When Darkness Begins

by Tina O’Hailey

  It took ten generations before the first Vechey started showing the ability to walk through large time spans. There were trades offs with being able to see so much time; it was true.

  Eterili continued to call to other groups as time resiliently moved forward and the Vechey remained hidden in the past. New Vechey arrived sporadically. Some came alone. Some came with one or two. The groups were never more than a handful. Eterili weeded and manipulated time to push the correct Vechey together so the traits would strengthen and after not too long the Vechey were what she desired. They filled the cave halls and a community of Vechey, strong Vechey, filled with tradition and rituals took shape.

  Eterili smiled. It was good.

  5 HOME

  Alexander stood alone. Dead air, still and soundless, pressed in on him; Alexander took no notice. He bent to his task with a singular dedication.

  Pausing his pale hands, he glanced at the blueprints once more. Dark locks fell slowly into his eyes. He pushed them away with the back of his forearm. Confident in the blueprint’s direction, Alexander busied his hands again measuring the length of wood. He produced a grease pencil from his pocket and drew a dark line across the yellow timber. The graphite moved soundlessly.

  A dark lock sunk again to impair his vision; malevolent follicles. Alexander stood and examined his handy work while retying the rawhide string that bound his hair. Not for the first time in ten thousand years he wondered if existence would be better if he cut off the curly mass. The answer had remained the same: it would exasperatingly grow back when he was in main-time. He would get a respite of forty years or more before he had to return to main-time and eat substantial food. He could avoid feeding for forty years if he had fed and rested well prior: something he had not done for the past hundred or more years. His hair would not grow while here in this moment, his frozen place where time stood still. Frozen. All. Except for him. He tugged again on the rawhide to tighten the knot.

  Alexander hesitated. How long had he been here working on this project? How many hours had passed in the Linear’s time? He was not sure. He bent again to his task. It didn’t really matter as long as he returned to Main-Time close to where he had left. His mind wandered, remembering when he had left that Linear timeline; remembering whom he had left in that Linear timeline: Brandy. He would return to her shortly. He smiled absently. The flowers were not going to be enough to soften the blow of what he needed to tell her. He needed something else.

  All around him candles blazed, their flames frozen and unmoving. Shadows cast by the light lingered in eerie stillness and did not follow Alexander as he moved.

  He picked up a saw, placed the sharp steel to the wood, and began rhythmically drawing the serrated blade. His strength aided the cut and made short work of it. Gravity had less effect in this frozen moment: the freed length of wood drifted slowly towards the ground. Alexander absently brushed the sawdust from the plank and from his movement the sawdust skittered through time both forward and back.

  The lock crept into his vision again. He ignored it and took the plank towards the room he was building. Alexander’s thin lips parted into a smile. What a surprise this would be for his…

  What to call this relationship that might last only a few Linear months? This unnatural relationship. Did he love her only because he wanted to protect her? Was that the reason he returned again and again to love—those unlike him? Linears: beings forced to live in time. Their lives desperately short, unlike his nearly immortal existence. Linears: those who should be his sustenance. He brushed the thought aside like sawdust. His face flushed with shame and then darkened with sadness.

  Alexander returned to the table intent on cutting another plank of wood. The silence and stillness was more like home to him than anything. Thousands of years in silence had not rendered him mad, though, his ancestors had warned him madness crept in unnoticed through the millennia. Many of his kind had been lost to it, suffering horrible deaths. Their bodies discovered lifeless and stilled with gaping eye sockets—bloody where they had clawed out their eyes with their own gnarled hands.

  He held out his own hand before him: smooth and young. No madness here, he thought to himself reassuringly. If derangement stole in unnoticed, how would one know?

  Alexander took in a deep breath as if to smell the wood, but breathed only dead air. Smells did not dissipate for one’s enjoyment without time to aid their travel. He frowned and dismissed the desire to enjoy the scent. It had been a favorite smell in his childhood, thousands of years ago. It harked back to creating valuable things for the family. His mind drifted as he stacked an inhuman number of planks into his arms. The wood pinched at his flesh. He did not notice.

  6 HOME BEFORE

  “Do you know all the answers, Father?” Young Aithagg sat on the tree stump, his legs swinging back and forth. Occasionally he would dip a foot down to stir the leaves. Dirt and leaves bounded from his invasive big toe.

  The tall man straightened and chuckled. “Aithagg, I do not even know all the questions.” He spit into each hand, grabbed new purchase on a large rock and chopped again at the tree he bent at. The sharpened edge bit at the bark, splinters fell to the ground with each blow.

  The youth, five years old, watched with curious eyes. He cocked his head to one side; wavy locks fell in front of his eyes. He blinked to see through them. “How do you find all the questions?”

  The reply came between blows of the rock cutting the tree.

  THUMP

  “You keep—”

  THUMP

  “—asking—”

  THUMP

  “—more questions—”

  THUMP

  “—to find new—”

  THUMP. CRACK.

  “—questions.”

  The tree fell to the ground. Its girth made a solid smacking sound as it hit the compacted dirt. The flickering torch nearby cast eerie highlights on the fallen timber.

  His father continued, “You do not always find the answers.” He bent at the knee and faced the youngster. “Or the answers are not the ones you wanted.”

  Aithagg jumped down from the stump and touched the fresh cut at the base of the tree. His hands came away sticky with sap. The boy held his fingers together and pulled them apart, mesmerized by how the skin stuck at the finger pads. He turned his fingers towards the light to see better in the darkness.

  “It is not always that way. You often find answers you knew were there all along but were unable to see.” The man took the young boy’s sticky hand in his. “You will need to go back and wash before the meal.”

  Aithagg pouted and harrumphed, “I want to help take the bark off.”

  “Go now and wash. We have much to do and you need to learn patience. There is plenty of time to help with stripping bark.” The man watched the boy intently as if seeing more than the boy in front of him.

  Aithagg considered his options and then ventured, “I promise to be very good at the circle if you let me help take the bark off.”

  “You’ll be very good at the circle even if you do not help with the bark,” the father warned.

  Aithagg seemed to consider this. His eyebrows creased, and he frowned deeply.

  The father watched the boy intently, again, as if seeing more than the boy in front of him. He smiled, as Aithagg stood straighter, having decided.

  “I will fall my own tree and remove the bark myself tomorrow. You can watch me,” Aithagg proclaimed.

  “Indeed,” his father responded.

  The wind blew at their faces. In unison both turned into the breeze. The father continued, “We must accomplish much in the little time that we have.”

  Aithagg jumped onto the
fallen tree and balanced, arms outstretched and wobbling. “I think Eterili smells funny.”

  “Go. Wash. Dinner. Then, we will gather at the circle.” Playfully, he held a finger out towards Aithagg, threatening to push him off balance.

  Both stared at each other, eyes locked.

  Aithagg giggled.

  The man feigned pushing him. Aithagg flinched and fell off the tree, landing ungracefully on the ground.

  “No fair,” he called. His cry dissolved into a burst of giggles as the father showered him with leaves. Aithagg held his arms up to ward off the deluge of brown foliage.

  “You will smell funny if you do not go wash before eating,” chided the father. “And your mother will never let me hear the end of it. Do you know how long eternity is?”

  Aithagg bounded from the ground and ran at break-neck speed into the darkness.

  “Last one there,” his voice trailed off as he ran away from his father.

  The man watched the boy run. When he had disappeared from sight, the father turned back towards the tree. He placed a hand upon the trunk and for a moment stood completely still.

  Nothing moved.

  The wind did not stir.

  Then the surrounding air wavered and he and the tree disappeared. A popping sound rang out as the air collapsed into where he had stood.

  Birds nearby, startled, took flight.

  Moments later, the man and the tree reappeared. Leaves rustled away from him with a rush of wind, while some leaves stuck to the naked white gleaming wood—still fresh with sap.

  ***

  Over two hundred gathered at the fire circle. The flames danced and sparks flew towards the sky.

  Youngsters, ignoring the warnings of their parents, dared each other to get closer to the fire, testing their ability to brave the heat.

  The adolescents of the group sat closer to their parents and feigned indifference to the youngsters and elders alike, wearing attitudes of maturity like ill-fitting clothes.

  The elders of the group were of youthful appearance and busy keeping watchful eyes on their young.

  All silenced when the jingle of Eterili’s anklets sounded her approach. She did not need to call for the attention of the crowd. All eyes were upon Eterili as she neared the fire.

  The youngsters scurried to hide in their mother’s arms. They ogled at the anklets of long teeth around Eterili’s ankle. The anklets jangled and clattered disturbingly with every movement she made. Long teeth, canine fangs, clacked in a horrific reverberation.

  She stood still, her clouded eyes transfixed on the full moon above them. Minutes passed, and the children began to fidget. The adults did not move. They waited most patiently.

  Finally Eterili spoke, “I, daughter of the first, mother of all; who has traveled across the land before it split, who slept in the depths while the earth froze, who stays with time and not with time, who called to you tens of thousands of winters ago and led you to this home.”

  The firelight made the creases, which scoured her cheeks, stand out starkly—cracks as deep as rivers. The dirt on her feet and body clung to her in clumps. She moved slightly and came near a young child, 10 winters of age, sitting smartly next to her mother. As Eterili neared, the young girl wrinkled her nose from the smell and tried to hide it with a demure hand. The child’s eyes flicked to see if her mother had noticed.

  Eterili continued, “You traveled to the land that touched the sea and then crossed the marsh lands into the steep hills until we found this home.” She raised her hands towards the sky as if to include the universe into the definition of home.

  “Here.” She lowered her hands to her side. The matted furs of questionable origination, which made up her clothing, stuck to her hands when she raised her arms, then plucked away. “Now.” A pause. “For eternity.”

  Eyes followed as she walked around the edge of the fire, her captured audience. “We will send those that have come of age to the ritual ground where they will begin their journey. When the sun sets and the energy has faded from the sky. We. Will. Go.”

  Aithagg sat in front of Eterili, his eyes wide with awe. She spoke again, seemingly directly to him, “Not all will survive the ritual. Do not mourn their passing. It is an easier death to end quickly than to be separated from all you love and locked into time.”

  She looked again at the moon as if in deep contemplation. No one interrupted her reverie.

  “You can not understand eternity given your glimpse of it now and the quickness of your growth.” She stamped her feet in agitation. “You can not understand eternity. It is a weight that stretches one to nothingness if you do not keep yourself safe from it.” She grabbed a stick from the fire, quicker than a woman of her age should, and spun in circles dramatically pointing the flames at the older children. “You! Kephos, Rtun, and you, Ehasa. You! Arske. Ar’mac. Phot.” The smoke trailed towards each youth as if summoned. “You must listen to the teachings. Our time to teach you is a blink of the eye. You MUST carry these teachings with you else suffer staying in time like a Linear,” she spat the word with disgust. “Come forward those that are brave enough to go through the ritual.” Eterili lowered her voice into a guttural growl, “Come forward!”

  The six adolescent youths stood—some bravely, some timidly—and walked towards Eterili. The crowd shifted. The air filled with murmurs; whispers between children, reassurances from one spouse to another, remembrances from the elders.

  “Take your place at the circle with me,” said Eterili.

  Each youth assembled as told and faced the crowd, their backs to the warm fire.

  “Your father and mother before you stood at this very circle with me. Take solace in that they went through the ritual thousands of winters ago and returned to here and now to begat you—who will now go through the same ritual. It is the way.”

  The crowd shifted on the ground. Most sat cross-legged on hides. Some sat on large rocks or logs brought for the occasion.

  Aithagg turned towards his father, who stood behind him, a protective hand upon his shoulder. “When do I do this, Father? When do I go through the ritual?”

  His father patted Aithagg’s shoulder. “All too soon.”

  “How many do not survive?” Aithagg’s voice was a whisper but carried across the crowd with the wind.

  The six youths eyed each other warily; some cast their faces to the ground. One of the tallest boys puffed his chest out in defiance. Eterili looked towards Aithagg and raised an eyebrow as a warning.

  He quieted. His father squeezed Aithagg’s shoulder reassuringly.

  Eterili continued, “You will return to the circle and watch your own offspring stand before you and proclaim their pledge to the moon and sky.” The stick, once ablaze, had dwindled to a red smolder. She threw it back into the pyre. It lie still for a moment then caught fire again. “What do you pledge to me, to the moon, to the sky, to your tribe?” She squatted and stilled.

  The six youths each straightened and in unison, or near it, began to articulate, “I will go forth and find my time, my place, my home. Turning away from my family and my friends, I will dedicate my eternity to keeping the universe whole. Should another adjust my time, my place, my home I will defend it until my last thought, through all eternity.”

  Eterili called from her squatted position, “What do you protect?”

  “Time.” The answer—cracking adolescent voices.

  “Why?” An aged croak.

  “Lest the sky pull my bones apart as the tribe is lost across all of time.” Whispers.

  “Who do you protect time from?”

  “The Manipulators who would destroy time, the universe,
and all in it.”

  “Yes. The Manipulators live in the skin of Linears. Your Manipulator will taunt you and try to wear your skin. A fate worse than madness.”

  “We will protect time from our Manipulator.”

  “Why do you each have a Manipulator?”

  “The universe balances good and bad, right and wrong, Vechey and Manipulator, Linears and Vechey.”

  “Will you survive the ritual?” Eterili raised her eyes to look at the group.

  In unison, they hesitated then answered, “If I heed my teachings, we will survive the ritual.”

  “It is the way,” Eterili answered then tried to stand. Her knees locked and refused to budge. She grunted. Someone stood to aid her but stilled when they saw Eterili’s quick glare. With a heave she stood and steadied herself; anklets clacked in protest.

  A large and old Vechey male stood from the crowd and began to blow into a horn made from a massive tusk. The crowd gave a battle cry and stood, raising their fists to the sky.

  Aithagg marveled at the unusually boisterous display; his eyes as round as the full moon.

  ***

  “Is she really as old as dirt?” Aithagg asked. His father stood over him, tucking him into bed. The first rays of sunlight had crept up over the horizon as the tribe funneled into the cave entrance, seeking the depths and the dark.

  His father chuckled and said, “Who said that?”

  “She did.” Aithagg snuggled into the bedding until only his curls and the tops of his eyebrows peeked out. He raised his head slightly so his mouth poked out of the covers briefly. “She wouldn’t let me touch her teeth anklets.”

  “Do you know what those are from?” His father sat back and patted Aithagg’s chest.

  “No. Who are they?” Aithagg whispered.

  “The mad,” Father whispered a reply.

  “Like angry?” Aithagg pulled the furs down from his face, eyes at full attention.