Valley of the Shadow

by Michael Gardner

  * * *

  Raven’s new family were Greek citizens and owned a small plot of land outside the walls of Amphissa. They grew grapes, olives, and barley, and made enough money to lead a comfortable life, but were not wealthy enough to afford slaves. Both worked hard. Charis raised the family, tended the gardens and animals, milked the goats, and made cheese. Basileios had a small boat. He caught fish and worked the land. They had two other boys, Duris and Eos, who had wavy blond locks and sun-bronzed skin like their parents. They had been besotted with Raven for the first few months of his life, but when he’d sprouted hair as dark as the midnight sky during a new moon, the adoration in Basileios’s eyes for his third son turned into a frown and soon after to a scowl. Often, if nobody else was around, Basileios would shake his head as he watched Raven lying in his cot.

  One day he asked aloud what they’d done to offend the Gods.

  Charis swept Raven into her arms. “Don’t speak ill of your son!” she said. “He is blessed with two arms, two legs, and all his fingers and toes. We have three perfect boys. You should thank the Gods. They have smiled upon us.”

  “His pale skin burns red in the sun, and his hair is as dark as Hades.” Basileios folded his arms and turned away from her. “We have no dark-haired people in my family. If his skin were darker he would pass for a Persian child.”

  As Raven grew, his unusual appearance became more pronounced. As soon as he could walk he looked at himself in a puddle. Even though it had been two thousand years since he’d last been a child, his face was as he remembered it down to the last detail. All the people of his tribe had dark hair and pale skin. In Britannia, far to the north, there was no fierce sun. Summer was short and winter was harsh and cold. His people slept in caves, not in houses like the Greeks. A single fire could keep those dwellings warm through the bitterest winter night. Staring at his young self in the puddle, that time seemed impossibly distant. He realised he’d lost count of the number of years that had passed, and for the first time since leaving Britannia, he craved the shelter of the earth’s womb.

  Raven found comfort in Charis’s arms. However brief, the moments of solace with her allowed him to forget for a time the prison of his small body. As immortality piled years upon him, there had been times when decades would appear to pass by in a blink. Now, a single day felt endless. He had all the time in the world and no patience to wait for his body to grow.

  When Raven became a toddler, Charis erected a small tent, a canvas sheet suspended on two sticks with an open face at one end, so he could sit with her without getting sunburned while she tended the garden. He played with a stick, and when she wasn’t looking, wrote his real name in the dirt, the one his parents in Britannia had given him so long ago: Brennus. Then, shuffling his chubby foot, he made the letters disappear before anyone could see. Brennus. The name Phylasso had told him to forget.

  “Are you all right?” Charis said, as she stood, brushing dirt from her elbows and knees. “Not too hot, baby boy?”

  Raven studied her face: cheeks flushed with heat and exertion, eyes and mouth showing age lines as she smiled. Although she was not yet in her thirties, her blond hair was beginning to grey. He shook his head.

  “You understand me, don’t you, my dear baby boy!”

  He did but hid his ability to talk. He could share his thoughts and ideas, even if all they talked about was tending the garden, but Basileios already considered him strange. What would Charis think if she discovered her infant could converse with the knowledge and eloquence of an adult? Raven dropped his stick and made an effort to look frustrated at the loss of the toy.

  Charis smiled. “Wait there! I’ll fetch us a drink of water.”

  While she was gone, Basileios returned from the morning’s fishing trip. He took one look at the tent and made a growling sound at the back of his throat. He fixed Raven with a cold, unwavering stare. “No son of mine needs a shield from Apollo’s light!”

  A hundred responses went through Raven’s mind. Instead, he picked up the stick, and grinning and gurgling, waved it in the air.

  “Imp,” said Basileios, turning his back.

  At night, when they thought he was asleep, Raven heard them argue. Basileios was trying to whisper, but his voice carried. “What’s wrong with the boy? He barely makes a sound, and I’ve never heard him cry. He’s simple-minded!”

  “You should be grateful for a full night’s sleep! All children are different,” said Charis. Her voice was hoarse. Raven gripped the side of his cot and pulled himself up to a standing position. He could hear her crying.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if he’s mine,” continued Basileios.

  “How dare you!” she said, finding strength.

  “I dare because... if he is illegitimate, our citizenship could be annulled, and he will be sold as a slave!”

  It wasn’t the last time Basileios questioned her faithfulness. Their arguments were bitter. They always ended the same way, with her in tears, begging for his forgiveness, but she never admitted to having lain with another man. Raven wanted to tell her the truth when he heard her sobbing, but he knew the truth would be too hard for her to believe: that when trying to have a child together, she and Basileios had somehow opened a doorway between worlds, allowing his immortal spirit to retake its original human form. Raven didn’t understand it himself.

  Duris and Eos began to imitate their father’s scorn. Raven couldn’t blame them. A son was expected to look up to his father, to copy his behaviour. Until sons became men, their fathers were like gods. They teased him, called him a fool and other names. Eos, the braver of the two, took to poking Raven with a stick when he ignored their taunts. Basileios caught him in the act one day, and thrashed the boy so hard he never did it again.

  Afterwards, Basileios confronted Raven. “Imp, you tear my family apart!” he said through clenched teeth. Raven watched Basileios hitch his salt-stained chiton and drag his feet across the brown grass to his boat. He slumped against it with his back to the house, pulling his thinning hair with his fingers as if he were trying to straighten the curls. Raven was young, but his hearing was keen, and while Basileios tried to hide his emotions, Raven heard him sobbing.

  As time went by, the look in Basileios’s eyes changed from anger to indifference. Raven pitied him. Basileios was a simple man. He clearly loved his wife and other sons. Surely, this was some part of the reason Phylasso had warned the Khryseoi about becoming too involved in mortal affairs, that without compassion and understanding for one another, it could only lead to sorrow.

  Raven discovered that being ignored by everyone except Charis was a blessing. He had work to do: strengthening his underdeveloped body, preparing tools, and gathering supplies. Every spare moment was spent walking and running. He teetered along the short sandstone wall circling the garden to regain his balance. He chased butterflies, and when they no longer proved a challenge, he progressed to chickens and goats. By the time he was six hands in height he had become an adept shepherd. He climbed trees when there was nothing to chase. If nobody was looking, he juggled pine cones, recovering the coordination he needed to draw a bow and wield a sword.

  His mind remained active, but his body constantly betrayed him with the need to sleep. He found himself waking up in strange places: in the goat shed, upside down in a clay pot, and half-standing with his head resting on a shelf. At other times, he felt Charis’s arms lifting him to nestle against her shoulder. “By the Gods, it wouldn’t surprise me to find you asleep on the roof,” she whispered, as she put him to bed.

  Crafting a bow proved harder, not for lack of materials, but of tools. Who would supply a three-year-old boy with bronze arrow heads or a knife? Getting sufficient time to himself was a constant challenge. As Basileios and the boys became distant, Charis grew more protective. He knapped arrow heads in her company. This looked no different to banging rocks together. He kept the flakes that were unfit for arrow heads and used them to scrape, chisel and shape branches into a bow and t
he shafts of arrows.

  Charis sat beside him one day, while he was shaping a stick with a stone. She ran her fingers through his hair and down his cheek. “You may sit in silence, my dear baby boy, but I know you’re special. I feel it.”

  Raven touched her hand and blinked away a tear. He didn’t move for many hours after she had released him from her embrace. He’d heard these words before. They brought back potent memories.

  * * *

  Britannica (Ancient Britain)

  2493 BC (eight years before the war with Eurynomos)

  Shortly after Brennus’s tenth birthday, he was slicing thin strips of beef and hanging them on a string to dry, when a stranger arrived at their village. He carried a great sword strapped to his back, so misshapen it seemed to Brennus to have been forged by a blind blacksmith. Brennus couldn’t help but stare at it. He’d never seen a weapon so large. The stranger was underdressed for the climate, wearing only a fur wrap around his waist. As his eyes fell on Brennus, an ivory grin appeared in the tussock of his brown beard.

  Ready to fight, Brennus gripped his flint blade, although he didn’t feel fear, or any sense of hostility from the strange man either. The man sat down on a rock and stared into the distance. “Beautiful day,” he said at last. “The air in this part of the world is so fresh it tingles inside my chest.”

  “Who are you, stranger? What brings you to our village?”

  The stranger rolled his eyes and tugged his beard. “Is it your custom to greet a friendly stranger this way?”

  “Very well,” said Brennus. “Who are you and what brings you to our village... friend?”

  The stranger shook his head and bent down to loosen his sandal straps. “My name is Phylasso and I have travelled a long way to seek you out.”

  Brennus set his knife aside and washed his hands in a clay bowl. “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” said Phylasso. “You’re special. I feel it.”

  “Me!” scoffed Brennus.

  Phylasso thumped his fist on his chest and holding it to his heart said, “I think you know what I mean.”

  Brennus pressed a hand to his own chest and for a brief moment felt a connection to the strange man, as if they could share thoughts and feelings without speaking.

  Phylasso nodded slowly. “You must make a great journey, Brennus.”

  “How do you know my name?” asked Brennus, his voice catching in his throat.

  “I know a great deal about you,” said Phylasso. “I know you can skewer a bird on the wing with your primitive bow. I know there’s a desire in you to discover if there’s more to life than being a farmer, taking a wife and raising children.” He laid his broad hand on Brennus’s shoulder. “I know you aspire to be more than you are now. If you will help me to save our world, I will give you a gift beyond imagination. Come with me to Illyria.”

  A thousand excuses ran through Brennus’s mind. He had duties, obligations; a community that needed him. Yet he looked Phylasso in the eye and nodded.

  “Good!” said Phylasso, in a hearty voice. “Gather what you need. We must leave at once.” His grin vanished. “If you are true to this purpose then above all else, never speak your own name again, neither to your closest friends, nor to any lover.”

  “I’m to become nameless?”

  Phylasso blinked, and in the distance Brennus thought he heard thunder in the cloudless sky.

  Phylasso lowered his voice. “There’s an old saying: To summon a daemon, you must first know its name. The same is true if you wish to banish one.”

  Brennus scratched his head. “What’s a daemon?”

  Phylasso planted his palm on Brennus’s chest. “It’s one name for the life force that exists within every living creature. There are many others... spirit... soul. To protect your soul, you must protect your name.”

  “Then what shall I be called?” said Brennus. “I must have a name!”

  As he spoke, a raven swooped down from the sky, and landing on a nearby rock, let out a sharp squawk. The bird had a snail in its claw. It took the snail in its beak and proceeded to dash it against the stone.

  “The raven is my namesake,” said Brennus, smiling. “I’ve never seen him so close. It’s good luck. I shall call myself Raven.”

  Phylasso nodded. “It’s a good name and a better omen. The raven is your spirit guide.”

  * * *

  Aetolia (Eastern Ancient Greece)

  283 BC

  Raven continued to train his young body, practising techniques that would give him physical abilities that seemed magical. The house and gardens were as good a training ground as any. He vaulted the fences around the goat pen, suspended himself in doorways on outstretched arms and legs until they ached, and wrestled his mattress while Charis washed the sheets. As the months passed, he became aware that he was continuing to grow at the same rate as any mortal child. He started to wonder if he was indeed losing some of his special gifts. To find out, he smashed his little toe between two rocks, breaking the bone. The pain was excruciating. He couldn’t walk for a day, but after a week the injury had healed. All that remained was a fine white scar.

  When he was five years old in mortal terms, he finished making his bow. It was adequate for his current size, but a toy compared to the one he had lost at the Isthmus of Corinth. As he drew the string and felt its pull, he knew it was superior to the bow he had crafted as a boy in Britannia. The sight of boys fashioning and playing with weapons was common. Duris and Eos had already taken to sparring with wooden swords, but Raven wanted his bow to seem a child’s first effort. He’d crafted each component to appear misshapen, but together they operated in perfect balance, delivering arrows straight and true. He’d also made two bowstrings. One was weak, intended for public use, and the other he kept coiled in his pocket. If Basileios, Duris or Eos used his bow, the weak string broke. They would laugh and return it. Raven masked his relief with an ingenuous smile. He felt certain Basileios would have confiscated the weapon if he had discovered it had the power to kill. Raven couldn’t afford to lose the weapon as the day of his departure drew ever closer. He wasn’t prepared to walk in the wilds, a boy without protection, not while Acabar or any other dark spirit remained.

  One night he was woken by the sound of soft paws padding through the grass outside his room. He slipped out of bed. Able to move silently again, and taking his bow and an arrow, he crept past his sleeping brothers and into the night. He heard a low growl. Framed in the moonlight was a wild dog, a scraggly starving creature, so desperate for a meal it had dared to enter a place occupied by people. Raven nocked the arrow. The dog crept towards the goat pen. Raven drew the string and waited to see moonlight glint in the dog’s eyes. He slowed his breath, focused his senses, and felt for the dog with his mind. He sensed its excitement and hunger. Raven loosed his arrow and the dog fell. Rushing over to it, he saw the arrow had found its mark deep in the dog’s eye socket. Raven said a word of thanks for a clean kill.

  “What’s going on?”

  Raven turned and saw Basileios.

  “Dog,” said Raven, pointing to the corpse.

  Basileios crouched next to the animal and placed his palm on its chest. While his head was turned, Raven worked with urgency. He braced his foot to the bow, slipped off the string, and in one swift motion, replaced it with the weaker one.

  Basileios turned. “You did this?” He snatched the bow from Raven’s grasp.

  Raven clenched his teeth. He’d only wanted to protect his family from the hardship of losing the goats. He looked at his bow in Basileios’s hands and wondered if he would get a chance to make another.

  Basileios raised the bow and drew the string. It snapped. He stood, and looking from the bow to the dog and back again, returned it to Raven. “A lucky shot,” he said. “Take care with your toy around people or I’ll take it away.”

  Raven nodded.

  “Get back to bed!” said Basileios. “Your mother will worry if she hears you’ve been wandering about at night.”
<
br />   * * *

  280 BC

  Raven’s patience was tested at every stage of his preparation. Materials were scarce and tools were hard to acquire or keep for long. Raven’s body was now eight years old and most of his preparations were complete. He was ready to make the journey to The Watcher’s Tower. All he lacked was a knapsack and a quiver. He had collected off-cuts of goat leather and had pounded rushes to separate the fibres and weave a thread, but had no needle. He tried using a sharp stick to punch holes in the leather without success. A durable bag and quiver needed proper needlework. Basileios had a needle in a box with his fishing hooks. It was on a shelf out of Raven’s reach, but he needed time with the needle and had to content himself to wait for an opportunity.

  Months passed. One morning, Basileios returned home early from a fishing trip. He had torn his net on the rocks. He fetched the box, found the needle and sighed as he worked to repair the threads with his thick fingers. Eventually Charis called him away for a meal. He didn’t object and sucked his fingers where he’d pricked them more than once. Raven moved swiftly, his leather and twine stuffed under his tunic. He buried himself in the net, found the needle and set about stitching as if his life depended on it. With no time to make the stitches even, he assembled the quiver and knapsack and stowed them under his bed. From the dining room, he heard Basileios complain to Charis, between mouthfuls of food, about the net and how he wouldn’t be able to catch any fish until it was fixed.

  Raven bit his lip. He returned to the net and set to work.

  An hour later, Basileios returned with his shoulders slumped. His eyes fell on Raven. “What are you doing?”

  Raven held up the net, now whole again.

  Basileios rushed over and snatched it from his hand. He ran the loops through his fingers and past his eyes. “You did this?”