All Living : A Seedvision Saga (9781621473923)

by Humphrey, Michael C.

  Off to his right, as he flew, he viewed the hills that surrounded his parent’s original camp. Could it really have been over eight hundred years ago that he had first set foot there? Unbelievable.

  The area was still home to hundreds of people, but now the family had spread far and wide, migrating to the north and to the south according to the Creator’s instruction to be fruitful and to multiply upon the whole face of the earth. But how that could even be possible, Kole could only imagine.

  The earth seemed immeasurably large, with so much room that surely every single person could get lost upon it and never once see another living soul. That fear of the unknown scared people, and thus they had a tendency to huddle together. This led to depleting the surrounding areas of game and wild vegetation, but some felt the trade off was a small sacrifice. Not every man could build his own home, not every woman could nurse her own child. Many felt that a community was the only way to survive outside the garden, and perhaps for them, Kole thought, without a close relationship to God, it was. It was a sobering thought, but it did not last long.

  Kole laughed aloud when he realized that he had thought of the earth as something impossibly big only moments after picturing it as an insignificant pebble of dirt. He had made the comparison in the space of a few minutes. In the “space” of a few minutes, smiled Kole. Nice. Time flies, right little brother? Kole was giddy. Flying felt good. He was like a little boy again, serious about the silliness of life.

  The wind was moving briskly so high up, and Kole was amazed at how quickly the River changed from a thread of blue into a ribbon of white-capped crystal. And then he was past it, soaring over the strip of forest along its banks, dipping and rising with the hilly terrain and then gliding serenely over the magnificent squalor of the city of Enoch.

  Now more than one set of eyes turned upward to stare at him. Hands pointed and hands shielded their eyes from the glare of the sun to see him. A cacophony of sound erupted from the city as hundreds of voices shouted to each other in surprise. Some laughed to see “this new thing,” and others cringed or ran for shelter, thinking it was a dragon come down from the cold mountains for an easy meal.

  Kole seemed to almost feel the heat of the city rising up to meet him, the shimmer of the sun’s beating bouncing off the baked sand and throbbing in his temples. The stench of the place assaulted his nostrils, stealing the freshness out of the air and replacing it with the stale odor of sweat and rotting food, human waste and fear. The decay of too many people crammed together in too close of quarters, sharing misery and all manner of deprivations, too paralyzed by fear of retribution to attempt escaping out from under the thumb of Irad.

  I’m going to have to do something about that city sooner or later, thought Kole. It is an abomination among men before the Lord.

  Kole pushed his control bar ahead of him slightly to gain more height, swinging his legs to the left to skirt the wide middle of the city and cross over it where it narrowed. A little of that place goes a long way, he thought.

  A strange buzzing sound in his ears caused him to look around. There was a blur of motion off to his left and then another slightly in front of him. It sounded as if he had flown too near a hive of angry black jackets. Kole looked down again at the city, and his attention was pulled toward a line of men on the roof of one of the buildings. They seemed to be pointing at him with one arm, their other arm raised at an odd angle up by their faces. It took Kole a few seconds to figure out what was going on.

  “They’re shooting at me,” Kole gasped in surprise, and the men on the rooftop confirmed his revelation by firing another round of arrows at him from their great bows. Fortunately, Kole had managed to climb higher as he had crossed the bulk of the city, and very few of the archers had the strength to find his range. Kole banked and caught an updraft. Two or three arrows came quite close, but Kole continued to climb and was soon out of danger.

  Kole was mad. Never more in his life did he wish he had some sort of gesture to make at the men on the ground that would express simultaneously his anger at their casual violence and his relief to have escaped unscathed; some hand signal or body language that would convey the same sort of sentiment as one belligerent child sticking his tongue out at another. A nervous laugh escaped Kole’s lips, and he took several slow steady breaths to calm his racing heart. Seedvision and strength would not stop an arrow from spearing through his flesh or ripping through his wing. Kole realized then that crashing to the ground was not his only vulnerability.

  His shadow passed over the outskirts of the city just about the same time he did, indicating that it was around midday. Kole felt a sense of relief to be beyond the boundaries of the city once again and flying over sparsely populated fields.

  The people of Enoch farmed for great distances east of the city but either their crops needed little tending during this time of the year, or they were all sleeping off the heat of the day under the shade of the nearest trees. Either way, Kole saw few people and none that were shooting at him.

  He flew without thinking for a while, letting his mind drift over the landscape like the shadow of his glider, a dark bird rising and falling with the contours of the countryside. He angled the sail into the wind, catching the breath of it on his windward edge and feeling the gratifying lift of it. If only mankind could experience the closeness of God this way, letting His spirit guide their frail fleshly shells, fill their minds with His buoyant grace, and raise them above their own heavy thoughts of darkness.

  Carefully Kole raised one of his hands off the control bar and feeling no sudden change in his craft, reached into a pocket and pulled out a hard bread roll stuffed with dried meat and cheese. He tore off a bite with his teeth and rested his hand back on the bar as he chewed. His mouth welcomed the salty taste of it, but it made him thirsty.

  Looking ahead, Kole saw that the mountains were much closer. Again he angled toward them, keeping the nose of his glider into the gentle breeze. He inhaled the cool breath of it, the aroma one of grass and sunlight.

  An excitement filled Kole and left him gasping for breath. He could not have asked for a more perfect day to fly. The wind had been steady and dependable so far, and conditions ahead promised more of the same.

  Kole had spent years watching the cloud formations above the few mountains near his home, watching birds soaring and gliding upon the updrafts, charting temperatures, wind speed, and other factors that may have even the smallest part to play in a successful flight. And to Kole’s well-practiced eye, the conditions today were favorable indeed.

  He approached the first of the foothills a little lower than he wanted but knew that it was only a matter of time before he was soaring so high that familiar objects on the ground would become hard to pick out. He felt the wind gaining strength and steadied his hands on the bar.

  Crowning the mountain range ahead of him were thick bowl-shaped clouds. Strange circular formations of them above the peaks, aligned perpendicularly to the direction that the wind was blowing. These were what Kole had hoped to find. The stable, moist morning air warmed by the sun had begun to flow over the line of mountains, making it easy for Kole to predict the precise location of the rising masses of air.

  The comparison of the blowing wind with flowing water was an obvious one to make as the air moved in waves and created an invisible upward current that was smooth and strong, allowing for, what Kole hoped, would be a flight of long distance at lofty heights.

  As his glider entered the stream of forced air, Kole made the minor adjustments with his body that were necessary to control the stability and balance of the wings. He moved the control bar gently forward and back, easing his legs and hips slightly to steer the craft and maintain the pitch. He felt a momentary stall as the glider’s speed increased to match the wind, and then he was climbing, higher and higher, in slow lazy circles, riding the lift of the first wave.

  Despite his inten
se focus, a smile crept onto Kole’s face. It could not be helped. The sensation of flight, of bending the arbitrary forces of nature to his will, was exhilarating.

  When Kole felt that he was high enough, he banked against the wind and steered his glider toward the next geyser of air. Along with the ridge lift that Kole had accurately predicted would carry him further than he had ever gone, there was rising air currents caused by the sun heating up the earth. This air did not rise to form a cloud, but it did serve to fill in the gaps between the mountains.

  In front of Kole the next mountain loomed large. Again its peak was blanketed by an incredible funnel-shaped cloud, sort of a hollowed-out cone. This one, though, struck Kole as being somewhat unusual, and it took his mind a moment to discern why. His seedvision was in part to blame, for Kole was so used to seeing the auras of objects that he did not at first realize that what he was observing was actually observable.

  As the sunlight shone through the cloud, brilliant colors mingled together and banded the edges of the massive pillar of condensation, like a mother-of-pearl seashell in its iridescence. Kole controlled his glider’s flight and drew near the vibrant anomaly, feeling the vent of a vertical draft once again cushioning his flight and sending him aloft.

  Kole peered down at the side of the mountain, hoping to learn what precise conditions could cause such an accommodating current. The slope of the mountain was steep, but not sheer. Kole perceived that as the wind whistled through the nearest valley it was deflected up the windward face to create lifting fluctuations.

  Kole felt himself drop, sinking between columns of rising air, then once more climbing. It was better than he had ever imagined. His first real flight, prolonged airtime, had been so long ago that he had almost forgotten the overwhelming, childlike disbelief of doing the impossible. Every flight since then still made him feel alive, as if being grounded was some sort of punishment. But this…this felt like resurrection, like waking up alive all over again and never wanting to take another precious second of it for granted. He didn’t know how he’d feel when he landed. It seemed there could not be another thing in the world that could cause his heart to race, his eyes to water and his spirit to vibrate through his soul. But for now, it didn’t matter anyway. He was slope soaring and it was incomparable.

  He spiraled higher and higher, then leveled out and flew for long stretches, always aiming for the slope of the next mountain in the distance. And it was in that manner that he traveled hundreds of miles that day, much further than he had dared to think possible. His body was sore, and he needed to relieve himself. He was thirsty. His water had not lasted the full flight, and his food too had run out. He heard his stomach growling and realized that the shadows on the ground were growing thick, and the sun was approaching the horizon behind him.

  It seemed as if the Creator had been with him, providing favorable conditions all day. And it was true that during the course of his flight Kole had felt the presence of his Maker. He had studied the creation around him and meditated on it, offering up numerous small prayers of thanks. But now Kole thought to offer a significant prayer of gratitude, praising the Creator for his protection and guidance, blessings and mercy, as well as asking for more of the same heavenly assistance with his upcoming landing.

  Kole knew that when he did eventually land, he would no doubt be on his own in an uninhabited area for quite some time. He had fishing hooks and sinew in his pack and the knife that he had gotten from Cain all those years ago and felt no anxiety about being alone and surviving beyond the borders of civilization. Kole had spent years traveling, granted it was usually with Chavvah, but he was no stranger to the idea that there was a lot more land than people on this earth.

  He closed his eyes for one second, as a small sign of respect to start his prayer, and it was then that everything went wrong. It was as if the Creator had suddenly removed his hand of protection from Kole, and the old dragon, that serpentine adversary, had chosen that moment to attack.

  Kole felt the intensity of the wind increase and opened his eyes. The day seemed to have darkened considerably in just a few seconds, but whether from the onset of dusk or from some shift in the weather, Kole could not be sure. The air fractured into a luster that brought each object on the ground into sharp relief. Gripping his control bar, Kole decided that now would be a good time to land.

  It seemed the wind had decided the same thing for him. The mountain range had fallen behind a mile or two, and the land swayed with low hills and shallow valleys. Below him the undulating tenor of the ground reverberated in discordant harmonies as if here in this place some terrible, unearthly tragedy had befallen the creation.

  Kole spied out the contours of the landscape, setting his sights on a green patch of cleared ground with oddly unnatural contours a mile or two southeast of him. A few random outbuildings scattered about perhaps indicated a sparse settlement. The wind bucked at him and tore at his sails, leaving ragged tails of fabric and threatening to loose the bindings of his craft, which would send him plummeting at neckbreaking speed toward the earth. His hands gripped the bar tightly, white knuckled, fighting for control, as the glider tipped and pitched against him. A strong headwind caught his windward edge and tossed him off balance. Kole fought to correct his level of descent. His craft’s nose angled upward, and Kole pulled back hard on the bar.

  Instantly the wind changed directions, coming suddenly from behind and forcing him down into a vertical dive. Kole pushed forward on the control bar this time, compensating somewhat, but as his legs swung too far to the left the glider began to tailspin, falling rapidly.

  The unexpected plunge caused Kole to bite his tongue, and he tasted the coppery salt of his own blood. Water squeezed out of his eyes as the wind blew like sharp slivers of glass.

  Kole realized it was more than his imagination. Bits of debris swirled around him, fragments of dirt and particles of earth. The air seemed full of projectiles stinging his exposed skin and slashing at his clothing. Thoughts of peaceful afternoons and calm weather raced through his mind, but it was more a longing than a command for nature to desist its harassment of his safety. The tempest was too far along to respond to his belated suggestions. The wind could not hear the harmonics of his mind over the voice of its own intimidation.

  The subtle influence of mental pictures that Kole fashioned for the responsive side of the storm were flung out of his mind’s reach as the glider continued to spiral faster out of control, the ground drawing nearer with each second. The seedvision was failing him. Kole glanced at the ground and saw from his now closer perspective that the entire area was one large field or planted garden. Brief glimpses of color showed where fruits and vegetables grew in abundance, stretching now in all directions, great green swaths of cultivation interspersed with wide rows of cleared paths.

  The groundcover gave Kole some little feeling of consolation. There were very few large trees in the area to tear at the cloth wings on his descent, and what trees there were lay scattered about in clustered groves, providing ample room for safely landing between them. He was sure he could dodge them.

  Kole struggled to get a controllable wind under him again. He was falling far too fast. He pulled his legs in and up then angled them out to counter his spiral. The exertion stressed the bamboo support above his head too much and his heart turned to ice water as he heard a cracking sound, a crunching of wood. Kole looked up and watched as the central wooden pole split almost in half. Reaching up with one hand, Kole seized the support at the fractured point and held it together. The wind jerked at both pieces, tugging warlike to pull the ends out of his grasp, but he held on tightly, willing the wood to mend with a mental harmony of mending; praying that his seedvision would not fail him a second time.

  The ground was only a few hundred feet below him now and rushing up fast. Working his guide bar one handed, he experimented with his limited options, desperate to bring the feeble craft bac
k under control. The forces of nature struggled against his efforts, curbing his attempts. But he could feel the wood under his right hand bonding to itself, fibers stretching, joining. The split was still there, a hairline crack that threatened the stability of the craft, but it was holding.

  With a final commanding glance at the damage under his fingers, Kole took the upper hand and reluctantly moved it to join his other on the control bar. He winced as he felt the vibrating strain the forces of nature placed on the fractured spline. With a tremendous effort of strength and willpower, he pulled the flyer out of its spin and managed to nearly get it level. Even Kole’s extra ordinary strength was barely a match for the force of the gale that buffeted his fragile wings.

  Kole looked down and spat some of the blood out of his mouth. To his surprise, he was much lower than he’d imagined. During his uncontrolled freefall, Kole had focused more on maintaining his craft than on watching as the ground seemingly rushed up to meet him. Now he barely had time to wrench his legs around and angle the wings of his glider between the walls of two enormous buildings. Where had they come from?

  He tried to reduce his speed, but he could not. The wind once again had him between its teeth and was shaking him from side to side. It pulled him down and pushed him forward as if it were eager for him to meet his Maker. But the Gardener had promised him a long life, and Kole took comfort in that assurance. What the Creator had not promised him was freedom from fear and pain and injury. Kole cast that thought aside rapidly. What lies ahead, lies ahead. He could not turn back.

  The buildings were all around him now, Kole saw. He had mistaken them at first glance for lush ground-level gardens, an easy mistake, since they were covered with vines and ivy that grew from the roofs of the structures and spilled down their stony faces. Grapes the size of fists hung in ripe, purple clusters, weeping pale juice that glistened in the light of the sinking sun. Their thin skins were swollen to near bursting. Berries of various colors cascaded over the edges of the rooftops and hung heavily from thick stems. Flowers here and there adorned the branches like faceted jewels upon a shifting emerald gown, not that he had time to admire them.