Having started in the evening, we stayed at the slope of the first hill for the night. We continued to talk as we walked. Olmot was a talkative one and most of the conversation was driven by his curiosity. One of the opening questions from him seemed really strange to me.
“So, I have been thinking for a while. I have been in the village for about a year and a half. The youngest person I have seen here is you. Why aren’t there any children in the whole village? Or are there children and I have missed them?”
The question seemed strange at that time. “What do you mean? I am quite young, a child compared to others in the village.”
Olmot laughed. “I am glad you think you are still a child. But you are almost a grown man. What I mean is children, like… You know… little people, who are under… say 10 years of age.”
“Well, there are three or four more people of my age, but we are the youngest in the village.”
“That is quite strange. But who am I to ask other people about having children, when I have none of my own.”
Thinking back, I guess at that point he wanted me to ask him more about that comment. I didn’t realize it back then. I did not ask any follow up questions and I guess he reluctantly didn’t continue the conversation along those lines. I wasn’t interested in talking about children. I was interested in the world outside.
“True true…” not rising to the bait for a question on children. Instead I asked, “So Olmot, what is the world outside like?”
“Well, I would rather not talk about the world beyond this village, these forests and hills right now… I have avoided thinking about the world beyond ever since I entered Villasboro.”
I was bemused, but also curious. What could be so bad out there that he wanted to forget? I persisted. “Oh… I don’t want you to talk about anything that is painful. But could you tell me anything about the world? Are the people outside different from people here? In what way? Do they eat like us? Do they have similar work? Do all people also have their own lands?”
“Hah! Own lands… That’s a joke.” That seemed to have triggered something inside him. “This village is really special. I haven’t seen any place where everyone owns land and works to grow their own food. I haven’t seen a place where everyone builds their own home and maintains it. Far from it. The world outside… huh… I tell you kid, you are lucky. Not only do you guys own your lands, but you also get along with each other. You don’t feel the desire to hurt one another…
That… that is such a pleasant feeling. To wake up… every morning and feel at peace. Know that your neighbor is happy to know you. If not happy, you know that at least they are not plotting to kill you and take your land, or your belongings… You don’t wake up afraid, wake up feeling like you should just run away... But you can’t, because you feel bound to your birth place…
You don’t wake up every day wondering if your friends… forget friends, if your relatives want to see you live or do they want you dead… People outside are nothing like the people here.”
Olmot seemed to be building himself into quite a rage. “The world outside… The world outside is sick… And this place, this place is like ambrosia… No… people outside are definitely not like people here. They are not….”
There was just silence after that little outburst. I didn’t know how to react. Olmot was silent too. After some time, passed, Olmot calmed down.
“Sorry about that. I got a little out of control. I feel emotionally about the world I left behind. Lot of painful memories. I thought I was at peace… more than I actually was. The last year and a half here…” He was choking back tears now. “This is the happiest I have felt in a long time… I thought it had helped me heal… but apparently not.”
He paused for some time to regain his composure. “The picture I just painted was driven more because of anger than the truth. The world is different, but life outside is not that grim… yet. Anyway, I’ll tell you more about the world as time passes… Maybe it’ll be easier for me to heal if I just talk about it with someone.”
I really didn’t know how to react. I had never experienced such a display of emotions in my life. I just managed to say, in what I thought was a calm voice. “Sure Olmot… I can understand… though not really… but… uhhh… Happy to help. Let’s talk in the morning… Good night!”
“Thank you for understanding.” There was a sense of relief in the old man’s voice. I could also hear the exhaustion in his voice, as if the outburst had drained his strength. “Good night.”
I moved away, found a patch of soft grass and tried to go to sleep. But no sleep came to me. I had never felt this mix of emotions. I was scared, genuinely scared for the first time in my life. What could Olmot have gone through to feel this much anger about the world? What sort of a world lay beyond these forests that could destroy a man so much from within that he would want to forget his own name?
Simultaneously, I felt sadness. I had never been this afraid in my life, but I had experienced grief. It was long back, when my parents died. And the emotions I saw emerge from Olmot that night seemed to come from a similar place. It was a curious coincidence. It had been years since I had thought about my parents and now I had been reminded of their deaths twice in the same day.
Interestingly, I also felt curious. Curious about a world that was so different from the one I knew. A world that seemed more dangerous, volatile and… a world I knew nothing about. I didn’t really get any information from Olmot, only that it was a bad place. I wanted to know more about this unknown, dangerous world. I wasn’t sure why, but I still wanted to experience this world.
Then, I starting to think why I was feeling that way. Maybe it was because I felt, I should experience the bad to appreciate the good. From what Olmot described, we really had it good in Villasboro. Maybe we didn’t really appreciate what we had. Maybe when I experienced what the world did not have, I would love what I have more.
As these thoughts kept repeating in my mind, I looked to the stars, trying to blank out my mind and get some sleep. This was again a new experience. I never had trouble sleeping so far. I never stayed up and observed the stars. There were so many of them, many more than I could count. I wondered, how far they were from my village. Were they as tiny as they looked, or were they just large objects which looked small because they were far away? Were there similar worlds out there, which looked like tiny stars to us? Were there people who lived in the stars? Or were we the only people ever to think, to imagine, to feel?
I started to feel a sense of space around me. There were infinite possibilities in this vast world. Maybe the world outside did have some good in it too. Things the people of Villasboro could learn from. There are just so many things the mind can think of and accomplish. Some good, some bad. If people in the world outside had done bad things, people could have done good, even great things as well. Maybe I could learn what good people had accomplished and teach it to the people of Villasboro.
“Who knows, maybe someone has learned how to fly like a bird,” I thought. Chuckling to myself, I felt more relaxed… more positive. And definitely more curious. I soon went to sleep, looking at the infinite stars which held infinite possibilities.
The next morning, I woke up as the brook’s water sparkled with the sun’s light, reflecting the rays everywhere, including my eyes. Olmot was already awake, sitting and looking at the brook flowing by. He heard me stand up.
“The flowing waters are so tranquil. They soothe the mind, don’t they?” said Olmot, in a cheerful tone. Yesterday’s emotions seem to have left him.
He stood up and turned to me. “Sorry again about last night’s outburst. I felt really emotional… I am feeling a lot better now. Thanks for being so understanding. I know it must have felt strange to you, seeing an old man scream and break down like that. Hope you weren’t too disturbed.”
I recalled the conversation of last night, with everything still fresh in my mind.
“You don’t have to apologize. It was de
finitely strange for me to see someone experience and express such emotions. I haven’t seen anyone express themselves in quite the same fashion here. But when I reflected on it, I recognized the source of your pain. I have felt the same pain. A long time back. The pain of personal loss. I understand it. You should feel free to talk to me about it sometime.”
I felt Olmot holding back his tears “Thank you for understanding. Yes you are right. But now is not the time for it. Some other day perhaps.”
“Good, now that’s out of the way, let’s eat and head to find out what is over the hills,” I said, trying to cheer him up.
We shared some of the food I had brought from home.
“So, you were asking me yesterday, whether the people in the world outside ate the same food as you,” started Olmot, clearly still trying to make up for the previous day’s outburst.
“Really, Olmot, you don’t…” I tried to interrupt, when he raised both his hands a little, signaling me to stop.
“Look, there are things I am not ready to talk. But you are a curious guy and there is a lot I can still tell you about the world… It’s alright, I don’t mind.”
I was really happy. I was finally going to hear something about the world outside, if only about its eating habits. I feel silly thinking about it now, the amount of excitement I felt as I was about to hear what people in the outside world ate.
“Well, people’s eating habits all over the continent vary a lot. But in general, people’s staple diet in the northern countries like Vesturia or Valkia is mostly meat, especially deer and elk meat, as those animals are most common there. All over the continent, chickens, duck, sheep are domesticated for food. There are sections of the population that eat plants as their staple, but that is a small percentage. And even then, those people also eat meat, just not as a staple. I saw pure vegetarians for the first time in this village.”
“I see. And, what are Vesturia and Valkia? And what is a country?” I asked. These were new words to me. I guessed these were lands, but had never heard those words before.
Olmot seemed perplexed. “Don’t you know the names of the 11 nations of Valantia?”
“No… I have never heard of Valantia. Is it an important place?”
Olmot stopped eating. He seemed amazed. “How is it that you have never heard of Valantia? It is the continent that you live on!”
I was getting more and more confused.
“Olmot, these words you are saying… continent, country, Valantia and those other names… I have never heard of them. What are they? I thought we lived in a land called Morgenia. Is that wrong?”
Olmot replied, with continued amazement in his voice. “I am surprised that no one in the village has taught you these basic details about your land. I assume you know little about the world in general. Let me explain it to you in brief.
The world is covered equally in water and land. The parts covered by water are oceans and the ones covered by land are continents. There are seven oceans and five continents. You are in one of these five continents called Valantia. Now, Valantia has 11 countries in it. A country is a part of the continent governed by its own ruler. The largest of these countries in Valantia is Morgenia. Villasboro is a tiny, nearly unknown village in Morgenia. Did you understand?”
I nodded. So far, so good. All this was completely new to me. I wondered. “Why didn’t I know all this? Did the others in Villasboro know it? How big is the world outside?”
I knew this continent had to be much bigger than our village, but by how much?
“All this is… a lot to take in. So, you are saying we live in this continent named Valantia and it is much larger than Morgenia? How much larger? And how large is Morgenia? Is it more than one hundred times of our village?”
Olmot laughed. “My dear friend. Villasboro maybe about 50 square kilometers. Morgenia itself is at least 100,000 times that size. Valantia might be five to six times larger than Morgenia.”
I was dumbstruck. How could it be that large?! The previous night I was thinking of going out and exploring the world. I was so optimistic that I will be able to see the world, learn from it and come back to improve Villasboro. But if the world was this large, I wouldn’t be able to see even a sliver of it before I died!
Olmot could see I was crestfallen. “Hey, what happened kid? You suddenly look dejected.”
“Last night, I had my hopes up. I wanted to see the world and bring back all that is good to Villasboro. But now, I don’t see how I can do that. Or how I can even think it. It would take us days, even weeks to explore just these hills. The world, no just Valantia... Actually, just Morgenia will take me multiple lifetimes to explore... I guess I shouldn’t dream without knowing.”
Olmot smiled. “You are naïve. Yes, you need to understand the world. Yes, there are many things out there you don’t know. But that should not prevent you from dreaming. The world is large. But man is also intelligent. Over the ages, we have come up with ways of making the world smaller. For example, you might not know it, but there are these animals called horses. Riding on them, people have covered hundreds of kilometers in a matter of weeks, even days. So, if you do want to dream of seeing the world, you should. Because it is in your power to make your dreams come true.”
That really cheered me up. “Really? Then there must be many men who have explored the world on these horses! Are the horses really that fast?”
“There are many men. But the world is vast and there are still many secrets it holds. Who knows, you could be the first one to know them all. And while the horses are fast, it is also the mind of men that has managed to make the most of this pace.[2]
“That’s interesting to know. Although, I don’t really care about the secrets of the world. I do want to learn more about the known world and come back to Villasboro to share my knowledge.”
He was silent.
We were done with breakfast. We got up to resume our journey. While walking, Olmot asked. “I am curious. I spoke of the world negatively yesterday. I was quite upset and I painted quite a bleak picture. What makes you think there is anything good out there?”
“Well, you did paint quite a picture,” I said as we walked into the first hill. The only sound besides our conversation was the sound of the flowing water.
“Your words did scare me at first. But then I figured, if there is so much bad out there, there must be an equal amount of good as well. Everything must be in balance. If the world has survived for as long as it has, despite whatever negatives exist, there must be positives as well. So I thought I should try and find what is good about the world. And that got me excited.” I beamed, as the joy of my previous night’s thought returned.
Olmot seemed quite measured in his response. “Well, that is one way of looking at life.” He paused as we continued to walk. The first hill looked beautiful in the morning. There was a blueish haze that enveloped all the hills surrounding Villasboro. This was noticeable particularly in the morning.
It was a combination of the light scattered by the hills in the morning along with the Kurin flowers that bloomed every morning for a couple of hours around dawn. These flowers were so small they looked like tiny blue dew drops. The hills itself looked like a part of the blue sky, as if sent to our world by the heavens to cover the world with a part of its beauty. This phenomenon had been observed for ages and so the hills had been named “Niladri,” which meant the blue hills in Deusorthok, the ancient language.
Walking through these hills, especially in midst of this heavenly sight, would drain the tension from anyone. It definitely changed Olmot’s mood. After a while he spoke, cheerful again. “You have an amazing positivity. It is the optimism of the young. I wish I could have a bit of that. Hopefully, these hills and your village will make me feel the same enthusiasm someday….”
Hopefully, before my last day…” He added wistfully.
That got me thinking, how old he was. Maybe he was older than he looked. Who knows, he might even be more than two hundred!
Maybe people in the world lived longer and he was just an averagely old man. He must have seen the continent hundreds of times in his centuries of experience as a traveler.
“Don’t worry, Olmot. I am sure that day is far away and you’ll feel happy before that,” I reassured him, before asking him. “By the way, how old are you?”
“Well, I am quite old for my community. I will be 65 years old next spring. How old do I look?”
I was dumbstruck. He was so young!
“But… but you look like you are 120… At least! Even Grim is older than you and he looks his age!”
Olmot looked shocked. “What are you saying? No one lives till 120! The oldest man in Valantia is about 90! Why would you ever think someone can live till 120! And who is Grim?”
I was really confused. “What are you saying? Everyone lives till 130—140 at least. Right now there are almost a hundred and fifty people in Villasboro who are older than a hundred. In fact I think the oldest in the village is about 150 or so. And there are few people who are younger than 60. I am one of them and I am practically a kid. 65 is such a young age!”
Olmot stopped walking. “So, are you saying that everyone I have met in the village is older than me? How is that even possible? Everyone is so young looking! How are you guys so different?! It’s… it’s not possible!”
“What do you mean different?”
Olmot looked depressed. “Well, as I said, the average age one lives in this world is about 70 years. The oldest man known is about 90. How is it that people here are so much older?! And younger and fitter? A man is considered young till he is about 30. Then he is middle aged and after 50 years of age he is considered old.”
Age of Azmoq: The Valantian Imperium Page 4