by Jared Ravens
While I waited I had the Table of eternity repaired and put it in my home so that when Spaulding and Curson ate with me they would see the permanent spots of my blood on it. The table often broke in two at the crack where the sword had crushed. I would demand Curson repair it again. He would do as I asked, but the repair would be poor because he disliked having to look at the table. It had the opposite effect on me. The table now thrilled me and reminded me of my triumph.
The thrill of being at the table diminished once I began sharing it with Genesee. I was sitting at that table across from a dull, analytically minded, middle aged man whom I had to be polite to. He was skilled in wasting my time and little else. His chief concern was always making an impression on others.
"What do you think of this Staley business?" I asked him one day.
"What business is there with him?" he asked, as if there wasn't a problem.
"He's making it rain every damn day. Look at what it's doing now."
I could not believe he thought this was normal, but Staley had convinced him that he needed to make it rain continually in order to balance out the dry air that was coming in. If anyone ever needed to fool Genesee, all they would say is the word 'balance' and he would back off. Balance is what he lives for. He uses it so often it's meaningless. He would shit himself if he didn't hear it coming out of someones mouth at least every three minutes.
"He says that this is just part of the balance to correct for all the poor management we had when no one was monitoring the weather."
“Balance my ass, look at the ground. It's a flood plain, and we're on a mountain. I’m unable to build the rest of my house and Spaulding has fifty men out there sliding like they're building on the side of a waterfall. If you hadn’t sent Curson down to Sigma we could have build metal gutters to redirect the rain.”
Genesee defended Staley, but with less assuredness. I was stunned by his gullibility. He asked why I thought Staley would do such a thing.
"He's mad that he doesn't have a castle to sit his lazy ass in," I said. "So he's going to flood everything and hold us hostage until we give him my house."
"That can't be right," Gensee said, but I knew it was. And even if it wasn't, I was still going to push for what I knew should be done.
"What protocol is there to hold someone like Staley accountable?" I asked. "Am I the one that has to threaten everyone with extinction just to get little things done around here? I thought you were here to manage these thing but look! Sigma is nearly drowning."
"I can ask him to stop."
"But what force do you have? I have plans here for everything, from the birth to death, the recycling of every being for better purposes. The managers we need for this will need to be disciplined. What happens if Curson doesn't get metal to the blacksmiths? What happens if Spaulding doesn't set up mines? I would enforce this but, well.."
Genesee gave me one of his unreadable, blank looks. To me he simply looked incredibly gullible. He shut his journal.
"I have the full force of Goetz to back up my decisions."
"Then let's use it," I replied.
Genesee was finally disturbed enough by the water invading the flimsy wood walls of Sigma that he decided I might have a point. I made an agreement with him we set out to fulfill it.
I went Staley him first, under the suggestion from Genesee that I should try diplomacy first. He was living in a small shelter at the end of a trail on the west side of the summit of The Hill. I can't say I blame him for being upset with his conditions; I'm sure Goetz had promised him a much better living arrangement than four trees and a canopy of leaves. Staley had given himself a thick chest and a broad, brown beard, though his face was really quite young looking. He enjoyed parading around shirtless so the beard would fall elegantly on his thick breasts. Why he did not prefer a sunny day to show off his vanity I do not know.
I asked him politely if he could make it stop raining and he responded by gruffly giving me the same answer, telling me that it was necessary.
"Necessary until we have a home for you?"
"Necessary until I have the conditions balanced."
"And is a home one of these conditions?"
"If you say it is," he replied. He sat down and began to fool with some brass instrument for weather measurements, one of the tools he had concocted with Curson’s assistance.
"We would be building you a home but the ground is so wet that any holes we dig are filled immediately. I can't build my own home, much less yours."
"Interesting that you say that. I have stopped the rain before and the only thing that continues to get built is your home, again and again."
"I see," I replied. "May I say that not once have you come to visit me in my home and stay, where you are more than welcome."
"May I say I do not wish the pleasure of you company, if my skills are in so little demand that it is not thought necessary to give me the courtesy of a place of my own?"
Well, this was not working out well. I smiled very tensely and told him I would be seeing him. I returned to Genesee, more angry than ever. Genesee went about his part of the bargain, which involved a more strict reading of the code of rules Goetz had dictated to him. Goetz, he would proclaim, is the ultimate arbitrator of what should happen and Goetz had said to stop the rain. If this failed, I would assist in holding Staley him down until he changed the weather.
But my thoughts on this plan had changed. The rain was in the process of ruining my current, incomplete home, and the workmen had not done anything in some time. I watched from a distance as Genesee read his legal obligations to Staley. Staley continued to ignore him. He sat with his back to him, seemingly giving Genesee same answer I had received.
When the time came, Genesee nodded at me. Spaulding and Harper were at my side. Spaulding was as sick as I was with the current conditions. All of his mines were flooding and he was hoping to get a beating in on Staley. Harper was less enthusiastic about disciplining his son, as the rain had allowed him to build rivers and lakes at an incredible speed and he mostly agreed with Staley that it was too dry. But he did as I said for I needed his help.
"It is not my wish that Goetz punish you using its means," I heard Genesee say. "Goetz would be too harsh. But we must come to an agreement to avoid that."
When Staley saw us coming, he had gleam in his eye and he began to grow, and we did as well.
"Do not go too high, sir," I told him. "You will exhaust yourself before you reach as tall as I can go."
By this last sentence I had my hands on him and he had his on me. Genesee, below us, was yelling orders at me. Harper and Spaulding grabbed Staley’s arms and he struggled with them in vain. Harper held his hand out to Staley's face, pushing his liquid palm through it. He struggled, breathing into a mass of water and mush that formed Harper's body. When Harper pulled his hand back, Staley yelled at him to stop the rain.
I pulled from bag some rope and we tied him to a rock. I was reminded of my own imprisonment up here. I didn't wish for what had happened to me to happen to anyone else, not exactly. I simply wanted him to understand we all had the same goal.
"Staley, I understand how you must feel. I was here as well," I told him. "What we are asking is simply to stop the rain and I will build for you the grandest home you can imagine."
"Or you'll drown me?" he scoffed. "Is that the alternative?"
"The alternative is the same," I said. "I will building you a grand home, either way."
"I'll stop the rain when you let me go and show me respect!"
"It must stop before it you are let go," Genesee yelled from below us.
Harper readied his hand again, prepared to cause him more discomfort. I motioned for him to hold back.
"You can't kill me doing that," he said. "I know what I am. I can put up with a little bit of water. But I'm not going to be disrespected."
I liked this thinking. It was going the way I had hoped. "Like I said, I will build you it either way, but I wish to know your answer clea
rly: Will you make it stop now or not?"
"I won't do anything against my will," he replied.
"I understand," I said, and I reached into my purple bag again. I drew the sword out quickly so no one would have time to see it. In one fast, hard stroke I thrust it against Staley’s neck and cut it clean through. It was a moment of pure satisfaction. His head rolled back, fell like a boulder down the mountain and landed in a pool halfway down. Today people call this Red Falls for the beautiful red waterfall that flows from the pool where his skull still resides.
Harper and Spaulding let go of the limp body and Genesee began an angry tirade. But he wasn't halfway into his first sentence when the rain stopped. The four of us looked up to the sky in disbelief.
"It really is that simple," I said to them, putting the sword back into my bag. "Spaulding, as soon as the ground is dry you are to start on a tower for him. I have the perfect plan. It will be on this spot, and it will be gated so no one need ever bother him again."
"What about your home, ma'am?" Spaulding asked.
"I am a keeper of my promises,” I replied.
And so I am. I built Staley a magnificent tower in red and gold that was for some time the highest point that could be seen. He recuperated in my home, growing his head back slowly with Martel’s help. Our relationship has been cordial ever since, and his temperament is vastly improved.
Genesee was upset, as he was worried about what Goetz would think. This was predictable but I was, again, of my word.
"It will understand that certain measures are necessary," I said. “Goetz may take punishments against me that it sees as necessary."
He stopped his worry for a moment and looked at me as I lounged on an enormous bed towering far above him. He changed his train of thoughts.
"I don't think it is rational for you to be so large," he told me. “You are nearly ten times my height right now, with a bed of equal measure.”
"Then grow to my size, because I do not desire to make myself weaker or smaller for any man."
He seemed to know it was a battle that he could not win because he declined to fight. He simply climbed the ladder to my bed and that night I allowed him to mount me in the first of many occasion, under a general understanding that this was the most efficient and quick way to populate all the land.
In the days that followed our relationship became more understanding, and he was less harsh in his rationalizations. I came to appreciate his desire to do things that I had no desire to do. We let each other be for the most part. Goetz seemed satisfied with the resolution and did not take any action against me.
Days later, on instinct, I went down The Hill and into the woods east of Sigma, looking for privacy. There, with the help of my handmaidens, I birthed a collection of women and men onto the ground in a matter of moments. It was a moment of creation that I had no words to describe. They came about quickly, walking and talking, brothers and sisters of all shades of being, and I loved them all, even the men. I had saved my lovely women the need for child birth, though they still had the ability if they wished. And though all of them would come to be greater than average, there was one that stood taller than any.
Vivian, I named her, the one with wild eyes and a beauty that draped over her like a robe. She was the first of any to look at me directly in the eyes. They glowed green, overpowering even me. I understood her vast abilities immediately and I loved it. She and I were of the same cloth.
She walked silently into the wood, knowing animals instinctively from the first, but also curious about humans. She still comes to visit me on The Hill when the need strikes her, and those days are the most fulfilling I have ever known.
The Hill
“Well, there’s only one choice.”
The creased face of the old man was a persistent memory to Bern, those same words dropping out of his mouth. He had said many other words to Bern, but these ones were the ones he remembered. His pale lips barely moved when he said those words of consequence.
He was right. The man was only one board member at a table of many, but when he said those words everyone knew the debate had ended.
"Bern, we’ve got to send you up The Hill to figure this out.”
Those statement rotated through Bern’s head as he became exhausted during the climb. They bounced back and forth, each statement echoing off the other. He knew what he had to do from the moment those bloody papers arrived at his door. He would need to get to the bottom of what was happening.
As stressful as a meeting on The Hill would be, he was loathing the journey more. The heat had barely let up and half of the road that led to the top had not been paved due to bureaucratic mismanagement.
It was a two or three day climb, with plenty of time for thinking while sweat poured down his face. He had done it before, as a younger man while assisting some superiors with administrative matters. That was nearly twenty years before. Years of sitting in chairs all day had not helped his fitness. What’s more, he would be without a companion. Divic had offered to go but that was foolish. Divic could barely climb a flight of stairs. There were carriages that would take riders to the top but his workplace was already strapped for cash owing to the current controversies. Bern also felt guilty at his role in the current problem, so he took a small stipend for food and nothing more as he volunteered for the business trip.
A courier was sent up the path days before he left with a request for a meeting but this was merely a formality. We weren’t going to wait for a response. Bern was going to the top of The Hill immediately and wait to be let in.
He was a solitary person on the walk but he certainly wasn’t alone. The dusty trail was packed with travellers. All governmental business was done on top of Sigma. Bern walked among the throngs, some reasonably well off but most just poor hirelings doing business for their bosses. All looked as if they’d been led through a cavalry charge after the first day.
At the end of the first day Bern camped on the side of the road, feeling filthy but not wanting to spend money on an inn. He was tired but not nearly as exhausted as the people laying on the ground around him. He felt his trimness had been of benefit to him. The next day he got high enough on the mountain to see above the trees. The air became cleaner and lighter. When the light became less direct it became enjoyable, with a cool stream bathing his warm body.
He slept much better the second night. The third day consisted of trudging along treacherous slopes that held up a caving road. He walked carefully along the winding roads until gold and silver gates rose up above the rocky summit wall. Behind the gate, in the distance, shinning gold pillars held white blocks of marble as they reached to towering heights. This was the fortress, the newest and largest iteration of the small home Celia had planned, built, and continually rebuilt. Even from this distance Bern could see it was masterpiece of engineering, one that attempted to dwarf the incalculable majesty of Sigma Mountain.
It was late in the day and the guard gave Bern the run around. Since he didn’t have an official appointment he would have to go back down and send a courier to get one. When Bern told him he had send one but hadn’t heard back, the guard told him to go back down The Hill and wait for an answer. Bern asked why he couldn’t just wait here. The board informed them that officials had to approve it first before he climbed the mountain, so technically Bern was committing an infraction by even being there.
Bern suspected the man just wanted to go home. To make Bern go away he put his name on a waiting list, a piece of paper that Bern suspected would get filed into oblivion. He walked away with a crowd of other rejected visitors hoping the morning would bring a change of guards.
The inn was not far from the gates, at the elbow of the trail and seemingly tilting towards falling off the cliff. Bern waited for his room at the communal table, dreaming of a bath and a bed as he sipped some very watered down grava.
"What are you in for?” the man at the table asked Bern. The man was there with his son, a boy as young as soft looking as his f
ather was rough and pugilistic. Bern told them he needed some publishing contracts. The man didn’t appear to knew how to read so that didn’t interest him. Bern asked him the same.
"I need out of my hole in the ground,” he replied, referring to a mine he was working in. "I know old Spaulding, he used to see us all the time in the old ore mine south of here. But they’re working us like slaves there cause the mine is drying up. But the pay keeps being the same. They need all the metal they can get cause of that bastard Fairfax keeps taking the swords from the people he kills, so I say just put me in the army and let me get a death of it so I can visit Waring underground and get some rest.”
He seemed to realize what he had just said was not meant for children’s ears. He glanced at the kid next to him and told him he wasn’t going anywhere. They just needed to move to a better job site, he said. The boy nodded shyly but said nothing.
"I say,” the man continued, “why not just get Curson to make some more metal for the army. Can’t he do that?”
"He can make ore into metal but he doesn’t just make metal,” Bern said, adding that he wasn’t entirely sure because I had never met him. Bern began to wonder if Curson could make metal.
"This fight they have,” the man said, shaking his head, “They weren’t prepared for this. It’s going to be the death of them.”
Bern glanced around the noisy dining room and the man did the same. This wasn’t the sort of thing one said to strange ears.
"I think they’ll get through it,” Bern said diplomatically. "They sent a full army after him, I heard.”
"If it isn’t this guy, it’ll be another,” he replied, still too loud for my nerves. "They fucked up on this one. Genesee, Celia, whoever did it, whoever made him, he’s going to be a beast and a half. If not him, someone is going to do them in.”
I recognized the look of satisfaction on his face. It was the look thousands had when they realized Fairfax had escaped the latest trap that Genesee had set for him. The frustrations with the current system were becoming manifest in one rebel. Bern was skeptical that Fairfax held any chance of doing anything besides embarrassing the current regime. The man was too loud with his opinions so Bern at quickly. He was already in enough trouble as it was; he didn’t want to be sitting beside a heretic in public.