Chapter 11: Chapter Eleven – The Seeds of Hatred

Wroth and his siblings only saw their father when the gray-Ancient left his cave to go south and forage for food or when he went to where he secretly grew the black mushrooms. Whenever he returned from forging in the south, he would dump an armload of fruit at the feet of Rancorous and then go back into his den. Beyond that, Calamitous had no interactions with his family.

Between the guilt of slaying his twin brother and the shame of abducting and raping Rancorous, Calamitous only found comfort in the numbness that the black mushrooms granted him, and so he simply stayed stupefied within the shadows of his cave as often and as long as he could.

So it was, in the sixth year of Wroth’s life, that the mind of Calamitous had been so addled by the black mushrooms that he did not emerged from his den for many days. When, at last, he did finally come out, he found that his family had gone near a week without food.

When he approached Rancorous and their children, the woman hissed with anger and then put her lips to Wroth’s pointed ear.

“He cares none for us!” she hissed loudly. “If he did, would he leave us to starve?!? And here we are powerless to help ourselves!”

When the giant man came back after three days, he went directly to his wife and children. In response to his return, Rancorous immediately gathered Wroth into her lap and hissed loudly into his ear again.

“He’s not for us! He only wants to hurt us!” she whispered her poisonous words. “He’s a cruel monster who rips and bites! He tortures with hunger and thirst!”

Upon hearing her accusations, little Wroth trembled with terror. In truth, the great size of Calamitous alone was enough to cause Wroth to stare with a mix of dread and wonder.

However, Calamitous did them no harm, but instead, he came and wordlessly dropped a huge sack in front of the boy and his mother. Then, without even so much as a grunt, he turned and stomped back into his den.

Fearfully, young Wroth crept out of his mother’s lap and peeked into the bag. Within, he found all kinds of fruits and nuts.

A confused expression flashed across the boy’s gray face. “But mother, he was only giving us something to eat.”

Rancorous replied with a sneer as she snatched up a piece of fruit. “Don’t be fooled, my dearest son, for monsters often seem kind only to hide their cruelty!”

She bit into it hungrily and then spoke again as its juice ran down her pale chin. “If he ever comes for you, you better fight him with all your strength,” she growled. “Because if you don’t, you’ll wish you had. If he ever gets a hold of you, he’ll cause so much suffering that you’ll wish you were dead.”

In this way, Rancorous poured fear, hatred, and resentment into the heart of her first-born son. Because of her words, Wroth was repelled by the man she called monster. However, at the same time, he was also drawn to Calamitous, for like all children, he was fascinated by his father and longed to gain some kind of attention from him.

So it was that the boy’s thoughts lingered upon Calamitous, and he questioned whether or not his mother might be wrong about his father. “Surely, he couldn’t be as bad as all that,” he reasoned within his young mind.

These thoughts haunted the boy until, one day, he could take it no more. With careful steps, he crept quietly into his father’s den. Inside, he found the giant man in a chamber just off of the main cavern. The gray-Ancient was clacking stones together for reasons Wroth could not fully comprehend. Hiding himself in a dark corner of the room, he watched his father with intense fascination.

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Calamitous was far too intoxicated to notice that his son had come for a visit. He regularly consumed the black mushrooms now, but beyond his drug-induced mental fog, he was also straining his mind with the effort to flint knap.

As he worked, he muttered to himself. “Wormtongue!” he spit the name out irritably. “Vile Dragon! Wicked trickster!” He clacked the rock in his hands with the hammer stone emphasizing his words. “How I wish I had slain her!”

As Wroth observed his father, he began to understand that Calamitous was trying to make something by hitting one rock with the other.

In this, the boy was correct, for Calamitous was trying to fashion a bowl from a large piece of obsidian. Having already failed at this task several times that day, his frustration was building to such a point that he felt he might explode at any minute.

“Before that cruel serpent tricked me, I could make almost anything out of rock, and now look at me. I have mastered the ability to convert any stone into mere shards.” the gray-Ancient continued to complain under his breath as he toiled. “Wicked trickster! Vile Dragon! Wormtongue!”

Again, he hit the stones together loudly, but after a few more blows, his anger caused him to strike the rock with more force than he had intended. With a sickening crack, the half-formed bowl abruptly fractured into several unequally sized shards.

Suddenly, a mighty roar of rage erupted from Calamitous. It was so loud that Wroth slapped his small hands over his ears and cringed with both pain and fear.

In the midst of his wrathful throat-tearing shout, the gray-Ancient flung the broken bowl across the room. It crashed against the wall above Wroth’s head, and a multitude of shards showered down upon the poor boy. As they fell, more than a few of these razor-sharp fragments sliced into his colorless flesh. With a shriek of terror and agony, young Wroth bolted out of the chamber.

The mind of Calamitous was so benumbed by the black mushrooms and so engulfed with his rage that he never noticed the poor boy. He scooped up another handful of mushrooms, and thus it was not long before he fell into a drug-induced stupor which lasted for days.

Wroth burst out of his father’s den and found his mother waiting. Flinging himself into her doting arms, he wept uncontrollably.

“Didn’t I tell you he is cruel?!?” she sneered with a self-satisfied expression. “Didn’t I tell you that he would hurt you?!?”

Rancorous stroked her son’s coarse black hair. “There now,” she cooed. “The pain will fade, but when it’s gone, you must never forget what he’s done to you this day. And after you become a man, you must rise up against him and slay him without mercy. In this way, I… I mean, we will have our revenge, but beyond this, you will take his place as the lord of Fangland and the master of our clan.”

By all these hateful and resentful words, Rancorous poisoned Wroth against his own father.

 

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