not enough, he had given them his
blood, his breath, and then his soul, and it hurt them. But
they kept on pushing, and he kept on giving.

So, on the rising of the full moon, before the left eye of the
Great One, when we stood before our armies to declare
our agreement, Ash Monkey could not stop giving. Bone
Jackdaw and I stood on either side of Ferin, Cho Teru, and
Vera te Gath, the greatest leaders of the Children of
Akailea, their representatives of the time, and Cho Teru
began to speak.

There was a struggle some one hundred yards into the
masses before us. Someone cried indignantly, and the
mass of people parted. There stood Ash Monkey, his staff
held in line with Cho Teru’s heart, a snarl upon his visage.
“DIE!!!” screamed Ash Monkey, like an automaton, as he
rushed the astonished dignitaries. Jackdaw was taken
aback, amazingly. And I was filled with sadness, for I had
seen this coming. Usually it is the other way around, for
Jackdaw knows everything. And before either of us could
act, Ash Monkey was cut down by Ferin’s archers.

Ash Monkey died that time with no skill, no grace. He had
given absolutely everything he had had, and was left with
nothing, not even the fury necessary to fill his voice with
hatred to intimidate his foes. It was sad.

After that, he was lost. No one has seen or heard from Ash
Monkey again. We know that he is still here, somewhere,
for his acts have inspired the Children of Akailea time and
again. But his soul must be lost in madness, his Art burned
from it, taken by Akailea’s Children. For, like Ghost Owl, he
has been missing, his place vacant at our gatherings, his
presence otherwise unfelt in our daily lives, his last cry but
a hollow echo in the wind.