The Calling of the Stars, Part 2

And it came to pass in the seventh year of Haraldr’s reign that the Witch of the Wold arrived to trouble the kingdom.  The witch claimed a house deep in the forest for her own, so deep that none could find it but were turned around thrice on the way and found themselves hopelessly lost and at the mercy of the wolves the witch commanded.  Some said the witch was an ugly old crone, some a fair young maid, others said she had no form at all, but was a monster formed of ash and carrion meat sent by Ludï the Trickster to confound the realms of men.  Whatever her shape, with her coming crops failed, babes died in the womb, and misfortune of all sorts stalked the land.

Short story in progress

A short story I have started.  No idea where this one is going.

The Calling of the Stars, Part I

From a work-in-progress novella.

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Hadaleeth, there lived a people in a city by a lake filled with stars.  Not simply the reflection of stars, nor lamps cleverly disguised and lit from below the waters, but true stars, called down from the heavens by the sorcerer Janiath in his tower of the seven and seventy-seven steps, carved from the single tusk of the last mammoth to tread the mountain snows of Sesparshek.