Loni stopped rocking almost immediately. Trapis slowly unwrapped his arms and stepped away. After a long look to make sure the boy wouldn’t hurt himself, he stepped carefully back to his chair.
“Well,” he muttered softly to himself as he stooped to pick up the baby he had set aside. “Do I have a story?” He spoke very quietly to the child’s wide eyes. “No. No, I don’t. Can I remember one? I suppose I had better.”
He sat for a long moment, humming to the child in his arms, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Yes, of course.” He sat up taller in his chair. “Are you ready?”
This is a story from long ago. Back before any of us were born. Before our fathers were born, too. It was a long time ago. Maybe—maybe four hundred years. No, more than that. Probably a thousand years. But maybe not quite as much as that.
It was a bad time in the world. People were hungry and sick. There were famines and great plagues. There were many wars and other bad things in this time, because there was no one to stop them.
But the worst thing in this time was that there were demons walking the land. Some of them were small and troublesome, creatures who lamed horses and spoiled milk. But there were many worse than those.
There were demons who hid in men’s bodies and made them sick or mad, but those were not the worst. There were demons like great beasts that would catch and eat men while they were still alive and screaming, but they were not the worst. Some demons stole the skins of men and wore them like clothes, but even they were not the worst.
There was one demon that stood above the others. Encanis, the swallowing darkness. No matter where he walked, shadows hid his face, and scorpions that stung him died of the corruption they had touched.
Now Tehlu, who made the world and who is lord over all, watched the world of men. He saw that demons made sport of us and killed us and ate our bodies. Some men he saved, but only a few. For Tehlu is just and saves only the worthy, and in these times few men acted even for their own good, let alone the good of others.
Because of this, Tehlu was unhappy. For he had made the world to be a good place for men to live. But his church was corrupt. They stole from the poor and did not live by the laws he had given… .
No, wait. There was no church yet, and no priests either. Just men and women, and some of them knew who Tehlu was. But even those were wicked, so when they called on Lord Tehlu for help he felt no desire to aid them.
But after years of watching and waiting, Tehlu saw a woman pure of heart and spirit. Her name was Perial. Her mother had raised her to know Tehlu, and she worshiped him as well as her poor circumstances allowed. Although her own life was hard, Perial prayed only for others, and never for herself.
Tehlu watched her for long years. He saw her life was hard, full of misfortune and torment at the hands of demons and bad men. But she never cursed his name or ceased her praying, and she never treated any person other than with kindness and respect.
So late one night, Tehlu went to her in a dream. He stood before her, and seemed to be made entirely of fire or sunlight. He came to her in splendor and asked her if she knew who he was.
“Sure enough,” she said. You see, she was very calm about it because she thought she was just having an odd dream. “You’re Lord Tehlu.”
He nodded and asked her if she knew why he had come to her.
“Are you going to do something for my neighbor Deborah?” she asked. Because that’s who she had prayed for before she went to sleep. “Are you going to lay your hand on her husband Losel and make him a better man? The way he treats her isn’t right. Man should never lay a hand on woman, save in love.”
Tehlu knew her neighbors. He knew they were wicked people who had done wicked things. Everyone in the village was wicked but her. Everyone in the world was. He told her so.
“Deborah has been very kind and good to me,” Perial said. “And even Losel, who I don’t care for, is one of my neighbors all the same.”
Tehlu told her that Deborah spent time in many different men’s beds, and Losel drank every day of the week, even on Mourning. No, wait—there wasn’t any Mourning yet. But he drank a lot at any rate. Sometimes he grew so angry that he beat his wife until she could not stand or even cry aloud.
Perial was quiet for a long moment in her dream. She knew Tehlu spoke the truth, but while Perial was pure of heart, she was not a fool. She had suspected her neighbors of doing the things Tehlu said. Even now that she knew for certain, she cared for her neighbors all the same. “You won’t help her?”
Tehlu said that the man and wife were each other’s fitting punishment. They were wicked and the wicked should be punished.
Perial spoke out honestly, perhaps because she thought she was dreaming, but perhaps she would have said the same thing had she been awake, for Perial said what was in her heart. “It’s not their fault that the world is full of hard choices and hunger and loneliness,” she said. “What can you expect of people when demons are their neighbors?”
But though Tehlu listened to her wise words with his ears, he told her that mankind was wicked, and the wicked should be punished.
“I think you know very little about what it is to be a man,” she said. “And I would still help them if I could,” she told him resolutely.
SO YOU SHALL, Tehlu told her, and reached out to lay his hand on her heart. When he touched her she felt like she were a great golden bell that had just rung out its first note. She opened her eyes and knew then that it had been no normal dream.
Thus it was that she was not surprised to discover she was pregnant. In three months she gave birth to a perfect dark-eyed baby boy. She named him Menda. The day after he was born, Menda could crawl. In two days he could walk. Perial was surprised, but not worried, for she knew the child was a gift from God.
Nevertheless, Perial was wise. She knew that people might not understand. So she kept Menda close by her, and when her friends and neighbors came to visit, she sent them away.
But this could only last a little while, for in a small town there are no secrets. Folk knew that Perial was not married. And while children born out of wedlock were common during this time, children who grew to manhood in less than two months were not. They were afraid that she might have lain down with a demon, and that her child was a demon’s child. Such things were not unheard of in those dark times, and the people were afraid.
So everyone gathered together on the first day of the seventh span, and made their way to the tiny house where Perial lived by herself with her son. The town smith, whose name was Rengen, led them. “Show us the boy,” he yelled. But there was no response from the house. “Bring out the boy, and show us he is nothing but a human child.”
The house remained quiet, and though there were many men among them, no one wanted to enter a house that might have a demon’s child inside. So the smith cried out again, “Perial, bring out young Menda, or we will burn your house around you.”
The door opened, and a man stepped out. None of them recognized who it was, because even though he was only seven span from the womb, Menda looked to be a young man of seventeen. He stood proud and tall, with coal-black hair and eyes. “I am the one you think is Menda,” he said in a voice both powerful and deep. “What do you want of me?”
The sound of his voice made Perial gasp inside the cottage. Not only was this the first time Menda had ever spoken, but she recognized his voice as the same one that had spoken to her in a dream, months ago.
“What do you mean, we think you are Menda?” asked the smith, gripping his hammer tightly. He knew that there were demons that looked like men, or wore their skins like costumes, the way a man might hide beneath a sheepskin.
The child who was not a child spoke again. “I am Perial’s son, but I am not Menda. And I am not a demon.”
“Touch the iron of my hammer then,” said Rengen, for he knew all demons feared two things, cold iron and clean fire. He held out his heavy forge hammer. It shook in his hands, but no one thought the less of h
im for it.
He who was not Menda stepped forward and lay both hands on the iron head of the hammer. Nothing happened. From the doorway of her house where she watched, Perial burst into tears, for though she trusted Tehlu, some part of her had held a mother’s worry for her son.
“I am not Menda, though that is what my mother called me. I am Tehlu, lord above all. I have come to free you from demons and the wickedness of your own hearts. I am Tehlu, son of myself. Let the wicked hear my voice and tremble.”
And they did tremble. But some of them refused to believe. They called him a demon and threatened him. They spoke hard, frightened words. Some threw stones and cursed him, and spat toward him and his mother.
Then Tehlu grew angry, and he might have slain them all, but Perial leaped forward and laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “What more can you expect?” she asked him quietly. “From men who live with demons for their neighbors? Even the best dog will bite that has been kicked enough.”
Tehlu considered her words and saw that she was wise. So he looked over his hands at Rengen, looked deep into his heart and said, “Rengen, son of Engen, you have a mistress who you pay to lie with you. Some men come to you for work and you cheat or steal from them. And though you pray loudly, you do not believe I, Tehlu, made the world and watch over all who live here.”
When Rengen heard this, he grew pale and dropped his hammer to the ground. For what Tehlu said to him was true. Tehlu looked at all the men and women there. He looked into their hearts and spoke of what he saw. All of them were wicked, so much that Rengen was among the best of them.
Then Tehlu drew a line in the dirt of the road so that it lay between himself and all those who had come. “This road is like the meandering course of a life. There are two paths to take, side by side. Each of you are already traveling that side. You must choose. Stay on your own path, or cross to mine.”
“But the road is the same, isn’t it? It still goes to the same place,” someone asked.
“Yes.”
“Where does the road lead?”
“Death. All lives end in death, excepting one. Such is the way of things.”
“Then what does it matter which side a man is on?” It was Rengen asking these questions. He was a large man, one of the few that was taller than dark-eyed Tehlu. But he was shaken by all that he had seen and heard in the past few hours. “What is on our side of the road?”
“Pain,” Tehlu said in a voice as hard and cold as stone. “Punishment.”
“And your side?”
“Pain now,” Tehlu said in the same voice. “Punishment now, for all that you have done. It cannot be avoided. But I am here too, this is my path.”
“How do I cross?”
“Regret, repent, and cross to me.”
Rengen stepped over the line to stand beside his God. Then Tehlu bent to pick up the hammer that the smith had dropped. But instead of giving it back, he struck Rengen with it as if it were a lash. Once. Twice. Thrice. And the third blow sent Rengen to his knees sobbing and crying out in pain. But after the third blow, Tehlu laid the hammer aside and knelt to look Rengen in the face. “You were the first to cross,” he said softly so only the smith could hear. “It was a brave thing, a hard thing to do. I am proud of you. You are no longer Rengen, now you are Wereth, the forger of the path.” Then Tehlu embraced him with both arms, and his touch took much of the pain from Rengen who was now Wereth. But not all, for Tehlu spoke truly when he said that punishment cannot be avoided.
One by one they crossed, and one by one Tehlu struck them down with the hammer. But after each man or woman fell, Tehlu knelt and spoke to them, giving them new names and healing some of their hurt.
Many of the men and women had demons hiding inside them that fled screaming when the hammer touched them. These people Tehlu spoke with a while longer, but he always embraced them in the end, and they were all grateful. Some of them danced for the joy of being free of such terrible things living inside them.
In the end, seven stayed on the other side of the line. Tehlu asked them three times if they would cross, and three times they refused. After the third asking Tehlu sprang across the line and he struck each of them a great blow, driving them to the ground.
But not all were men. When Tehlu struck the fourth, there was the sound of quenching iron and the smell of burning leather. For the fourth man had not been a man at all, but a demon wearing a man’s skin. When it was revealed, Tehlu grabbed the demon and broke it in his hands, cursing its name and sending it back to the outer darkness that is the home of its kind.
The remaining three let themselves be struck down. None of them were demons, though demons fled the bodies of some who fell. After he was done, Tehlu did not speak to the six who did not cross, nor did he kneel to embrace them and ease their wounds.
The next day, Tehlu set off to finish what he had begun. He walked from town to town, offering each village he met the same choice he had given before. Always the results were the same, some crossed, some stayed, some were not men at all but demons, and those he destroyed.
But there was one demon who eluded Tehlu. Encanis, whose face was all in shadow. Encanis, whose voice was like a knife in the minds of men.
Wherever Tehlu stopped to offer men the choice of path, Encanis had been there just before, killing crops and poisoning wells. Encanis, setting men to murder one another and stealing children from their beds at night.
At the end of seven years, Tehlu’s feet had carried him all through the world. He had driven out the demons that plagued us. All but one. Encanis ran free and did the work of a thousand demons, destroying and despoiling wherever he went.
So Tehlu chased and Encanis fled. Soon Tehlu was a span of days behind the demon, then two days, then half a day. Finally he was so close he felt the chill of Encanis’ passing and could spy places where he had set his hands and feet, for they were marked with a cold, black frost.
Knowing he was pursued, Encanis came to a great city. The Lord of Demons called forth his power and the city was brought to ruin. He did this hoping Tehlu would delay so he could make his escape, but the Walking God paused only to appoint priests who cared for the people of the ruined town.
For six days Encanis fled, and six great cities he destroyed. But on the seventh day, Tehlu drew near before Encanis could bring his power to bear and the seventh city was saved. That is why seven is a lucky number, and why we celebrate on Caenin.
Encanis was now hard pressed and bent his whole thought upon escape. But on the eighth day Tehlu did not pause to sleep or eat. And thus it was that at the end of Felling Tehlu caught Encanis. He leaped on the demon and struck him with his forge hammer. Encanis fell like a stone, but Tehlu’s hammer shattered and lay in the dust of the road.
Tehlu carried the demon’s limp body all through the long night, and on the morning of the ninth day he came to the city of Atur. When men saw Tehlu carrying the demon’s senseless form, they thought Encanis dead. But Tehlu knew that such a thing was not easily done. No simple blade or blow could kill him. No cell of bars could keep him safe within.
So Tehlu carried Encanis to the smithy. He called for iron, and people brought all they owned. Though he had taken no rest nor a morsel of food, all through the ninth day Tehlu labored. While ten men worked the bellows, Tehlu forged the great iron wheel.
All night he worked, and when the first light of the tenth morning touched him, Tehlu struck the wheel one final time and it was finished. Wrought all of black iron, the wheel stood taller than a man. It had six spokes, each thicker than a hammer’s haft, and its rim was a handspan across. It weighed as much as forty men, and was cold to the touch. The sound of its name was terrible, and none could speak it.
Tehlu gathered the people who were watching and chose a priest among them. Then he set them to dig a great pit in the center of the town, fifteen feet wide and twenty feet deep.
With the sun rising Tehlu laid the body of the demon on the wheel. At the first touch of iron, Enca
nis began to stir in his sleep. But Tehlu chained him tightly to the wheel, hammering the links together, sealing them tighter than any lock.
Then Tehlu stepped back, and all saw Encanis shift again, as if disturbed by an unpleasant dream. Then he shook and came awake entirely. Encanis strained against the chains, his body arching upward as he pulled against them. Where the iron touched his skin it felt like knives and needles and nails, like the searing pain of frost, like the sting of a hundred biting flies. Encanis thrashed on the wheel and began to howl as the iron burned and bit and froze him.
To Tehlu the sound was like a sweet music. He lay down on the ground beside the wheel and slept a deep sleep, for he was very tired.
When he awoke, it was evening of the tenth day. Encanis was still bound to the wheel, but he no longer howled and fought like a trapped animal. Tehlu bent and with great effort lifted one edge of the wheel and set it leaning against a tree that grew nearby. As soon as he came close, Encanis cursed him in languages no one knew, scratching and biting.
“You brought this on yourself,” Tehlu said.
That night there was a celebration. Tehlu sent men to cut a dozen evergreens and use them to kindle a bonfire in the bottom of the deep pit they had dug.
All night the townsfolk danced and sang around the burning fire. They knew the last and most dangerous of the world’s demons was finally caught.
And all night Encanis hung from his wheel and watched them, motionless as a snake.
When the morning of the eleventh day came, Tehlu went to Encanis a third and final time. The demon looked worn and feral. His skin was sallow and his bones pressed tight against his skin. But his power still lay around him like a dark mantle, hiding his face in shadow.
“Encanis,” Tehlu said. “This is your last chance to speak. Do it, for I know it is within your power.”
“Lord Tehlu, I am not Encanis.” For that brief moment the demon’s voice was pitiful, and all who heard it were moved to sorrow. But then there was a sound like quenching iron, and the wheel rung like an iron bell. Encanis’ body arched painfully at the sound then hung limply from his wrists as the ringing of the wheel faded.
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