The Yarnsworld Collection: A fantasy boxset by Patrick Benedict

Author:Patrick, Benedict [Patrick, Benedict]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Published: 2017-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

A tale from the Crescent Atoll

Eneti was a carpenter’s son. He was young, but already he was being trained in the ways of his father. Young Eneti, little more than four years old, would watch his father in his workshop, shaping canoes from whole tree trunks, or carving fine figures for the chief’s daughters. Eneti’s father had a Knack for woodwork, and he used his magic to find the shape that would best suit the wood that was brought to him. Eneti was destined to inherit his father’s Knack.

All of this changed on the day Eneti first met the goddess Laka.

Little Eneti was walking along the shore close to his village. It was not unusual for the children of the village to wander the beach by themselves. They had all learnt to swim before they could walk, and no taniwha or enemy islanders had been sighted on these shores for generations. Indeed, Eneti would not be harmed on this day, but he would forever be changed.

Laka had taken the form of a young girl, clothed in a black dress that wrapped itself tight around her from her neck down to her ankles. Only her hands, feet and face were visible, and Eneti could see straight away that her skin was the purest white.

She was dancing.

He sat and watched her for hours. Eneti did not hide from the goddess. He sat in plain view, close enough to see every footstep and delicate play of her fingers, but she did not react to him. The goddess must have known, however, the effect this performance would have on such a young mind. Eneti was entranced by the goddess, entranced by her perfect flowing motions. From that moment, he was doomed to fall in love, with both Laka and with her dance.

The goddess looked at him only once, at the end of her dance, and she stared at him briefly with her black eyes. Then she was gone, and so too was Eneti’s freedom.

It would be many years before Eneti met Laka again. As he grew, he became obsessed with dancing, and with any spare time he had he would run back down to the beach, back to where Laka had bewitched him, and would attempt to copy the memory of her movements. Even when he dutifully watched, and later helped, his father at the carpenter’s workbench, Eneti’s mind continued to wander back to Laka on the sand.

It surprised nobody when Eneti developed a Knack for dancing, but disappointed all in his family except for the boy himself. Despite his clear gift, Eneti’s father and mother continued to pressure him to follow in his father’s footsteps, to become a carpenter to support his family, and his future.

It was during the time that Eneti was mulling over these pressures, when he was twelve years of age, that Laka visited him again, this time taking the form of a giant, white-faced spider nestled in the tree he had sat under to contemplate his future.

“Why are you

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