by Bryan Davis
Mantika glanced back at her village, a collection of low clay huts on the higher ground. As she shook her head, a frown bent her lips. “Flint kill us.”
“That I believe without a doubt.” Abraham tried to see if anyone was looking on, but the growing darkness obscured his view. “Greevelow doesn’t have to risk setting me free. If both of you go to Flint’s home, tell Flint that I have a message for him, that I need to speak to him alone. After we talk, he will return to you. I will cause a disturbance, and when Flint checks on me, he will see that I am gone and that you could not have set me free. When he sends a search party, he will likely include Greevelow, so I ask that you be my guide, because I cannot possibly navigate the marshes at night. Just lead me to the river, and I will find my way home.”
Without another word, she rose and marched away, splashing through the water with heavy steps. Seconds later, she was out of sight.
Abraham regripped the bone. Whether or not Greevelow would decide to help wouldn’t affect his plan. He had to escape, even if it meant wandering in the marshes for hours and stumbling into nests of sleeping muskrats.
As he looked at the bone, the words of the prophecy came back to his mind.
A bone, a stone, meeting atone,
A dragon born in flame;
A shield to wield, marching to yield,
The dragon sheds his shame.
Could this be the bone? If so, what might the stone be? And what dragon could Enoch have been talking about? He let out a sigh. No doubt it would all become clear at exactly the right time.
After several minutes, darkness shrouded his surroundings. He squeezed the bone between his thumb and finger and bent it toward the weeds around his wrists. The tiny thorns dug into his skin. Gritting his teeth, he strained at the bonds, loosening them just enough to force the bone into place.
As he watched for Flint, he sawed the sharp edge against the weed. Pain roared through his arms, but he had to push it out of his mind, concentrate only on the task at hand. It was best only to weaken the bonds, just enough to break free when Flint left … if he would show up at all. Then, he would—
“What are you doing?”
Flint’s voice. As a dark form approached from his side, Abraham closed his grip around the bone.
“I am trying to escape,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Did you expect anything else?”
Using his shirt to protect his hands, Flint pulled on the weeds. “Still tight enough.”
“I noticed.”
Flint opened Abraham’s fingers on his empty hand. “Are you hiding anything sharp?”
“Do you expect me to answer that?”
“I expect the truth, as always.”
“And I will always speak it, but I will not answer every question you conjure. If you think I’m hiding something sharp, feel free to search for it.”
“I am no fool. If you had nothing to cut with, you would have said no, and I would have believed you.” Flint opened his other hand and removed the bone. “Ah! I thought so.”
“Is it a crime that I would try to escape?”
Flint held the bone fragment up in his fingers. It seemed to carry a slight glow. “What is this?”
“A bone, I think. I found it in the tunnel of light, so I kept it.”
“Was there an animal carcass around?”
“None that I could find.”
Flint slowly rotated the bone, still eyeing it. “It looks like a human finger or thumb.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Could it be from one of the shadow people?”
“I found it well inside the tunnel, so I highly doubt it.”
Flint’s voice took on a sarcastic tone. “Oh, yes. You killed all your shadow prisoners at the entrance, didn’t you? I should have remembered the last time I saw Father Abraham exercise his tender mercies, a summary execution shortly after we parted ways.”
“Have you never stepped on a cockroach?” Abraham asked.
“We will not renew this tired old argument.” The bone disappeared into his closed hand. “Why did you send for me?”
Abraham tried to detect any tone that might give away Flint’s mood, but with his face shrouded and the bone enveloped, he had nothing to go by. He would just have to dive straight for the heart. “If you succeed with my imprisonment and thereby gain your army, we might never have an opportunity to speak again, so I waited for your people to settle for the night, hoping you would take the time to at least show me the kindness of conversation. No one is around to impress with bravado.”
“Bravado?” Flint’s voice carried a note of surprise. “Is that what you call my actions?”
“To stab my hand, threaten a boy with a spear to his heart, and imply savage advances on a girl?” Abraham tried to nod, but he only managed to budge his head an inch. “Yes, I would call it bravado, because these actions weren’t necessary to gain what you wanted. You rule by fear and intimidation, but your underlings are not around right now. You know those tactics are ineffectual when only my life is at stake.”
Flint paused for several seconds. Finally, his dark form stooped, and his voice lowered. “What do you want to talk about?”
“I want you to return to us, son. If you will only confess your wrongdoing, we will all welcome you with open arms.”
His voice took on an irritated growl. “I did nothing wrong. You don’t own the people, and you don’t own me. We have autonomous minds, and I am the only one brave enough to stand up to you.”
Abraham kept his voice perfectly calm. “I claim no ownership of anyone. The people freely submit to me.”
“And you kick them out of the village if they don’t bow to your every whim.”
“I offer them a choice,” Abraham said.
“Of course you do. Death by stoning or life in exile. Those options are rather limited, don’t you think? If that’s what you call freedom, I want no part of it.”
“I established our villages, and God gave me the rules of governance through Enoch. I have no choice but to follow them. If one person rebels, keeping him in fellowship not only spreads rebellion, it affirms the practice. If you found approval because you were able to stay in our community, you would never change your heart, and your spirit would be doomed.”
“We are again covering well-trodden territory, Father. I have heard the sermon too many times.”
“I ask you to hear it one more time. You have power over me right now. You could kill me with the stroke of a blade. Yet, I still ask you from the heart of a father to heed my call to return to our love, to submit to our ways, and you will be able to leave this place of exile. That is the third option, and you never considered it.”
Flint splashed the water with his foot. “You never offered it!”
Abraham blinked at the spray and held his tongue. He had already said too much.
“It makes no difference,” Flint continued. “I am in control of my own life here. Why should I go back to a place that offers only chains?”
Abraham held up his bound wrists. “No one in our village wears chains. Every man, woman, and child is free to come and go as they please. Yet, even if I had to wear chains, it would be better to wear them as a servant of the Father of Lights than as a slave to my own passions.”
“Passions?” Flint set his heel on Abraham’s shoulder. “It is control over my passions that keeps me from killing you. Slitting your throat and setting the people free would satisfy my passion for revenge and justice, but I have long-range goals.”
“To rule this world.”
“With justice rather than your tyranny.”
“By force?”
“If necessary.”
Abraham sighed. “And take freedom away from others, the very freedom you say you cherish, as you have taken away mine.”
Flint didn’t answer. Only the chirps of a few mud crickets broke the silence.
Abraham strained to see him, but the darkness was now complete. If not for Flint’s breathing, Abra
ham wouldn’t have known he was there. Yet, an odd glow caught his eye, the dimmest of lights in the shape of a clenched fist, hanging in the air at the place Flint’s hand would be. Abraham squinted. Could the bone somehow be causing it?
Finally, something tugged on Abraham’s hand, and the binding weeds fell loose. Then, a snick sounded, and Abraham’s feet flopped down into the water.
“There you are,” Flint said. “You are free. I leave you to your god and to the muskrats. You had better hope they are more merciful to you than you have been to me.”
Abraham pushed up to his seat and rubbed his swollen wrists. A dim light arced toward him and fell on his lap. “Here’s your bone. Get out of here before I change my mind.”
Cupping the bone in his hand, Abraham pushed up to his feet. He wobbled on his stiff, tingling legs but managed to stay upright. He was about to say “Thank you,” but the sound of fading splashes announced Flint’s departure.
He opened his hand and stared at the glowing bone. What could it mean? Did the fire from the tunnel leave a phosphorescent residue on it? Did Timothy’s sacrifice cause a reaction that could generate light?
He tucked it back into his pocket and hobbled toward a spot of firelight in the distance, raising and lowering his feet as quietly as his heavy legs would allow. Being set free was a true gift from God, but he needed another gift, a guide. Without someone who knew the marshlands better than he did, he might wander for days.
A dim glow spread across the area. Pegasus had peeked above the horizon, allowing him to see this island in the marsh. Several one-story huts dotted the grassy mound, making an incomplete circle around a plowed field, a rectangle of perhaps three acres.
Spotting the largest of the homes, he continued his painful march. The ground changed to moist earth, then to dry grass. He passed a few stalls housing a mule and a horse, then a cow tied to a wooden fence. He patted the cow on the rump. “Would you care to help me create a distraction, old girl?”
The cow just stared at him and chewed her cud. Keeping his eye on Flint’s house, Abraham picked at the knot that held the cow in place. Soon, the rope fell loose. He scooped a handful of feed from a bucket and led the cow toward a pen that encircled a herd of sleeping pigs, perhaps ten or so. Reeling out the cow’s lead rope, he climbed over the waist-high log fence and tied one end to a fat, sleeping hog. Then, he gave the hog a slap on its hind quarters and lunged back toward the fence.
The pig squealed and tried to run, but the rope held it fast. Abraham scrambled over the fence, but his injured leg gave way, and he tumbled to the ground. As he crawled through the mud, the pigs dashed around in a frenzy of grunts and squeals. The fettered hog lunged. The cow pulled back, bellowing. Lanterns flashed on. People rushed from their huts shouting in their thrifty sentences.
“Get cow!”
“Untie pig!”
Abraham scuffled toward the marsh as fast as he could. When he reached the downhill slope, he rolled into the water and waited in darkness, watching the ghostly forms hurry from place to place.
Soon, two shadows approached, hunched over as they skulked down the hill. They each grabbed one of Abraham’s arms, hoisted him to his feet, and helped him walk deeper into the marsh. Now shielded by a wall of reeds, he nodded at his two helpers.
“Thank you, Greevelow. And thank you, as well, Mantika.”
“Must go.” Greevelow pulled Abraham’s arm, and, leaving the lantern glow behind, the three waded into knee-deep water, pushing thick stalks to the side. With his eyes adjusting and Pegasus now in full view, his surroundings took shape. They seemed to be walking in a narrow channel bordered by short trees that stretched their boughs overhead.
“Muskrats sleep,” Greevelow said. “Must not wake.”
Abraham nodded. “So we stay away from dry ground.”
As they waded, Abraham’s body ached. The water stung his leg wound, and the hole in his palm throbbed. If infection had set in, he would have to get Angel to concoct her anti-bacterial salve, but would there be time to roast the boscil herbs and cook down the broth? He had to deal with the deceiver first, whoever she was.
After a quiet half hour, the channel widened and grew shallower. A rush of water sounded in the distance, a sure promise that the river lay ahead. The trees slowly thinned out, as did the reeds. Soon, as the river’s song grew louder, they walked upslope onto an alluvial plain. The channel fed the main stream, and the merging created a deposit of fine sand. As tiny crystals sparkled in the moonlight, acorn-sized black shapes skittered around, fisher crabs that always came out after floods to sweep through the debris in search of any tasty morsels the receding water left behind.
Abraham bowed. “Greevelow. Mantika. I thank you with all my heart. I can follow the river now and find my way home.”
Greevelow held up a hand. “Wait.” He waded into the marsh again, pushing aside a thick clump of reeds. Then, a few seconds later, he returned, lugging something flat behind him. With a thrust, he slid it across the sand and yanked on an attached rope, stopping it near the river’s edge. “Raft,” Greevelow said.
Abraham stooped and touched one of the twine knots that bound the roughly hewn logs together. No larger than a floor mat, the raft looked sea-worthy enough, but its size gave him little comfort. The river, still engorged by the highland fountains, roared just a few feet away.
He stood and shook his head. “Thank you, but I think I’ll walk. The river is too wild right now for a raft this size.”
Mantika pointed at Abraham’s leg. “Blood call muskrats.”
Abraham looked down. A thin stream ran from the wound in his foreleg. Mantika was right. The muskrats would come in droves. They would smell his blood, even in their sleep.
Nodding, Abraham picked up the rope. “As they say in a land I know, ‘Bon voyage.’”
Without another word, Greevelow and Mantika walked into the channel and, seconds later, disappeared in the darkness of the marsh.
Abraham grabbed a branch on a bitternut tree and broke off a five-foot section. After trimming the slender end and ripping away the leaflets sprouting from the side, he jabbed it into the sand and leaned on it. It would do.
He waded into the shallows. With ice chunks bumping against his legs and frigid water numbing his skin, he pulled the raft into the current and sat on it. He lifted his legs slowly, balancing as he shifted his weight. Then, pushing his steering pole against the sandy bottom, he launched the raft into the swifter flow.
At first, water lapped over the sides, nearly swamping the makeshift boat, but as it accelerated, it kept up with the current and rode higher. Abraham gripped both sides, keeping the pole pressed against the logs. Since the raft was surprisingly buoyant, he hurtled along, having to push against the shoreline at the sharper bends to keep from running aground.
After several minutes, the river slowed and widened, signaling his entry into Nimrod’s Basin, the lower plains where the more courageous hunters sought game. Now safely out of the marshlands, he could hike the slow climb through the meadows to get home, but with his leg in such bad shape, a longer ride on the river seemed appropriate. It would take him in his village’s general direction for a while longer, though at a lower elevation and not at the pace his mind demanded. Haste was called for. His people needed him. They would never be able to identify the deceiver without him.
He looked up at Pegasus. A gray haze floated across its cratered face. Could it be smoke from a fire in the highlands to the north? Maybe. He took in a long breath through his nose. There was no scent of wood smoke in the air, but the hunters often kept their campfires blazing well into the night, so it wouldn’t be unusual. Still, this smoke seemed darker than what the highland timber emitted, and few hunters ventured out the day before or after an eclipse.
As the raft slowed even further, he pulled his knees close to his chest and folded his hands on top. He rubbed the finger that once bore his rubellite ring, still unaccustomed to its absence after twenty years. Maybe someday it wo
uld come back to him. Or perhaps its new owner would learn to live in the integrity the gem symbolized. That would make its loss far more than worthwhile.
He pushed a finger into his pocket and withdrew the bone fragment. Earlier he had thought it to be part of a thumb because it was so short, but without the rest of it, who could know? Maybe it was a finger. And if a finger, maybe it was his son’s ring finger. Why not?
He held it higher to examine its gentle curve. Might Timothy’s ring still be in the cave? If so, could it have survived the fire? Obviously he would have to go back and search for it. He had noticed Timothy’s ring while he was alive, but since it carried a white gem, he hadn’t mentioned it, not realizing that it was a transformed rubellite. Of course, Enoch later told him it meant Timothy had lost his dragon essence and had become fully human.
He rubbed his finger again. Then why had his own rubellite, the one he was already wearing when he took his first breath in Second Eden, remained as red as blood?
When the raft reached a sharp bend, the current pushed the edge onto shore. Abraham shoved his pole into the sand, rose to his feet, and sloshed to the grassy beach. After pulling his craft into a flood basin and tying it to a shrub, he looked out over the dark terrain, a grass field that sloped upward as it faded in the distance. Flickering lights illuminated the horizon—his village.
He tried to count the tiny yellow spots, but there were too many. Something was wrong. At this time of night, only the street lanterns and the garden watchmen’s torches should be ablaze.
Pressing the pole into the ground again, he set off, glancing between the lights and the dimly lit ground as he leaned on his crutch with every other step. In the plains, he had few worries—stepping on rabbits, moles, or ring-tailed foxes. Yet, there was one predator that could be lurking just about anywhere. The prairie lions were known to hunt at night when the moon had passed eclipse phase, hoping to snatch any vermin the rising river flushed out of the marshes. With his wounded leg, a lion could easily run him down, but at least his pole would give him a fighting chance.
