by Robert James
This would draw the whites from their refuge where, with newly developed weaponry, they could shoot down the iron birds and drive the whites off their land. Looking at their state of technology, it seemed unlikely they could down a T.T.V. yet even trying and being defeated, is better than not trying, when you’re desperate enough. The thousands of square kilometres of flat, fertile land which they had been driven from, had to be retaken, if their clans in this area were to survive. Better to die honourably in battle than to starve to death. He was a Field Commander and was doing a patrol to check the condition of all of their forward positions, they had just finished preparing this one, hence the clear ground and spruced up condition.
They had ten such camps right across their defence line which stretched at least five kilometres. Six to eight hundred primitively armed men would be no match for two or three T.T.V’s like the one I’d flown here with. It would have been yet another, even bigger massacre, one which I was definitely going to prevent. Martin’s headquarters were two days fast march into the hills, but the two giant eagles, which sat high above us on opposite sides of the clearing, advised me that it was just an hour’s flight. On my instruction, at the male eagle’s suggestion, the two metre tall black leader had his men make a swing-type chair, with thick vines. He sat on it gingerly, as the enormous bird flew round the clearing very slowly. With a sudden, deft movement, the eagle snatched up the supporting rope and flew back into the sky.
I watched them rise and be joined, at several hundred metres, by the equally large female. Then, to a gasp of wonderment by the earth bound warriors, I took off and joined the now totally smitten Lowlander Field Commander. This was his first aerial view of the world which he lived in. Though obviously frightened, he still managed to be thrilled at the view of his verdant homelands.
“I have often dreamed of what our jungle looked like to the birds” He called out from his lofty and precarious looking perch.
“I hope your appreciation of the beauty of their world will move you to end the wanton killing of all flying creatures” I replied.
“We kill only for food Sire” He protested with quiet passion.
“Then these people must be hungry all the time” The doubtful female eagle snickered telepathically.
“Then why waste so much of their kills?” The male challenged.
“So what eats the food they leave behind?” I countered.
“The lions or other big cats, if they get to it in time” He replied.
“Otherwise, it’s only the carrion that will eat it” The huge female eagle added silently. It was early afternoon when we saw our first signs of the Lowlanders in the gently rolling foothills. Small groups of huts, with a few vegetable patches around them, they were home to maybe twenty or thirty families. This was certainly no invasion force; these were clearly long established settlements. They dotted the landscape for as far as our lofty view let us see.
They formed a three or four kilometre belt, around the base of the snow capped mountains which now loomed before us. As the ground began to rise more steeply, the thick jungle foliage took over and, for several kilometres; we flew over what looked like uninhabited, rugged country. Without warning, we crested a small peak and there they were! The valley below us looked like a very overcrowded ski resort, in the off season. At least a thousand small alpine-type huts were scattered, in an apparently haphazard manner, all over the valley floor. At the centre stood what was obviously the headquarters.
“Lord Robert” The female eagle began nervously “Would you mind if we dropped this man off at the edge?” She asked “We know their missiles don’t harm you but….”
“I will deflect any attack on either of you” I cut in “It is important to show these people that co-operation has benefits” I explained “It’s the best way to end the human danger for you and yours” I assured the huge female bird “Both of you follow me” I banked left and began a slow clock-wise circle, around the highest part of the roughly circular volcanic valley. Within seconds we were spotted and the whole camp came alive. Identically clad men, all carrying those tiny but lethal crossbows, and some with much larger versions of the weapon, moved swiftly into groups of thirty to fifty men. This was definitely a military camp, with well over five thousand armed and disciplined men.
A force like this would certainly threaten the Carabindy government, but, no force as primitive as this would be a match for the Supreme One’s T.T.V’s. After two encirclements of the outer rim, I started to spiral in slowly, gradually losing altitude. The men on the ground, black, athletic and mostly young, stood in groups, weapons at the ready but not looking aggressive, just curious. And what a curious sight we made, a man in a red kaftan outfit, flying around unaided, followed by two giant eagles, with the first one carrying the Field Commander, like a bird on a perch below him. When we were almost two hundred metres from the large, three storied headquarters, and just fifty metres above the warriors’ heads, a tall, grey haired man came out of the well built building.
The man had six huge men on either side of him, all armed with a different looking, metre long, tube-like weapon. They came out and stood, legs astride, arms folded, looking up at us.
“Take the man close to that group, I will protect you” I silently told the gigantic male eagle. The female flew back to the rim, while her mate did my bidding, hovering just two meters in the air, so that his passenger could easily jump off to the ground.
“Join your mate, but please stay near” I asked, after the man had jumped. The huge bird dropped the rope and, with a single thrust of his giant wings, flew up to perch beside the female eagle, many hundreds of metres above me. I lowered myself, vertically, to the ground and stood beside the Field Commander, who was obviously as awed by me as he was by his own Commander.
“What trickery is this Attann?” The voice fitted the elderly but still fit leader, deep, very powerful, and filled with scorn and suspicion.
“This is no trick Martin” The Field Commander urged his leader “This is no man as I have ever known. He flies unaided, talks with birds and is impervious to our weapons” He added.
“You fool!” Martin almost snarled “Their technology is not fully known to us. You say he is beyond our defences and yet you bring him here?” The leader challenged his officer “How do you know he’s not a kind of machine man? Perhaps a weapon?” He asked.
Suddenly, hundreds, if not thousands of weapons were pointed at me!
My recent convert looked distraught, then he angrily decided that he should to renounce his faith in me.
“You have tricked me” He accused me, adding “I have betrayed my leader with my superstitious gullibility” He took two long strides towards Martin, snatched one of the tube like weapons from one of the guards and pointed it at me.
“Have you forgotten your wounds Attann?” I asked. The man froze, his face a picture of indecision. On the other hand, Martin had formed an entirely different interpretation of my words.
“Not too sure you can deal with our two stone gun are you white man?” Martin’s tone gave me a clear warning of what was to come, so I braced myself.
“He says that he is of the Supreme Family Martin” Attann was still unsure. Martin wasn’t. He strode up to Attann, took the weapon from his hands and pointed it at me.
“Well, if he’s really Supreme, this won’t hurt a bit” He laughed, firing the thing at me point blank. A jagged, lightning like flash leapt at me and ran all around me, like a massive electrical charge. Then it passed on harmlessly into the ground. I was unaffected.
“Full guard fire!” Martin shouted, he was shocked, but not into inaction. He and the five still armed guardsmen fired at me simultaneously, it was quite a light show! Metre long bolts of ‘lightning’ streaking at me and becoming infused with the very bright aura that now surrounded me, and, like the first bolt, they all passed on harmlessly into the ground beneath my boots.
That was enough for Attann; he turned and fell onto one knee.
> “Sire, forgive my people I beg you” He pleaded with me, as Martin looked on. He had no fear on his face, only a puzzled expression.
“Did I not do so when you and your men fired on me before?” I asked the Field Commander in the shocked stillness. Attann looked up at me, then we both looked over at the still unsure Martin.
“Perhaps Martin would appreciate my mercy more, if he knew what could have just happened” I told the Field Commander. Then, I mentally withdrew all the power that had just passed through me from the ground beneath my feet, balling up the white glittering mass in my hands and throwing it over to the outer rim, opposite my eagle friends. Even I was a bit stunned at the result.
The shock waves from the enormous blast knocked virtually everyone but me off their feet, some of the huts, on the slopes nearest the blast, were completely flattened. As the echo faded and the dust slowly fell back to cover the massive destruction, I could see that I’d just created another pass way into the valley. Martin was a completely changed man, when he got back on his feet.
“You could have killed us all if you had chosen to, I see that now” He spoke with quiet dignity. Then, he walked over to Attann and knelt on one knee as his Field Commander was doing, all of the warriors followed suit. There was expectation in the total silence.
“Do you hate the snow?” I pointed to the Alps around us.
“No Sire” He replied, clearly puzzled by the question.
“Yet it is white and it has surely slain many of your people?” I asked him pointedly.
“It is a natural thing Sire, not something to hate” Martin replied.
“So was the horrific stupidity of the white invaders” I told him bluntly “Such is the nature of this world” I went on “Just as the white man has killed the black man for energy, black men kill other animals in this jungle for food, as do the larger animals kill the smaller, this too is all natural. But” I added “It is not particularly nice for those who find themselves at the bottom of this so-called food chain” I continued to explain to Martin.
“And the white man is at the top Sire?” He asked, with a trace of resignation in his voice.
“Not really Martin” I replied “They too have fears, often of their own kind. Do you not also have greed, lust and larceny among your peoples?” I asked, with my first small smile.
“Of course we do Sire” He replied looking up curiously, not awed.
“Fortunately for you, you don’t have their technology” I told him grinning “Or else you’d all be your own biggest threat, as they are to themselves” That remark did bring a smile to his lips, one which slowly made its way up his weathered face till it reached his eyes.
“They use technology such as this on their own people?” He was surprised but not too unhappy at that thought. Just then, an elderly woman, dressed in a hooded, multicoloured, full length robe, came out from the main door of the solidly built headquarters.
All heads turned towards her. Martin was absolutely shocked.
“Mother!” The Lowlander Chief got to his feet, stunned “Mother, how can this be?” He stumbled towards her, no one else moved. She walked into the afternoon sunlight, her hands rose and she pulled back her rainbow hued hood. Long grey hair tumbled around the shoulders of this very old, yet still hauntingly beautiful woman. That’s when I noticed that she was gliding, not walking! Martin, himself at least seventy, stood just a metre in front of this very solid looking ‘ghost’ of his Mother.
“Mother?” Martin’s voice, like his eyes, was now steady. This was a man with incredible self control. But the old woman did not even glance at her son. Instead she fixed her grey, almost silver eyes directly on me as she approached.
“And so now the Lord of the sacred House of Red is to begin his journey” Her voice was that of a high priestess, authoritative, so clear and so rich of tone. Though, I was a little concerned about the ‘begin’ bit. I thought I’d been well on my way for a while already.
“What can you rebuild, if you know not what was?” The woman asked me “Can a blind man paint a picture? Can a voiceless man debate? Nor can you germinate the seeds of freedom in hearts you do not know” She continued in her high priestess voice “Emancipation is the will of the entire world’s peoples, but what good is freedom without having the ability to be independent?” She asked, adding “Some must step back, some must step forward, so that the blood of the Supreme Family does not spill on barren ground”.
“You are she that has long foretold of my coming?” I asked. She turned to look at her son as she answered my question.
“I am honoured to be your prophet of truth” The beautiful apparition confirmed. With a startling suddenness, Martin, Attann and every other man in that valley, fell prostrate, heads down.
“Rise up my sons” The woman’s voice held power and joy “Make you all the feast of all feasts, bring all the people of the Lowlands to this place, so that they may witness the birth of a truly new world, where all are free” She reached down and took her son’s hands in hers, lifting him effortlessly to stand on his feet, towering above her
“Just once in our existence will we be so honoured by the Divine presence in our midst” She told him, looking up lovingly into his emotion etched face “Be sure the seed remains, that after Lord Robert departs, the children’s children shall know leaders such as you and he” She reached up, pulled his head down and kissed his forehead. Then the magical old lady turned and gracefully glided back through the closed door of the headquarters. Martin, shoulders most uncharacteristically slumped, watched till she disappeared, his pain was obvious. As he turned to face me, this remarkable man pulled himself back from the deep shock and emotion that such a visitation would have to have, on any man.
“My late Mother often chastised me for my impetuousness Lord Robert” He smiled a little ruefully. I smiled back at him.
“Today I have excelled in displaying that fault, I beg your forgiveness” Though the animosity was gone from his voice, Martin’s tone was strong and his manner dignified.
“In your haste you served me, as did Attann when we first met” I advised the mystified Lowlander Chief “You both provided me with the opportunity to establish who I am and what I can do, if necessary” I told Martin grinning widely. Martin laughed heartily.
“So even when we are wrong, we still serve you?” Martin asked.
“When the motive for your actions is heartfelt and unselfish, then whatever you do is a positive contribution to some part of this planet and the beings upon it.” I answered.
“Will you honour me by entering my home?” Martin asked. I nodded and we walked over to the three story headquarters.
Chapter Six
The Lowlanders headquarters turned out to be much larger than it had looked from the air, it was, in fact, a rather magnificent building. Broad half logs were the mainstay of the solid, chalet-like exterior, with a large balcony on the second floor and a much smaller two person sized balcony on the third. The huge, much carved door was opened by one of the guards that flanked Martin and he, alone, led the way into the enormous foyer. It was at least twice the size of a tennis court. The three metre high walls were grandly adorned with hundreds of beautifully preserved animal skins. The walls supported a heavy, Tudor-style, exposed beam roof and there were several doors tucked into the fur lined walls.
Life sized, black marble statues, of naked men and women, stood guard in fur lined alcoves on either side of each door. Intricately carved stone lanterns provided the dim but adequate lighting. A dozen or so, over stuffed, fur covered lounges were scattered in pairs around the highly polished wooden floor. Two very large and muscular men replaced Martin’s six man guard. Dressed differently and unarmed, they watched only Martin, as though I wasn’t there. We sat opposite each other, on a pair of lounges beside a broad staircase. In an alcove between us to our left sat the only white statue in the place. It was a metre high and was of a fully clothed and very beautiful young woman.
Martin’s mother,
with her arms forward and palms upturned, in a silent appeal for peace. Though the statue was of a young maiden, the classic beauty was immediately recognisable. Martin turned back from ordering some refreshments to see me admiring the superbly crafted statue.
“May I ask a question Lord Robert?” His deep voice held respect, but not subservience.
“Of course Martin, as often as you wish” I told the Lowlander Chief “My function is to unlock that knowledge which you need to progress your people to peace” I added smiling.