Journey From Heaven

by Joe Derkacht

  #

  Months passed. Our visitors headed north, west, and south, away from Mt. Fe, in their grand search. As they traveled, they collected plant and soil specimens and made a study of the environment and local ecology. Early on, they encountered Brontonella’s abode. Recognizing all the signs of an aquatic giant, who, despite their best efforts, eluded them as ably as any monsters of Loch Ness ever could have, they posted a handful of their number to carry on further investigations. The whole wide world awaited them; why delay over a creature who inhabited a lake that was a mere twenty-five kilometers long and five kilometers wide?

  It was those few visitors charged to watch over an inconsequential lake, who made the push east. Frustrated with their search for the impossibly elusive lake dweller(s), and suspecting their Mah brethren were engaged in infinitely more interesting pursuits, they decided to launch an exploration of their own. Consensus of the many had abandoned them here, and now consensus of the few drove them on.

  They reached Mt. Fe in three weeks, each of the Mah carrying his or her own baggage on the back or, like ancient Africans, balanced on the head. Coming to the mountain’s high, sheer cliffs and its cascading waterfalls, they looked on with both admiration and dismay. Though every bit as beautiful as it had appeared in their original survey from space, not until this very day had they been able to prove for themselves that the mountain was absolutely unscalable, its sheer face ascending vertically for miles above their heads before being lost in clouds.

  Nuor, one of their females, studied the ground while everyone else stared in wonder at the mountain.

  “What is it?” Orda, her mate, asked.

  “Why here?” She asked, eyeing him strangely. She gestured to the strange confluence of trails where they now stood, and then pointed at the trails individually and murmured out a count, finally letting her voice fall silent.

  “Water?” Someone suggested.

  “I see no lack of water anywhere on this planet.”

  “True,” someone else commented.

  “It’s not the water,” Nuor said. That much should be obvious. Though they stood about midway between twin, mighty cataracts (either one of them considerably more impressive than anything found on P'nar), the actual outfall of both, with their attendant rivers, was at least several minutes distant from their present position.

  “What, then?”

  “Nor food,” she said, shaking her head. The others nodded in agreement. Food was plentiful everywhere, if they were to accept the witness of their own eyes and the abundant produce offered to them that first time by the native species.

  Since leaving the shores of Brontonella’s abode, their explorations had been nothing but congenial, easy, a lark. Here was a mystery rivaling all others; if neither food nor water attracted the native species to this place, to this very spot, then what?

  “They are perhaps social creatures, even as we are.”

  Nuor had been with the original party greeted by the millii and centii and the taloned avians. She knew what she had seen, and could not wholly disagree. The creatures of this world, though they no longer seemed willing to interact with the Mah, were undoubtedly social. Something had gathered them together that day by the thousands. Something had encouraged or motivated them to leave gifts of food by the ship. Something or someone had also encouraged them to withdraw their gifts and any further contact. What that could have to do with this place, though, was utterly unfathomable. It might have everything to do with it, or it might have nothing to do with it.

  She continued staring, first at the ground, which was bedrock evidently polished by foot traffic, and then at the stone perpendicularity towering above them. Orda and the others followed her gaze.

  “How long do you think this has been here?” She asked.

  “Forever,” Orda whispered, feeling no longer capable of speaking in a normal voice. A hushed whisper seemed more appropriate, like it would be less easily overwhelmed than regular speech, if it could just be blended with the distant roar of the waterfalls to north and south.

  Orda followed his wife’s lead. He walked over to the mountain and without touching it peered intently at its surface. Soon, everyone else was doing the same, their corporate mien demanding that it give up its secrets. A few dug through their packs for magnifying lenses.

  What they saw upon closer inspection, or thought they saw, raised the hair on the back of their necks. Though smooth like the ground underfoot, the stone was wholly different from the bedrock. Something was oddly gemlike about it. At this proximity, they could see it was not at all opaque, as they had thought. It was green bordering on black, with glints of gold sparkling in its depths.

  “It’s not natural,” Orda said, glancing skyward in awe, as if expecting a sign from heaven to confirm his claim. Seemingly moved by a single impulse, several of the party reached out and laid their hands on the stone. As one, they hissed at the strange tingle that passed through their bodies, and took a step backward.

  “Don’t!” Nuor cried in warning, as one of the party swung a small pick hammer against the stone, hoping to extract a sample for further analysis back at their ship.

  Too late! As metal met stone, there was a loud, crackling discharge and a flash of light. He screamed, flung backwards in a somersault, which the others matched, as if in psychic unity. Nuor and Orda, included, came to rest on all fours, like felines fallen from some height.

  When they were able to breathe again, Orda was the first to speak.

  “None of it is natural. We knew that.”

  The others understood he was speaking of Ranar in general, her peculiarly orderly ranks of forests in particular, and now this mountain. They had been asking questions, perhaps the wrong questions, and the mountain had answered them. With the answer came a terrible sense of dread. They were trespassing upon sacred ground; even if the animals of this world were obviously welcome here as evidenced by the polished bedrock beneath their feet, that did not necessarily mean visitors from another world were equally welcome. The mountain’s response seemed proof of that.

  “We should withdraw to the forest,” Nuor said.

  No one protested. Someone pointed out that Ranar’s star was failing in the west. They began gathering up their packs at once. None of them mentioned how glad they would be to put miles between them and this place by nightfall, or that making camp and sleeping here were unthinkable. Neither did anyone point out that Kaniik, who had been impertinent enough to strike the mountain, still seemed badly dazed. Two of their number helped him to his feet without a word and waited for Orda’s command.

  Disdaining to again hear his own voice this close to the mountain, Orda signaled with one hand for them to move out. Nuor took the lead, quickly breaking into a loping run. The others followed, with Orda bringing up the rear of the tiny column of M’hah-hu-uuu. Relieved to have the mountain behind him, Orda kept his eyes on Kaniik and the two men assisting him. The occasional backward glance sent shivers up and down his spine.

  They did not halt again until well past midnight, when exhaustion finally overcame them. Rising long before sunrise, they continued their journey under the light of Ranar’s moons. For the next several days they traveled as far and as fast as their strength would allow them. On the fifth day they began to abandon their packs. By the seventh they left behind all but the clothing on their backs and traveled without stopping even to rest. If they hungered or thirsted, they ate whatever came to hand along the trail, mostly seeds or edible grasses, and drank from the streams or rivers as opportunity presented itself.

  By the morning of the eighth day they were considerably further than halfway back to the ship, yet they yearned to travel still faster. The endlessly long aisles between the trees, as beautiful and inviting and captivating as when they first traveled them, now seemed drearily endless. This world might have its virtues, but as the hours and the days stretched on, the promise of them was being steadily sucked dry, u
ntil even the light from the alien heavens began to seem dark and joyless.

  What would they tell the others when they reached the ship? For the first time in their lives, though it was against all M’hah believed in and knew to be true, they wondered if they could hide something from their brethren. Should they even speak of the course of events they’d triggered by abandoning the lakeside outpost? These were the things they mumbled among themselves, as they trudged ever shipward, traveling Ranar’s lonely corridors. And what of the creatures of this world, they wondered? Didn’t refusal at contact, after the initial encounter, point to this world’s rejection? Didn’t it shout to them that they did not belong, that the long journey from P’nar was somehow misguided?

  It became their most important discussion. What about the creatures, both terrestrial and avian? What had been their offense against them? And was it possible for them, the M’hah, to have been misguided? Hadn’t their wisest leaders, among whom Wuanta the Uruff-fa was numbered, declared that it was the Deity who summoned them here? Could they have been wrong? Be wrong?

  Midway through the eighth day, their discussions, already tiresomely burdensome, tailed off in fright. What was this mirage they were seeing? Was fatigue affecting their brains? Black specks crowded the horizon, specks that grew disturbingly larger the harder they squinted.

  Were the planet’s beasts to once again reveal themselves? Did they mean to visit some sort of retribution upon them for Kaniik’s deed, for something they considered an act of impudence or something far worse? If so, the way back to their ship was blocked. If so, the M’hah were vastly outnumbered; they were only twelve, and Kaniik was still not his old self. Again, they wondered if abandoning their lakeside post in search of discoveries that might rival or even surpass those of their brethren had been worth it.

  Perhaps because of dread at the apparently impossible odds, or simply from exhaustion, both physical and spiritual, they slowed their pace until they were barely able to set one foot in front of another. Shortly afterwards, they sprawled out upon Ranar’s luxuriant turf in the shadow of a great tree, stretched their weary limbs, yawned expansively, and soon fell into a deep asleep.

  After a long while, they heard music in their dreams, music familiar to all the people of P’nar, patterned after the happy, piping sounds of that world’s avian species. Orda and Nuor were the first to sleepily open their eyes. Looming over them, blocking out the rays of Ranar’s midday sun, was a crowd of their own people.

  Orda squeezed his eyes shut. Nuor did the same. Orda opened his eyes again.

  “They’re not going away,” he muttered.

  “Someone kicked me,” she said.

  “Get up,” a voice said. “I barely nudged your foot. But if a kick is what you like—”

  “The voice is suspiciously like Uruff-fa Wuanta’s—and the humor is the same,” Orda said, throwing one arm over his eyes.

  “Wake up!” Wuanta shouted, his words underscored by a sudden blast of music.

  Everyone sat bolt upright, including Kaniik, whose dazed appearance was not much different from the rest. They were surrounded! Dozens of their brethren held stick flutes to the ready, as if they were weapons about to be wielded against some imagined enemy. Behind and beyond them were ranks and ranks of M’hah-hu-uuu. Uruff-fa Wuanta had come to them with all of their people, and no one even asked why. Everyone simply knew—the exploration of the planet was drawing to a close.

  Wuanta glared balefully at Orda and Nuor’s handful of followers, and then chortled loudly. Soon, everyone was laughing merrily or dancing or piping, Orda’s people included, though theirs was from sheer relief. Singing followed, along with a great deal of drum beating and the ringing of chimes. Food was brought out and presented with a flourish, most of it the fruits of Ranar, enough for an impromptu feast, which was followed by more singing and dancing.

  The trees of Ranar looked down upon revelry and celebration the likes of which they had never before seen. Hours later, P’nar’s folk lay sprawled upon the ground, with blankets now covering them against the chill of night. Orda and Nuor lay not far from Wuanta and his own mate, Awani.

  “How did you know to find us?” Orda whispered in the darkness.

  “You don’t know?” Wuanta murmured back.

  Orda lay quietly, reticent to mention Kaniik’s deed. Even now he felt a sense of dread, thinking back on that fateful moment, when the mountain had spoken in response to the stroke of one small hammer. Was it some terrible, cosmic blunder, not unlike those blunders cited in some of the old stories, calling forth doom upon those responsible for the misdeed, and retribution from the Deity? At least one of those had happened in a garden, hadn’t it?

  If Ranar was not a garden, literally from pole to pole, he didn’t know what it was. Perhaps Ranar was actually that very place!

  Wuan took his silence for a no.

  “One of the winged creatures—”

  “An avian?” Orda whispered.

  “Let me finish,” Wuanta said. “He seemed to be their Uruff-fa. He played a stick flute like one of our own. He woke me up one morning while everyone else was still asleep and spoke to me in our own language.”

  Orda silently mulled Wuanta’s words. How could some creature from another world speak in the language of P’nar? Unless everyone everywhere, in all worlds, spoke the same language? The idea was mind boggling. It just didn’t make sense. Orda knew something about the development of language among his own people, that much of it was constructed along purely artificial lines.

  “What did the creature want?” Nuor asked, startling Orda, who’d thought his wife was asleep.

  “We were to come to the mountain.”

  “That’s all?” Nuor asked.

  Orda waited, listening intently. From his wife’s tone of voice, he knew she was fascinated, which was natural. He was every bit as fascinated as she.

  “He told me that in the shadow of the great mountain called Fe, some of our people were in trouble.”

  Trying to cover a sudden gasp, Orda noisily cleared his throat. An uncomfortable silence followed.

  “How long ago?” Nuor whispered.

  “Just over a month,” Wuanta said.

  “Go to sleep,” a voice said in the darkness, interrupting their conversation. It was Awani. “We have an early start tomorrow.”

  “We—” Orda began.

  “Shhh!”

  Frowning in annoyance, Orda fell silent. However rude Awani might seem, she had spoken with the authority of mothers everywhere.

  “What’s he thinking?” I asked Bo’el. As fluent as I’d become in the past few months with the Mah language, I would still rather trust my reading of his thoughts to someone who’d been in contact with them for thousands of years.

  Bo’el nodded to one of his companions, who leaned close, well within range of the electromagnetic field surrounding Orda’s brain.

  “He doesn’t understand how it could be possible,” she said. “How could this avian have known they would be in trouble several weeks before it happened? He’s thinking at the time they were still debating about giving up their search for the lake monster in order to explore where no one else was...”

  Orda slapped at something near his ear. I smiled, knowing the buzz he heard was the companion’s higher-frequency speech, a frequency almost entirely outside of his hearing range.

  “He is also intrigued by this alien name—Fe. He wonders what it could possibly mean.”

  “Who would have told Cielo to speak with them?” I asked. “One of you?”

  I stared at Leanhar, then at Bo’el and his companions. The Mah escort fluttered their wings nervously, expression enough to tell me that they didn’t know the answer.

  Leanhar shook his head.

  “Someone else among us?” I asked him.

  A slight smile played at his lips. “Perhaps the Spirit?”

  I had contented myself, these last weeks, simpl
y to observe the Mah, letting them explore as they wished, in order for them to reveal everything about themselves I wanted to know. It seemed someone else might have a different idea—Someone, that is. Though every Overcomer is Spirit-directed, the Spirit of God sometimes still reveals the Father’s will to us through means other than that of the inner witness or by angelic messenger.

  “I don’t think Cielo learned to speak Mah on his own, do you?”

  Leanhar’s nimbus of glory brightened and dimmed, as he considered the question. The other angels watched us closely.

  “It might be interesting to ask him about it,” I suggested.

  “All right,” Leanhar said. “Now?”

  “Not here,” I said, gesturing to the sleeping Mah. “No point in disturbing their rest. They’re as exhausted as Orda and his crew.”

  I went to Kaniik, the most impetuous of the Mah, and leaned over him. I laid my hands on his head and kept them there until his brow, furrowed deeply even in dreamless sleep, relaxed at last.

  The Mah escort nodded their heads at me in appreciation.

  “Bring Cielo to me in the morning,” I told them. “Let us hear what he has to say for himself.” What they didn’t know was that whatever Cielo might say, it wouldn’t matter terribly much. I wanted his company and the attendance of his fellows; they should be with us, as well, when the time came for me to reveal myself.