The Sacred Ground

© Cathrene Gehue, 2001
Based on a character created by S. Nicklin.

A Retelling of a Gworcid legend by the Wizard Zequ, from his disertation “Sorceric Aberrations of the Ancient World” written in the year 36 AT.

Pipolytus be nimble
Pipolytus be quick
With a sword he doth prick
the feral mice and slathering tick
and turns to dust the Foulness thick.

Once upon a Gworcid Nation, Foulness was afoot… Hold on!

Once upon a Gworcid Nation, Foulness was a foot. It was born from the dark sorcery of necromancy, from the warped imaginings of the child Vajek, intending to keep company with the infant Emperor to be, until one day his toes led him astray. Away Foulness roamed, calloused heel to grungy toe (and sometimes grungy toe to calloused heel), when he chanced upon verdant Obscurian fields spotted with tiny purple lizards.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Foulness hopped about, startling the lizards that were basking beneath twin suns, and he pinched their tails between his toes. Foulness delighted in this new game. His toenails tittered, and his ankle quivered with the evil of his pedal ways. Unfortunately, the mess of his mayhem left much goo between his toes, and as he hopped on, leaves, twigs and dirt adhered to his thickening calloused heel.

“This won’t do,” Foulness thought to himself, for thinking was all he could do since he was just a foot and had no mouth with which to speak.

Onward Foulness roamed until he discovered a vast river, the Elum. He dipped his toes in the crystal water and enjoyed the soothing coolness that lapped at him. There he rested, drumming his toes on the pebbles, washing the lizard goo away, and admiring the thick of his heel which was so good for stomping creatures with.

“How am I to cross this vast waterway,” Foulness wondered to himself. “Surely I will drown if I try to hop beneath the water.” But then Foulness scolded himself for not remembering that he had no nose. Immediately, he jumped into the river, floating down to the riverbed, and hopped-swam toward the distant shore, all the while squishing tiny crustaceans adorned with orange spiral shells and ogling blue eyes staring in wonder at the spectacle that squished them.

At last, Foulness hopped from the river and remarked at the crustacean remains between his toes. “I’ve got shells on my toes, and rings on my fingers,” he sang silently until he realized he’d forgotten that he hadn’t any fingers. This made Foulness furious, and he stomped onward in fury.

Meanwhile…

In the Gworcid nation’s sleepy fringe villages, a festival was underway. A celebration of someone’s birthday. Who’s you ask? It was… uh,… I used to know his name…. uh, you know the guy with the lisp… Oh, I give up! It was somebody-you-don’t-know’s birthday and everyone was having a Gworcid good old time. There was dancing and feasting. There were games and lots of drinking of bumble bee wine. Everyone was having a fan-tremendously-tastic time, except for a tiny nondescript Gworc named Pipolytus.

He sulked about the festival grounds, wishing it was he who had the birthday and was the center of attention, but according to Gworcid tradition, only high officials publicly celebrated their birthdays. Deep down and secretly, he wished he was someone special. All day, he moped about the village square with his trusty sword at his side, but he knew not how trusty it was for never in his life had he used it.

While tiny Gworcid flutes and fanfares filled the air with delight, the ground began to tremble. Pipolytus ignored it while envisioning himself being carried about on the shoulders of Gworcid citizens and reveling in their appraisal. The ground shook again, with more force this time. Pipolytus looked up and watched as the celebrators lingered in their dances and games, glancing nervously about them. Boom! The ground shook again.

From nowhere it seemed, the village Gworcid Seer appeared, but she was unlike most seers who were usually blind, for she could actually see.

“A terrible creature comes this way,” she lamented. “It’s a foot.”

Pipolytus gulped at the solemn news. “W-what type of creature is it?”

“It’s a foot, idiot boy!” she spat. Understanding suddenly donned on Pipolytus’s tiny face.

“And your psychic abilities told you that?” he asked innocently.

“No,” the Seer sneered. “The shoeless foot with toe jam standing at the edge of the field told me.” She pointed across the field, where giant golden and purple butterflies perched on the tall yellow wild grass.

There the foot, Foulness, hopped another step, trying to trample the butterflies before they scattered away. Foulness waited until the butterflies settled on their grassy perches before he jumped again, trying to squash their beautiful wings between his toes.

“If that blasted creature gets to the village,” the Seer began, “it’ll destroy our homes and squish us to death.”

Pipolytus gulped. The sight of Foulness sent celebrators screaming from the festival grounds and into the safety of their homes. Pipolytus realized that no one would be safe from this creature, and their sudden scurrying caught the attention of the pedal giant, which was at least five times the size of the average feral rat. And the only thing Pipolytus had ever killed (by way of stomping), was a few slathering ticks that had wondered into his hut looking for scraps of food.

“You should do something,” the Seer goaded him.

“But what?” Pipolytus asked nervously.

“Do what’s in your heart,” the Seer moaned as if caught in some silent psychic dialogue with the guiding spirit Wom.

The only thing in Pipolytus’s heart, Pipolytus realized, was fear. “Run away?” he asked, to which he received a smack across the back of his head from the Seer.

“You’ll never be anyone special unless you do something special,” she scolded him, while jabbing her gnarled Gworcid finger at him. “I should know. I’m a Seer.”

Taking a deep breath, Pipolytus lifted his shoulders high and slowly began to approach the hideous foot. The Seer followed close behind him, determined to aid him in his victory. Together they approached the foot, and Foulness stopped its stomping of the butterflies and watched as the two approached, which was odd because he hadn’t any eyes with which to see.

“Foulness,” the Seer said as they stood before it.

“I’ll say,” Pipolytus said wrinkling his nose at the odor emanating from the foot’s big toe. He unsheathed his sword and held it before him.

“That’s its name!” the Seer snapped. She then leaned forward, as if she were listening to the creature’s thoughts. “Interesting,” the Gworcid Seer mused. “It thinks it’s a he.”

“But I am,” Foulness declared silently to himself. Indeed he was a he, but then how could he really be certain since he had no doodle. (This is what the child sorcerer Vajek called his willy.) Growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of body parts, Foulness decided then and there that despite his body-lessness, that he was forever a he and would stomp anyone who said otherwise.

“But’s it just a foot,” Pipolytus remarked.

“That’s it,” Foulness declared, and with a great leap, he hopped as high as he could and came down on the two tiny creatures before him.

The Gworcid Seer screeched at the quickly descending heel of thickly calloused flesh. Pipolytus too shouted and raising his hands to wield the blow, felt the blade of his sword sink into the tender flesh of the foot’s arch.

Foulness shuddered with pain, falling to its side from the blow dealt him. It was a quick blow. A sharp prick, both shocking and paralyzing. Swiftly the pain receded, as he felt only the quickly dissolving flesh, muscle and bone of what was one him. Then he was no more.

Shakily, Pipolytus and the Seer stood beside the foot that came close to stomping them.

“Just as the guiding spirits said it would happen,” the Seer exclaimed.

Suspicious of the Seer, Pipolytus asked: “Then why’d you scream?” Before she could answer, the celebrators of the village had emerged from their homes, curious to witness why the foot had ceased its rampage, and marveled in surprise at the fallen arch before them.

Pipolytus, still stunned at the sight of his sword stopping the stompage, turned toward the creature Foulness. His sword, which was deeply imbedded in the arch of the foot, began to shift as the creature disintegrated into sparkling sorcerer’s dust and sprinkled the ground with its blue glitter.

The Seer cleared her throat and stared at the ground suspiciously. “I doubt any good will come to anyone who transverses this ground.” So she turned toward the villagers and the Mayor. She decreed before them that the ground upon which the creature Foulness was defeated shall forever be sacred, and because of this sacredness, none shall pass. Everyone agreed.

And so this is the story of how Pipolytus became someone special. A hero to his home town, Pipolytus soon was titled Guardian of the Sacred Ground, and his birthday was celebrated publicly every year. The little nondescript Gworc became a national hero, and to show their gratitude, the Gworcid Council deemed that the position would be bestowed only upon his descendants.

To Pipolytus’s son the title was passed, and to his son’s son, and so on. Of course, with the passing of great-great-great and even greater grandchildren, the events explaining the origin of the sacred ground became fuzzy and muddled, and eventually they were forgotten. I’ve been informed by a Gworcid Seer… uh, this is not the same seer that appears in the story… that Gworcid prophecies predict a day when the last of Pipolytus’s descendants will leave his post at the Sacred Ground and be deemed a criminal. I’m sure that’ll be a story to tell!

To this day, the Sacred Ground keeps the dusty remains of Foulness. Although none are supposed to pass, many have traversed the Sacred Ground. Even though nothing dire has become of them, those who sleep there beneath the silvery light of our seven moons, are awoken by an awful stench, to which they pinch their noses and exclaim: “What foulness!”

Originally published on website Obscura: A Collaborative World-Building Fantasy Project, 2001.