Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1)

by Roberto Vecchi

  Though now, such thoughts were meaningless when set against the backdrop of this past evening’s visit. She had never quite believed in the existence of angels as God’s messengers, let alone protectors of this world. She had grown up a hunter’s daughter, had become a hunter’s wife, and a hunter’s mother. The hard life it presented had a way of excluding all other systems of belief. How could an errant arrow shot from the bow of a young boy under the instruction of his father lead to death? That moment, when father and son were engaged in an exclusive connection of tender instruction, was exactly what she had pictured God would have wanted. Yet how could that same God, who would have so approved of that fleeting yet inspired moment, allow it to dissolve into the horrible sight her son had witnessed?

  But again, this was just another unanswered question that would remain so. The simple truth was her mindset, her very faith, had been altered by what could have only been an angel sent from God with a message for her. And while her propensity to question and possibly even challenge everything suggesting the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent Great Creator was solidified twelve years ago, that solidification had been melted by the tempered grace of God through the voice of his servant. Such was the weight now existing upon her heart. She knew the truth, and she had to become free to respond to it. The lives of her children demanded such action. So she would put aside her binding doubts and long-lived bitterness toward an inactive and apathetic God and embrace all that He had just done. He had saved her children’s lives.

  As she watched her eat a particularly red baby tomato, she began what was going to be one of the more difficult tasks she was faced with, “Rony, how has the hunting been?”

  Between bites of vegetables, Rony answered in an almost programed response, “Good Mother.”

  Sensing the programmed response, she probed further, “Is that so Rony? So then you and Zyndalia are well on your way to storing enough supplies for the winter once you make the trip to Twin Oaks for our yearly trading?”

  Not expecting his mother to extend the questioning beyond the intent of simple morning niceties, he glanced quickly to his sister who was currently filling her mouth with a large bite. Through a muffled voice she said, “Do not look at me. You know I do not keep track of how much we have.”

  “Well, My Eklirin, how now goes the hunting?” his mother asked again once his eyes found their way back to hers.

  Seeing that he would be unable to escape her intent, he resigned to answer, “In truth, Mother, not well at all. We barely made it through last year with what we were able to gather, but this year seems to be worse than the two before it. I just do not understand. It seems that all there is left are the smaller animals, those not well sized to draw the interest of the leather tanners. Sure, there are enough smaller game animals around for food, but the larger ones, deer, wolf, bear, denmir have all but left. So far, it has been difficult to find any of their tracks; at least those fresh enough to pursue. And there are these strange new tracks I am finding on occasion. They are about as large as a bear’s, but look very similar to a wolf’s, though with only three instead of four claw marks. Following the tracks is easy enough, but finding the beast they belong to is not. Every time I find a set, I follow it until they end, but there is never anything at the end.”

  Already knowing the answer to her next question, she still had to ask it because he needed to say and acknowledge it, “So do you think we will have enough by the time winter arrives?” Not that the winters were particularly harsh living in the southern reaches of the Silver Empire which lies in the southwest portion of Avendia, but her garden would not grow for additional food, nor would there be much opportunity for trade. Merchants were, understandably so, reluctant to travel the long distances needed for successful trading missions because every so often, the winter would produce the unexpected storm visiting from the northern lands to unleash its fierce snows upon those ill prepared for it. While such an occurrence was rare, it was devastating to those merchants unfortunate enough to be caught within its fury.

  Witnessing the sadness seep from his heart to his eyes, she herself almost started to tear up, but the resolute demand of the angel’s words kept her solid in her course as he weakly answered while looking down at his food, “No, Mother. We will not.”

  “What?” said Zyndalia, who had been loosely following the conversation, “What do you mean we will not have enough to last the winter? What does that mean?”

  “It means that the two of you are now tasked with finding us a new home in new lands,” she said without waiting for Rony to answer her sister’s question.

  “A new home! But I like…”

  “I have heard rumors of plentiful lands to the north, not even a week’s journey away. You need to do this. You have said it yourself, Rony, that we will not have enough supplies to last through the winter, and I intend on seeing both of you live well beyond that.”

  Rony was the first to speak up in real protest, “But Drashin! We cannot leave you here by yourself! Father would never approve of that!”

  “He certainly would approve of this. Your father would have done whatever he needed to do to keep our family together for as long as he could. And if that meant sending you two on a mission to find us a new home because this one lacked the means to sustain all four of us, then he would be the first one to suggest it,” and she was correct in her assumption of her late husband’s actions.

  “But mother!” shouted Zyndalia, “I do not want to leave this home! What if we were to plant more plants in your garden so we could have more food for the winter?”

  “It is not just the food mother is right about. It is all the other supplies we need to purchase. And we cannot have the coins to purchase them if we do not have the animal pelts to first sell to the tanners. If you had come with me on last year’s trading trip, you would understand better,” Rony said in a voice illustrating his resignation to his mother’s truth.

  "What are you talking about, Rony?" said Zyn, still resisting his argument. "We had plenty to get through last winter. I saw the stock after the weather finally broke."

  "You very well could have, but what you do not know is that the left over stock was made possible because of the plentiful yield from our lands from years before. We cannot last this year!" Growing in frustration, his voice increased in both pitch and volume, "We need to do this! Mother is right!"

  Looking to her mother to see if she held any signs of contradiction to her brother's claims, she slowly lowered her head when all she saw was empathy returned in a teary eyed acknowledgement of the moment's truth; they had to leave.

  "But why can you not come with us, Mother? I do not understand why you cannot come with us." Again, striving to reach and grasp onto something neither her brother, nor her mother could argue with, she searched all of her resources to find a reason they could not refute.

  Seeing the desperation in the young woman’s eyes, her mother stepped in and spoke as she stood and walked over to her daughter to embrace her where she sat, "Oh my little Eklirin. I need to stay here to tend the house and garden in case you return without finding a new home for us. We cannot just give it up to anyone who happens to wander past."

  "I did not think of it that way. I just do not want to leave our home," she said as she nuzzled into her mother's embrace.

  "I know my little Zyndalia, but you and your brother must leave to ensure our lives for years into the future. It is not something I have wished for, but it is very much a reality right now."

  With a whimper of resignation Zyn said, "When do we have to leave?"

  "It would probably be best if we leave as soon as we are equipped," said Rony, breaking the silence he held while witnessing the discourse between his mother and sister. "But I do not believe we have enough provisions to leave this morning. It will take me some time to get everything we need ready. Maybe I can be ready to leave by tomorrow morning. That is, if I have a successful day hunting."

 
Now that she had their agreement that they had to leave and that it had to be just the two of them, she could no longer prevent her emotions from her deception and the betrayal of their trust from descending with the force of an avalanche. Even though she was resolutely set upon the completion of the angel's instructions, she could not help but question her own mechanics of persuasion. Would it have been better to speak the absolute truth and risk being disbelieved resulting in the death of her children, and ultimately part of God's plan concerning them? If this was indeed from God and delivered by one of His messengers, then should not the truth have been sufficient to result in the actions necessary? Not disregarding the undeniable presence of the angel, she still was unable to shake the foreboding of letting go and allowing the angel's words to come to fruition without employing her deception. Sure, she could reason her choice for subterfuge away by acknowledging that this was too important to leave to chance. That by any means necessary, this endeavor must be seen to its end. After all, her life was sacrificed so that her children might live and fulfill their calling. Before taking root in her mind and reaching the first marker, before gaining entrance into her heart, she was able to stop the emotions of betrayal and justified her actions as necessary. But therein was another dilemma; was she doing this as another necessary deception for herself so she could complete what was required of her, or was this a truth of the circumstances, an unavoidable and singular path called upon by the angelic messenger who delivered a message directly from God?

  Ending her inner discourse, she heard a semi shrill voice carrying annoyance and worry as she heard her daughter almost shout, "Mother! Are you ok!"

  Being jolted, yet hiding it well, she responded to her daughter's request, who had obviously borne witness to her mother's assimilation into a place removed from the conversation currently occupying her attention, "Yes, yes Zyn. I do agree that tomorrow morning will be a good time to leave. It will allow your brother and yourself to gather the supplies you need. Plus, it will give us all a chance to say goodbye." She held back tears as she said the final word.

  Goodbye. This was the first time she realized this was going to be one of the last moments she would speak with her children. She had been so affected by the angel and its sheer presence, that she had fixed its goal upon her will as her own so much so that everything else, all emotion, all reasoning, and all feeling was centered around seeing it completed. Anything potentially standing in the way was severely minimized and given no audience. For it had no place and stood as a barrier to her children's continued life. But now, because the inception of the angel's words had been successfully placed within both of her children’s' minds, she felt everything she had held back begin to mount; her life, her death, the unknown, the reality of God and His angels, her children being left alone to engage upon a greater calling than she had desired for them. All of these built in the pit of her stomach and threatened to return her breakfast to her plate.

  Forgetting where she was in time, she almost called out audibly to her husband. When he was alive, he stood as a pillar of certainty through all the storms brought by the harsh life they lived as hunters and traders. When the winters were cold, he was there to warm her, not only in body as they lie embraced throughout the night, but in spirit as well. With his words of comfort and confidence bleeding into her, he caused her frozen blood to flow returning hope and life to the dismal days of endless gray. When she was giving birth to their son, he remained calm and secure in his presence. She swore to herself that he was the only reason she made it through that night and still, to this day, stood in wonder of how he was able to remain such a calming presence during a breached birth. Knowing she was just seconds away from breaking down in front of her children, something she vowed upon the grave of her husband never to do, she excused herself at once by stating, "Well, there is now no time to lose! We must make the preparations for finding our new home! Rony, take Zyndalia and hunt for food. I will gather as many waterskins as we have from the river and pick as many items from my garden as I can. Let us go you two! The sooner we get done, the sooner we can sit and celebrate!"

  And with the conclusion of her sentence, she stood up, barely holding back her tears, turned around and walked quickly out of the door. Instinctively she found herself walking toward her garden at a pace matching the fluidity with which her tears began to fall from her now reddening eyes. When she could no longer see clearly, eyes blurry from her tears, and when her legs had all but lost their strength, she gave into her grief and fell to her knees. She had never been one to pray to God before today. Simply believing there was something behind the existence of the world and stars and moon, she never had proper cause to give this power a personal name, nor to believe it took any interest in the personal lives of those it was responsible for creating. Because of this, she knew not how to pray, but that did not mean she did not know what to pray for. In this moment, with her knees now dirty, her eyes swollen, and her clothing wet in spots from the release of her grief, she knew exactly what she needed to pray for. So she spoke in a tone of mixed anger, desperation, exhaustion, and resignation.

  "God, or whoever you are, I need you to hear me. I need you to understand. You have taken away from my children too much. Their father and now their mother? How could you do this? How could you do this and tell me? It would have been better just to do it and hold them protected, but instead you have allowed my son, my little Rony to carry upon his shoulders a burden so great that I have seen him strain under its force over these long and many years. And Zyn, my poor little Zyn. She has been cursed to have no example of what a father should and could be. You have taken so much from them and now, NOW, after all of these hard years, you seek to place an even greater burden upon them. A burden they are not ready for. I have never asked or called out to you before this, but I have no other choice. Please God, please, send them the strength they need to face what they are going to face and give them peace to find happiness yet in this life. But more than that, please let them know they are loved." When her voice was horse from the strain and she could speak no more, she sobbed as if the dams of heaven were released into her soul and poured out through her very heart. In the moment of her tears, she broke and slept.

  When he saw his mother stand, turn, and depart from the table, he thought he noticed the beginning tears forming at the corners of her eyes, but dismissed it because, even when his father passed away years ago, he had never seen her cry. Still watching his mother as she exited the door and began walking toward her garden, he said to his sister, "Well Zyn, looks like we have got a lot of hunting to do today. How soon can you be ready? And did you restring your bow like I told you too?"

  "What?" was all she was able to say as his voice pulled her back from the thoughts of what had just happened.

  "I said, how soon can you be ready to go because we have got a lot of hunting to do this day? Also, I told you to restring your bow after the last time we were out. Have you done it yet?" Rony asked again, in a mildly irritated voice.

  Still on a slow but steady drift back to the reality now facing them, she was not fully present to answer her brother's questions. She had some of her own that needed to be answered, "I do not understand why we must go so soon. Why can we not wait a little longer? And why do we have to leave mother behind? It seems to me that we could all go together to look for new land. That way, we would not have to come all the way back to get mother once we have found our new home. If we spend this next week getting everything ready, I am sure it would save us a lot of time in the long run."

  Groaning in annoyance because these questions from his younger sister were just wasting time and no doubt, a ploy to further procrastinate work being done and purpose being completed, "Because, Zyndalia," he emphasized her name to show his growing irritation, "just like mother said, we have to leave someone here to tend to what is ours. Also, we do not know what we will need yet so we cannot possibly know what we need to bring. If we bring too much, it will hinder the sp
eed with which we are able to search. Plus, if all of us go, and we do not take something we need, I am sure it will have been taken should we return to get it if our current home is left abandoned. Now, can we please start preparing for today? We will likely be long at the hunt and need to get started as soon as possible if we are going to catch what we need by tomorrow morning."

  Sensing that her arguments, no matter what they were, would fall upon the resolute opposition of both her mother and now brother, she decided to acquiesce to his request and answer, "Fine. But I have to restring my bow first. But that should give you enough time to get everything we need for today. If you start now, that is, and stop wasting so much time!"

  Before Rony could express his exasperation at his sister's last statement, she had quickly gotten up from the table, spun, and walked out of the door in a similar fashion as their mother had. As always, it was left to him to collect the day's items because instead of following his sound and practical instructions, his sister ignored them completely. And now he had to bear the burden. Though it did annoy him, it was a burden he was able to reconcile within himself because it is what his father would have done had he still been alive. So he took one last bite of the vegetables his mother had made for them, picked up his and his sister's dirty plates, and took them over to the wash basin. Because of the morning's break in routine, he noticed that there was no clean water with which to wash; a task given to his sister each morning. A task he resolved to add to his now growing list. As he made the necessary mental note, he too, like his mother and sister moments before him, briskly turned and walked out of the door. There was much to be done and no time to waste.