THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE TRENCH
The 1st book of the Trilogy of "The Lord of the Floods"
By
P.J.J. Caterina
In the Middle Age of the Municipality of Big-Stone, during the Reign of Good Toor the First, Ruler of the Council and heir to the Lady Durgin, there lived a quiet and peaceful association of diverse gypsy-like creatures called trailers-trogs who lived in moveable metal shelters along the might Goose River that ran down from the foothills of the massive Rock Mountain Range looming west of the city-state.
In those seemingly idyllic days there lay however, a terrible threat over all the lands along the eastern rim of the Rock Mountains--that of the gathering of the wicked forces of the Evil-Eyed Master of Raging Waters, the Sorcerer of Lightning and Thunder, the Flood Master, also called Lord of the Floods. At any time, on any day, tomorrow, next week, a year from now, 50 years or even 100 years from now the Flood Master could unleash a mighty tidal wave of water to rain down on the city and wash property and people away to the Great Havens, where no one had ever returned from, not even wizards!
Now most trailer-trogs paid little heed to the great matters of state as they planted their gardens among the spreading cottonwoods and willows that were nourished by the gentle waters of the Goose River which had been named in olden days for the alien geese from the land of Cana or Cana-da (da being the ancient tongue for ‘land of’), that congregated in its quiet shoals and open ponds that were created as it flowed eastward out of the ‘bottom pan’ or (valley) floor of Big-Stone City. No one knows for sure, but it is generally thought that trailer-trogs had originally come from all over the colorful province, aptly called Color-da, and gathered in this particular grove along the great river under the direction and leadership of one of the Lords of the Landed by the name of Lu the Younger, heir of Lu the Elder who had first discovered the trailer-trog grove in an earlier Age. Since they had all left their previous locales and moved their entire homes--thus making heavily rutted trails--to eventually assemble in the Grove, the name ‘trail-ers’ just sort of stuck. Trog refers of course, to trogging: the unique way that trail-er carried all their possessions and shelter around on wheels. (Today trogging refers to any thing that is mobile or that can be mobilized.) Thus they were trailers that trogged. This would seem to disprove the now more popular and modern theory that they were actually called trog(ger)s who lived in vehicles that made trail(er)s when moved.
While all seemed serene and dry in Big-Stone City, there came one day in the late winter to the Grove an old, gray-haired wizard named Randolf who foretold of a great and gathering gloom that was stirring in the west, over the Rock Mountains and of how the shadow of the Flood Master was filling the storm clouds with devastating quantities of rain and snow in preparation for a great flood to reek havoc on those who lived near the River of Geese.
And so, a great council was held to determine what to do to fend off the evil chaos of the Flood Lord and his fiendish minions. Since neither city dwellers nor trailer-trogs had the magic to stop the clouds from floating right over the Goose River Basin and pouring down upon them the mighty wrath of the raging flood waters, some packed up and fled to other parts of the World–never to be seen again. Those brave enough to stay eventually settled on two choices: they could either build great mounds and move their homes up onto them, or a great deep trench could be built to hold the massive amounts of water that would occur during the 100 year flood event foreseen by Randolf.
Once it was realized that building the large mounds necessary to be safe would entail digging a whole lot of dirt, it became obvious that with either choice a huge hole was going to be bared open in the earth. So the Great Council voted to build the enormous Goose River Flood Trench and Citizen’s Parkway project right along (or pretty darn close to) the banks of the Goose River and directly through the Grove of the Trailers. Only by allowing the potentially malevolent flood waters to flow harmlessly passed the bottom pan and onward east and thus through the Grove, cutting it in half, could the Shadow of the Flood be dealt with and the Great Disaster averted.
And so was begun the great undertaking of the digging of the Trench through the Pan along the banks of the Grove. City-dwellers and outland-dwellers worked together to gather great engine-ekers to make hoe-diggers that dug backwards, arch-techs to plan and build walls, hordes of culturists to design the new environment to be created, and a staff of Peers of the city’s Realm to administrate the changing Grove and its sometimes reluctant trailers, who’s ability to trog was truly to be tested by the Peers of the Pan.
And trog they did. Cleverly they mobilized and were eager to join in the battle against the heinous Flood Master--and yet still save their family abodes from being swallowed up by one thing or another. And so, the gypsy trail-ers formed a Home Protection and Acquisition Committee and named it in honor of the symbol of the land from whence the magnificent creatures for which the great River had been named after: the maple tree leaf of Cana-da.
The Maple Home Acquisitionists, or the ‘Maples’ as they called themselves, melded in quite nicely with the city’s great plan and worked together with them in trying to complete the Great Trench before the Evil-Eyed Shadow of the Flood could unleash his wicked walls of water. It was the only time during the Middle Ages that trailer-trogs and city-dwellers were known to have so trustingly joined forced.
And it was during this period of events that a band of like-thinking, land-trusting, non-profiting, affordable-income seeking people called the Mistle-Toed came into play. The Mistle, as they were called, were non-bureaucratic, cooperative land attainers from beyond the Pan. Together the Maples and the Mistle adopted a way for the trailers to someday permanently reside in the Grove until the end of their days. The Grove land on both sides of the Great Goose River Trench would be trusted to a consortium to have and hold for 99 years and the daily activities of the trailer-trogs would be overseen by, of all people, the trailer-trogs themselves. It was a bold and daring plan, but one worthy of trying.
And so, along with the Peers of Big-Stone City, the Mistle and the Maples formed a rare and unique fellowship, the Fellowship of the Trench, to deal with results of building the Great Trench that would protect everyone from the Lord of the Floods.
Unfortunately, this is all that is known of the times and Middle Age in the Color-da city of Big-Stone, except that the Great Trench was built and that the evil Flood Master is still waiting to unleash his evil deluge.