Tommy gave him a slanted look. “Yeah, I guess all that’s true. You got any other reason, pal?”
Seth shrugged and gave his big friend a grin. “Well…she IS really hot….”
“You piece of kak!” said Tommy, kicking powdery snow up into Seth’s face. “That’s my sister you’re talking about!” It was playful, though…. Seth knew Tommy’s temper well enough to know that if he was actually mad, it wouldn’t have been snow coming at him.
“Sorry, man, just telling the truth!” he laughed. “Seriously, though…”
“Seriously?” asked Tommy. “Lark, do you have a thing for my little sister?
Seth dropped the grin and shrugged, looking down at his feet. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“That is the most pathetic ‘yes’ I’ve ever heard, “said Tommy with scorn. He was silent for a moment, leaving Seth to think he had just crossed the line. Finally, Tommy took a breath. “….Well, better you than someone else. Just don’t tell her I said anything when you bring it up? I still have to live with her.”
“Sure, sure. And I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman,” Seth assured him.
“You bet your ass you will,” said Tommy. “You’ve met my Dad. And he knows where you sleep.”
Seth laughed, but it was forced. He hadn’t taken that into account. He doubted whether his own father had talked to Tom Sr. yet, with all that was going on. How would the older man take it? His doubt must have shown on his face, because Tommy started laughing hysterically. “Oh, the look on your face just then was priceless! Can I please be there when you talk to my Dad? Oh, please?”
“Man, shut up,” said Seth irritably, which sent his friend into another gale of laughter. He picked up a handful of snow to throw at him, but it was powdery, and it fell apart in a sparkling shower of crystals. Tommy was now bent over with laughter, barely able to breathe. So, Seth did what any good friend would do in that situation. He tackled Tommy to the ground.
Kyle Beaupre sat on the little seat next to the window in his room, watching the two boys wrestle in the snow. He kept an eye on them until he was satisfied that it wasn’t a real fight, then turned and looked away with a smile. He hoped that, however much fun they were having right now, it was worth the trouble they’d get into with their mothers when they got home in wet clothes.
River jumped onto the seat next to him, to see what he was looking at. After a moment, she gave a short yip, and then turned to look at Kyle. “No, girl. You played in the snow plenty today. Off the furniture,” he said to her. The dog gave the window another longing look, then jumped off. Sighing, Kyle got up himself and sat on the bed they had provided him. Aspen Vale didn’t see many travelers, especially during this time of year, but when he had arrived they had cleaned up a room in the Ell and had a mattress brought in. Kyle wasn’t a big fan of mattresses; most of them were stuffed with hay, which poked out and stabbed him in the night. Given the choice, he would have simply spread his bedroll on the floor. But that would have been rude, and with as cold as it was, it was better to get some distance between him and the ground. That didn’t prevent him from spreading his thick bedroll on top of the mattress and beneath the blankets they had given them. That had stopped the worst of the jabbing.
Beaupre lay back onto the mattress and tucked his hands under his head. He’d only been here for a matter of days, but he already liked this town. The squabble between Larkin and the Mayor aside, it seemed so much more tranquil than what he was used to. He had grown up surrounded by hatred and mistrust in Jefferson. People at Fort Kenosha proper had always treated the valley people as lower class, when they weren’t calling them dangerously insane. Few enough at the Fort ever called his home by its name. To some, it was just “the Town,” to differentiate it from “the Fort.” But many fort folk would just call it the Hole. Never mind that without the rice and cattle and other food stuffs that the people of Jefferson provided, the fort itself would starve.
It was so bad that many of the young people in Jefferson, tired of being thought of as hole folk, would pack a bag and venture out on their own. Sometimes it would be to form another community; it was hole folk that had resettled Beyuna Vista. Others ended up joining bands of nomads. There had always been people, especially in the days just after the Awakening, which believed that the only true safety had been by staying in small groups or solo, always on the move. It was from nomads that the people had heard about what had happened beyond the mountains; the mega herds of the Gone roaming the Cursed Plains, the ruins of cities spreading disease and death down the waterways. Not all nomads were trusted; plenty had turned rogue and preyed on settlements in the past. Because of that, many nomad bands traveled a set route every season, through areas where they were known and trusted and could get supplies.
Getting away from the strife was one of the reasons Kyle had become a Ranger in the first place. Out in the open, away from the stink of people and the noise of daily life, he had found freedom. Out there, no one cared if he was hole folk or fort. No one asked him which God he believed in or who his parents were. He was a Ranger, keeping people safe from goners and rogue nomads and whatever other threat might be out there and the rest didn’t matter.
A knock came at the door. “Yes?” he called, looking up. No one had knocked on his door in the week he had been in town. Ever since the mayor had asked him if he was one of the “Jezzites we’ve heard about,” people had seemed wary of him. Kyle had heard the term before; it was the latest slur the fort folk applied to his religion. In fairness, the mayor hadn’t asked with disdain; more with curiosity. But the end result could not be denied; with the exception of their Head Ranger (Scout Captain, he reminded himself. They have different titles here), he was being ostracized. A muffled voice came from the other side. Kyle grabbed his knife from his pack. He had no reason to be suspicious here, he knew… but better safe than sorry. He moved to the door and opened it just a crack. There, in the dim light, he saw a face he recognized and opened the door wider. “Elder. I did not expect to see you grace my door.”
Roger Kratt gave a small chuckle. “Well, I would have been here sooner, but it’s been a long week. Much for the council to talk about. And now that you’ve talked to the man you wanted to talk to, I thought I might pay call on you.”
“Certainly, Elder. Won’t you please come in?”
“Thank you. And knock off with that Elder nonsense. Roger will do just fine,” the old man said, moving slowly into the room.
“Alright, Roger. Just wanted to be respectful.” Kyle went over and pulled the seat from the window over for him to sit down on. “I’m representing Kenosha here… folks wouldn’t look too kindly on me making them look bad.”
Roger waved that off as he sat down. “Never mind that. Save that nonsense for the meeting tomorrow. I’m just here because I was curious about you. I’ve never met a Jezzite or a Kenoshan before. At my age, I don’t have much of a chance to do something I’ve never done before.”
Kyle sat on the edge of the bed, facing the older man. “I’m sure the folks up at the fort told you all about us. They don’t mind sharing their opinion about our beliefs. Especially now that the Three are starting to flourish there.”
Roger shrugged. “We have some reports from the Scouts, but most of what I've heard amounts to rumors from Ranchers, and I don’t always trust what the cowboys have to say. Besides, I’ve never been to the fort myself. I’m not interested in hearing a story from someone who heard a story from someone who may be biased about the story he’s telling.”
Kyle laughed. “Fair enough. I don’t know much about your Three, either. Please take no offense, but there are some among my people who think your beliefs are just a passing fad, at least at the fort.” Kyle counted himself among them, though he didn’t say so out loud. The first leader of the fort, Simon Sczspanski’s grandfather, had been a staunch atheist. The events of the Awakening had only firmed his belief, and the people in the early days of Fort Kenosha had followed his lead. That was
at least partly why, when it was decided that it was safe enough to begin farming again in the southern valley, it was the few Christians that kept to the faith that volunteered for the new settlement. In the years since David Sczspanski’s death, there had been several belief systems that had appeared and flared out in the fort. For the most part, though, it had remained a pretty solidly secular place.
Roger was nodding at him. “Fair enough. You’re the guest here, so I should go first. What questions do you have?”
“Well, the first question is who the third of the Three is,” Kyle admitted. “Lord Jezias is obviously one, and the Mother is the second, I think. But the third?”
“The Father of the Fay,” Roger replied. “We don’t speak of him much, because he doesn’t have much to do with mortal men these days. He and the fairy folk generally stick to Smuggler’s Mountain. There are groves there, and the entire mountain is riddled with caves and old mines for his folk to hide in. Most folk stay off the mountain; the brownies and the tommy knockers don’t appreciate men in their realm. Every year some fool goes into the caves. The Father is usually generous; his people only scare them away. But once in a while, the fool pays for their intrusion. As you might guess, it’s usually young men. Once in a while, some cattle will get through the fencing and wander into the caves. Then some poor Rancher has to go in after them.”
Kyle nodded, and tried to keep a straight face. No matter how backward these people seem, he thought to himself, these things are real to them. And they’ve shown me nothing but hospitality. “And the Mother?”
“Of the Mountains. She was once the Mother of the whole Earth, but Lord Jezias has claimed that for himself,” said Roger. “But she was wise. She spent years throwing up the stone here, so that men would have a place they would be safe if the Lord of Death ever broke the balance the Three had agreed to.”
“So Lord Jezias is more powerful than the Mother.”
“Not necessarily. He is more devious, maybe, and the Mother was too trusting. You see, Mr. Beaupre, we believe that they are siblings; that they were all made to do one part of a single task. Inside each person, there is a spirit, which the Father created from the energy that is around all of us. The Mother created a form from the earth for that spirit to inhabit. When that form is used up, Lord Jezias returns our body to the earth, and returns our spirit to the ether, for the Father to craft into new spirits.”
“At first the Lord was feared. The Mother and the Father are there to give us life, after all, and he is there to take it away. The spirit of men is a powerful thing, able to give power to both the land and the gods, through cultivation and worship. No one worshiped the dreaded Lord of Death, and thus he was very weak. So he concocted a plan. He separated a small piece of himself, and fooled the Father into thinking it was the same energy that he always used to create spirits. The Father placed this spirit into a man, named Jezias. This man became a preacher, steering good men and women away from the worship of the Mother and Father. Fearing for the people, the priests complained to the King, who had Jezias executed.”
“But the Lord still had one card left to play. It was his job, after all, to take the man Jezias’ soul and return his body to the Mother. But he didn’t. Instead, he returned the man to life. It took the man a few days, but he finally opened the door to his tomb and walked into town. And his disciples shouted “See! The Lord Jezias has returned! His is the power of death, which rules over all things!” And the people went to their knees and worshiped the man. And the Lord fed on those prayers, and grew strong. The man became the very first Goner. Then, because the man’s body was failing, the Lord then took the man’s soul, and rejoined himself with the fragment that had been in the man, becoming Lord Jezias.”
“Once the story of Jezias’ resurrection spread, more and more people offered their prayers to him. As Lord Jezias became more powerful, the Father and the Mother began to feel their own power wane. The Lord began to whisper into the ears of his favorites that he was the only true God, and those priests urged their followers to destroy any who followed another. The Father, ashamed at being so easily fooled, gathered his folk and retreated to the remote places in the world. In time, men began to believe that the fairy folk were a myth, a superstition. Soon the Father was a mere shell of himself, far weaker than the Lord of Death had ever been. He stopped making spirits, and men without souls walked this earth, killing indiscriminately. Entire peoples were massacred.”
“The Mother, however, fared better. She saw what was happening, and convinced many of her followers to hide, to pretend that they were Jezzites. Many of her priests died, but some managed to escape, and continued to worship her. This gave her the power to raise these Mountains, in a land that Lord Jezias had not yet touched. She knew that, eventually, Lord Jezias would try to seize even more than he already had, and wanted a place where her people would be safe.”
"How did she know that time would come?"
"Because," explained the old man, "she remembered that there is one thing that was stronger than any of the Three, the power that had brought them into existence and the power that would, someday, extinguish all things. Time. And Lord Jezias can’t stand the thought of there being something stronger than him. Sooner or later, he would try to break the cycle of death and rebirth, and make the passing of time meaningless."
"So he wants to control Time?" asked Kyle.
"Time cannot be controlled. It is a force, present everywhere, in every place. It's why houses crumble and mountains are born. Trying to control time would be like trying to control space. You can control what is IN a space, just as you can control what is happening in a given time. But you can't move the space, nor can you stop time. They will always be there, always linked."
As Kyle digested this, Roger continued speaking. “Lord Jezias ruled the lives of men for thousands of years. But some began to doubt his power, and even his existence. They started to become more tolerant of people who believed in other gods. Even some of the Mother’s followers began to emerge, though they called themselves by a different name, still wary of what might happen. As his power began to wane, Lord Jezias grew fearful. He had ruled the worship of men for a long time, and didn’t want to lose that. So he began to whisper into ears of his followers once again. He hoped for another purge like the one that had swept him into power. But it was a different time, now. Though some were open to his whisperings, particularly the Soulless, it was not enough to stop the rising tide of unbelief.”
“So Jezias grew angry at the people, and devised a new plan. If the people would not worship him, he decided, he would get rid of the people. So, one day, a poor man died in a poor land. No one knew him, and no one thought to bury or burn him. So, when Jezias took his spirit, he decided not to return it. Instead, he took all of its anger, its rage, and its hunger, and put it into a sack. He then wrapped a cord around the man’s neck, the sack at the base of his head, and resurrected him. That man was the first of the Gone to rise in thousands of years. The man stood up, and driven by hunger, killed the first man he encountered. When he did that, some of the dark energy Lord Jezias had created bled into the second man, and that man also rose with a sack of hate behind his neck. And we call this the Awakening.”
“The Mother had been waiting for the day when Lord Jezias’ greed and anger would lead him down this path. She gathered her followers and told them to head for the Mountains. Here, the stones and valleys limited where the Gone could go, and men were able to fight them off. Eventually, Lord Jezias realized this and took the creatures back to the lowlands. There, they roam in huge packs among the cities of dead men, in the place now known to us as the Cursed Plains. He left patches here and there of influence… the Ruins you passed through, for instance. But, for the most part, the Mother owns these hills, and the Father becomes stronger with every passing day. And someday, we will go into the Cursed Plains, and retake the world.”
As the old man’s tale wound down, Kyle realized his mouth was dry. He wonder
ed how long it had been hanging open. He got up and went over to the nightstand to the pitcher of water that had been set there for him. He poured two glasses of water, and handed one to Rodger. “That’s… quite a story,” he said quietly.
“It is not just a story, Mr. Beaupre. It is the faith that has kept the Townships going. Every man, woman, and child here knows that tale by heart.”
“I’d love to talk to one of your priests,” said Kyle. “Though I doubt they’d be willing to see me.”
Roger sat back on the stool, leaning against the wall behind him. “Oh, there are no priests in the Townships. Only the faerie folk understand the Father, and every man is equal in the eyes of the Mother. The Lord probably still enjoys the pomp, but there are no Jezzites here. No one would willingly worship him. Begging your pardon.”
“I see,” said Kyle, though he didn’t.
“Well, it’s your turn. Please, don’t feel like I will judge you. I’ve always wondered what Jezzites see in Lord Jezias that allows sane people to worship him,” said Rodger, taking a sip of water.
“Well, the stories are similar,” said Kyle slowly. “But the one we call Jesus is not a god of Death. He is the Son of God. He did not come to enslave us, but to free us from sin. He is the Christ, the messiah, who willingly gave his life so that those who believe in the Lord should have life everlasting.” Even as he said it, Kyle’s mouth twisted. How could the words be so similar, yet the meaning so different?
Before he could think of another way to say it, Roger had sat up straight. “Your people DESIRE such a life? To rise again and live forever?”
“Well, yes,” said Kyle. “And dwell in the house of the Lord, and see the face of God. Would you not wish to see the Mother or the Father if you could?”
“I see the Mother every day. I walk upon her face, and have lived my entire life under the protection of her arms around this valley,” said Roger. “I have another question. Once one of your people goes to meet your Jezias… I’m sorry, Jezus, you called him… how do you keep that person from attacking? Does the Lord simply guide the goner away from you?”
Aspen Vale: A Tale of the Gone Page 10