The Fathering Land

by Tripp Greyson

  "Just testing out manifestations," he told me. "Now, I'm going to escort you home to make sure you all behave."

  Toméz, who was holding his hands before his eyes, croaked, "Who is this glowing boy?"

  Thinking fast, I said, "He's… a messenger from God."

  "An angel? A real heavenly angel, not a member of the new race of that name?" Toméz gasped.

  "Yes, in a way," I said, and Toméz hit his knees.

  "You may call me Eos. Papa Toméz. Fell Tobias. For now, you and your followers will follow me, walking exactly where I walk, doing exactly as I say. Agreed?"

  "Sí," Toméz replied, while I just rolled my eyes and grunted "Sure."

  Chill, Dadday, my demigod son said in my head, as he struck off across the prairie. We followed him in single file: Toméz's group first, followed by mine, and somehow we were at the West Gate of Icarus Township in no more than 10 minutes. How he managed that, I have no idea; we'd been almost twenty miles away. At the gates, my son turned to us, pushed blond curls out of his eyes, and said, "Papa Toméz, this is your new home, and that of your sons and the Alfa infants. You boys may face some discrimination at first, but it will pass quickly. Won't it, Fell Tobias?" I nodded. "Very good. Papa Toméz, many deserving women here await your seed. Seek out first the quetzal Valencia, who is our Father's good and faithful servant, and has been waiting for you specifically. Your sons with her will be legendary."

  Then Little Magic disappeared, quite literally in a blaze of Glory, and I wondered how old he'd appear when I saw him manifest next.

  Remember not to hurt the Alfa babies, Dadday, especially when Toméz tells you the whole story, he reminded me before his voice faded away.

  This I had to hear.

  Meanwhile, I was feeling a bit sad that I wasn't going to get to experience the lithe form of Valencia the Quetzal, whom I had looked forward to exploring and determining how, exactly, one comforted a feathered serpent woman, and whether her womanly parts were perhaps new to my experience. At least I had already had the special experience with a harpy with Ava, because the newest harpy residents and the crow-women called tengu had also been awaiting Papa Toméz.

  I realized with a bit of shock that we now had six Alfa males as well! If they were as tame as they seemed, they would be able to take some of the pressure off me, though truth be told, I would miss all that pressure. As I had discovered in the last six months, comforting women and fathering upon this continent a new nation was great fun.

  Chapter Seven

  My talk had to be delayed, because we'd just drawn in a group of fairies and a new small race I'd never met, the pyskeen. The latter were little red-headed girls two feet tall clad in smart green suits and bowler hats, and Slinky laughed when she saw them, calling them "leprechauns." What was it with tiny women and red hair? They looked to two ladies four and a half feet tall who looked just like them that they called Hobs. I never really understood how the little ones and the Hobs were related, but I learned later that before Step Though the "leprechauns" had been mostly accountants, and all of them were in love with gold, especially the Hobs.

  The Hobs were a bit stout, quite curvaceous, and very happy to meet me, to the point that they were making me a bit embarrassed by the places they were putting their hands. Meanwhile, the 24 pyskeen came in demanding in no uncertain terms to meet the Dixies, and I realized I had another race of pint-sized redheaded hellions to deal with. Where would we put them? Would we need to expand the walls again? I finally got them settled in Pecan Grove, but it took a while.

  It took me longer to flush the Dixies out of Cobberville and, and in the case of Gration, his wife's bed; and then the ladies demanded we line up the Dixies and prove without a doubt that they were male. This was pretty much the norm nowadays. After the boys shook their wangles at them and put them away, I left them all with my wives to make the necessary arrangements for housing, fathering, and whatnot.

  We sure were getting a lot of small races lately. I hoped they wouldn't wear the Dixies out. Maybe I should use the old method to make another set? I shuddered at the thought, but we could spare a greep or two.

  After handling the pyskeen issues, I gave Toméz and his boys the nickel tour of the place, and showed him to the building we'd already set aside for him. It had a nice Fathering Chamber and room enough for most of his brood, with the spillover occupying a smaller wooden house I'd had the sylvie carpenters build when I learned of Tom's pending arrival.

  It wasn't until that evening that he was able to tell me what had happened.

  ❖

  "I left the monastery in Tejico weeks ago," said the former Catholic friar. "Until God spoke to me, I was in a cloistered order; we built houses for neighboring settlements and tried to broker peace between the de—uh, dimensional travelers" (I had already warned him about our creed, as had the Goddess in her guise as Old Jaweh), "and the native populations that survived the Ruin." He fell silent for a long moment, looking into the fireplace in my office.

  "Go on," I urged him. "Didn't anyone come with you?"

  "I had hired a giantess," he sighed, "but six mornings ago I found her dead, her throat cut, my camp surrounded by the most attractive women I had ever seen. They... well, they proceeded to ravish me. There were six, all rather large women, and they spent all day about it. Since they took me without permission, without even my control or decision, it was not pleasant. Indeed, it was painful, physically and emotionally. It was rape." He shuddered.

  "I'm sorry, Toméz," I told him quietly. "We also have experience with the Alfa witches. When we arrived here, they occupied this place that the..."—. I almost said "Goddess", but remembered how he knew her—"Lord our God had set aside for us, his faithful servants; and in unseating them and freeing their slaves, many of whom they had raped and drained of their souls with their evil mind control, they killed my youngest son Icarus." I gestured to indicate the whole settlement. "He died a hero, hence the name we gave our township."

  Toméz, whose surname I had learned was Garsa, nodded. "Their power is too absolute; it turns them evil, no matter how good they might have been when they arrived on this Earth. This we learned from the travelers who visited Tejico." He laughed gently. "But apparently my loins are their cure! The day after they raped me, the Alfas all fell ill. As I was struggling to escape my bonds, there was a series of flashes and suddenly there were teenage boys rising from the ground, each carrying a bebe in his arms. As best as they could recollect, the boys had become self-aware in the wombs of the Alfas who had raped me, shortly after the moment of conception." Toméz shook his head, eyes wide. "The boys had somehow... communicated to each other within the womb, and decided the situation had to be rectified. Then they petitioned God to release them from their bondage to their evil mothers, and suddenly, they were born into the world almost as large as me, and their mothers were rendered innocent babes in arms!"

  Mother did that, Little Magic said suddenly in my head. She's brilliant. She used that computer she merged with to figure out how to control the Alfa aging process, then moved the boys outside their mothers while simultaneously redistributing their masses and aging the boys as far as she could, given the mass she had to work with. They're not quite adults, but they're old enough to father children.

  The idea made my head spin, and I said, "What do we do with the Alfa girls? They're going to start manifesting their magic in a few years." The boy Alfas were already making the women swoon in droves, even though I'd quickly gotten them into decent clothing. As far as I could tell, they weren't even emitting any pheromones.

  "The Alfa babies? I have assumed they are my, well, my mates now, if they are the fathers of my sons," Toméz said quietly.

  "Maybe in 25 years," I said, smiling. "That gives us plenty of time to help them become good women, and control their powers."

  "You assume that there will be no further miracles," Toméz reminded me. "If the Lord has proven anything these last 25 years, it is that His miracles are more common now
than at any time since Jesus himself."

  "True," I said thoughtfully, and chewed on that for a while. I couldn't have adult, uncontrolled Alfa women living in the Township. The alternatives were grim, and took me someplace I didn't want to go; no one wants to kill babies, even if it's for the greater good. Hopefully the Alfas would stay babes in arms and grow up the normal, slow way, their previous memories lost—unlike the Dixies and the "Elves," as the women in the township had begun calling Toméz's boys.

  Those poor kids. They were confused by all the attention when they first arrived, but luckily the Goddess had equipped them with a basic understanding of biology, the gift of language (Spanyol and Anglic both), and enough behavioral and cultural information to get by. After they arrived, I sat them down and gave them some lectures about the facts of life as fertile males in a township full of women who craved boy children. That was awkward, because really, they were infants in terms of experience, even though they were teens mentally and in physical maturity. It took me a couple of days to get across to them what to expect, and I told them that they wouldn't be doing any fathering for a few years so they had time to grow up some emotionally. They seemed relieved to learn this, and agreed heartily. Until then, they would contribute to the community in other ways.

  That held for exactly three weeks. I woke up one Sonday to find the Elves running around in their silk loincloths and kilts again, "Because all the nice ladies asked." Later that week, I caught tawny-haired Sínaloí exiting the faunlet quarters nude, with a huge grin on his face. "Forget something?" I asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  He looked down, turned red, and dashed back into the faunlet quarters. When he returned a moment later, he was dressed in his loincloth. "Sorry, Father Tobias," he muttered, blushing furiously.

  "Nothing to be sorry about, though I thought we'd agreed that you boys were going to wait a while, until your minds caught up with your bodies."

  "Oh! Er... I think mine has." Sína blushed again, and suddenly found his feet very interesting.

  "Please tell me this was your idea, and you're not permanently scarred by the experience?"

  The big smile came back. "Yes, and no! It was great fun. I like tall women! They like me!"

  Uh-huh. "I guess you're going to tell your brothers all about it."

  "Yes, if they are not already busy! Genewín told me he was going to visit the memegwesi ladies!"

  "He's three times their size!" I said, scandalized.

  "So? Kyoop is one-fifth the size of his sylvies. Obviously men and women of any size can find much to be happy about with each other." And he tripped off with his infectious grin blazing.

  I put my head in my hands and asked, "Why me?"

  ❖

  It wasn't long after that some of my scheduled ladies, including the tauras, began apologetically canceling their appointments. I had to remind myself not to be offended, since I'd been looking for help with my fathering duties. Toméz was mostly busying himself with the feathered ladies (apparently, he had, ahem, a fetish), so I assumed the Elves were picking up where the Dixies left off.

  ❖

  A week or so after the Elves became active, we got a social call from about a hundred of the Clearwater pixies. Actually, they showed up demanding to see the Elves so they could drool over them, and then started hauling the Dixies out of Cobberville and elsewhere for "conjugal visits." They also came to show off the 47 boy pixies born so far, making sure were knew they were male by presenting them naked. First in line were my grandsons Icarus IV, Icarus V, Icarus VI, Icarus VII, Icarus VIII, Icarus IX, Icarus X and Icarus XI. Much to my surprise, the uncouth little ladies had kept detailed notes about which Dixies had boinked which pixies.

  Of course, given his red eyes, I recognized that Icarus X was Bellerophon's, and Icarus IV had white hair and yellow eyes like Eros. But then again, Icarus VI had yellow eyes and Icarus VIII had white hair, and they were supposedly Dion's and Gray's. Icarus V, who had white eyes, was undoubtedly Herm's. There were another eight red-eyed boys, and quite a few with white and yellow eyes, so I was pretty sure I knew who their fathers were. The others I just accepted as my grandsons, including all the ones named after their fathers, me, and a wide variety of ancient heroes, fierce animals, weapons, and mythological figures. There were even two Zeuses, two Poseidons, an Ares, a Mars, and a Jupiter.

  ❖

  It was a blustery morning in March when I finally called the Dixies in to help me deal with the paint-gun dream, which I had experienced twice more in the past week. Someone or Something was trying to get a point across, and I needed to heed whatever it was. Once they were all in place, I said cheerfully, "Gentlemen! Congratulations on the births of your many fine sons, from pixie to cobber to olbytla to sylvie!"

  "Hurray for virility!" they all shouted, and Bellerophon handed out tiny cigars. I think they were made from medical marijuana he'd gotten from Serafina. I passed on my larger one, which Bill called a "doob." It looked more like a turd.

  After they'd finished smoking and slapping each other on the backs, I shouted, "Sar'nt-Major!"

  Gration popped to front and center, saluting. "Sah yes sah!"

  "I have had the same dream at least four times indicating that there is a cache of special weapons hidden somewhere in Pecan Grove! These weapons are made of tough plastic and something called Fiberglas and fire round pellets full of paint, which people in the days prior to the Ruin pretended to use to make war on each other! I want you gentlemen to find those weapons!" Pacing back and forth in front of the Dixies, I proceeded to describe the location of the cache as best I remembered it, and they listened eagerly.

  With that done, I looked to Bill. "Leftenant Bellerophon, please ask the Red Caps to suggest a particularly virulent poison and/or acid that could be easily manufactured, then delivered in small pellets made of glass. Leftenant Filotus, you know the glassblowers among the cobbers best," I paused as the boys cracked some off-color jokes about blowing, "So please ask them about mass-producing hollow glass balls about half an inch in diameter. They must be tough enough to be launched by the guns but delicate enough to break when they hit a target. Leftenant Eros, ask the farmers and herb-gatherers among the pooka and olbytla for a gummy material we can use to seal those balls once they're full. Finally: Leftenant Chaos, ask the pooka engineers if they can build a machine that compresses air, using the materials at hand. That is all."

  "You four, go! The rest with me!" Gray cried, and waved his arm toward Pecan Grove as his brothers started complaining.

  "Hey, how come he's orderin' us around? A Sergeant-Major is lower in rank than a Leftenant!"

  "A Sar'nt-Major is second in rank only to the Goddess!" my largest Dixie son proclaimed as he took off. "Every enlisted man knows that! What are you guys, a buncha fairies?!"

  "Why, I oughtta!" "You self-important jerk!" "I know, right?" "We should've eaten him back in the pig." "Hmm, I could eat a coupla fairies right about now." "Yeah, me too!"

  "We should decide who's in charge by number of sons," proclaimed a small, clear voice. "Then I'd be in charge for sure!"

  "SHUT UP, STUPID CUPID!"

  ❖

  Something odd happened to me later that evening. I was busy servicing a faunlet when I felt a sensation like a momentary tightening in my chest and throat. I was able to finish my fathering duties to her good satisfaction, but afterward, I felt the sensation clamp down, and I was filled with a sense of foreboding. I couldn't have said why. I figured I'd just been working too hard, so I took one of Serafina's mild tranquilizers and soon fell asleep...

  ...I stood on the perimeter of camp, well outside the fires that would ruin my night vision, staring out into the darkness, watchful. In my hand I held a large spear, with a fine chalcedony point that I had chipped myself, after learning the skill at my mother's hands. Speaking of mothers, I thought of my recent visit to the Fathering Land, and touched my stomach, where my developing child resided. In five more months, I would give birth to my tribe's first bull. I
t had been a red-letter day when Queen Isengrid had signed the alliance pact with Fell Tobias.

  I did not fail in my duty, or take my eyes off the plains; the Goddess would make that clear to me later. They were just too crafty for me, and too numerous. They also had mil-spec infiltration gear from before the Ruin that still worked. Nonetheless, their approach was not perfect. As I shifted my spear from one hand to the other, I saw a flicker of movement to my left. I lifted my spear and opened my mouth to bawl out a warning cry; but as I did so, something whistled out of the dark and struck me in the throat, and suddenly my mouth was too full of blood to speak.

  "Stupid fucking cows," a man's voice growled, and a club descended upon me, sending me to darkness with one last thought: Waykans!

  ❖

  I awoke to darkness, choking out the taura Sif's final cry and pawing at my throat. It was dark, except for a flickering candle, and I was still in my Fathering Chamber. My wife Coulter was crouched next to me on her horse-legs. She'd apparently been wiping my brow with a wet cloth, as she held one in her hand, and I could still feel the moisture on my forehead.