The wind blew chill through the trees of the
forest. The leaves on some trees had
begun to change colour as summer turned to autumn. Robert had walked for a little more than an hour since crossing
the bridge at the Essenkani River. He puzzled
over what the point behind his journey was.
Mother Earth had given him his quest over a decade before and for what
purpose? Robert thought long and hard,
as he had done so many times before.
Mother Earth hadn't spoken to him since delivering the quest to
him. This fact hadn't bothered Robert
to any great extent; he had always assumed that she felt it necessary for him
to complete the task alone, though it didn't make much sense. He reminisced about long conversations he
had had with her during long nights when he couldn't sleep. He remembered the soft caress of her wind as
he lay crying as a child, or the stillness she created with the babbling of a
nearby brook.
He missed her immensely. After years of her silence, the streams
stopped babbling to him and the air was no longer warm. For the first time in many years, Robert
began to feel truly alone. He had
always felt the presence of Mother Earth at his side, in front of him, and
behind him. He stopped walking for a
moment and carefully wiped at his eye to prevent a tear from slipping down his
cheek. "Check," said a voice in the
near distance.
Robert didn't notice at first, he was still
trying to decide whether he had ever heard Mother Earth talking to him in the
first place or whether it was just a child's delusion that he had carried on
though adolescence and into adulthood.
The voice came again a moment later, "Check."
This time Robert heard the voice. He looked around the forest but could see
nobody. He also couldn't figure out
what someone, in the middle of a forest, would be saying, "check," for. The voice came again, "Check," and this time
Robert distinctly heard it come from above him in the trees.
He looked up and at first he couldn't see
anything. He stepped to his left and
stepped again until he could see something unusual. At the top of the tree, there was what looked like a bundle of
while cloth. He tried to focus on the
cloth and realized that there was a man wrapped in it. The man was seated on the top branch of the
tree and he had what looked like a flat board on his lap. The man moved his arm over the board and
said, "Check," once more.
The wind howled and the man sat quietly for
a moment. His hand waved over the board
and again he said, "Check."
"Excuse me, sir," called Robert.
The man seemed to jump slightly before
looking down at the confused man.
"What might you be doing at the top of that
tree?" he asked the man.
"One moment," the man in the white clothing
called out and waved his hand over the board again.
The wind howled and the man threw his arms
into the air. "That's checkmate," he
yelled, "I can't believe you won again."
The man knocked a collection of small wooden
carvings off of the board, which fell to the ground in front of Robert. He then dropped the board, which landed in
much the same place as the carvings, some of which seemed to Robert to be of a
dark coloured wood, and others were a light wood. The board itself appeared to have a strange design on it as well,
with alternating squares of both light and dark wood much like the
carvings. It seemed like a strange sort
of thing to have with him at the top of the tree and Robert immediately decided
that the man was eccentric.
The man leapt from the top branch and landed
softly on the ground beside his board and carvings. Robert had been examining the items from a distance and hadn't
seen the man jump, and if he had seen him jump, the opinion would have
instantly become "insane." The man
reached out his right hand, which Robert cautiously took after having been
scared witless by the man's sudden appearance.
"Good day to you," said the man as their hands detached, "you must be
Robert."
The man's knowledge of Robert's name
surprised the traveler, "Yes," he said, reluctantly.
"Great, I've been waiting for you," said the
man.
Despite the fact that Robert's opinion of
the man hadn't officially changed to insane when he jumped from the tree, it did
at this moment. "Come with me,"
continued the man as he put an arm around Robert's shoulder and began leading
him along the lightly worn path.
"How do you know my name?" asked Robert.
"Mother Earth told me," said the man to
Robert's astonishment, "I believe you are acquainted with her."
Robert was beginning to think himself insane
for even associating with the man who wore the white cloth, which turned out to
be a thin cotton cloak. "I am I think,"
said Robert.
"You think?" asked the man, "You sound
doubtful."
"I am," said Robert, finding it hard to
believe that he was actually having this conversation with this man whom he
didn't even know the name of.
"Well don't be. Mother Earth is the most kind and gentle soul I have ever known."
Robert thought for a moment, trying to think
of a way he could ask who the man was without sounding foolish. Finally, he gave in to the nagging need to
know, "Who are you?" he asked.
The man stopped walking and Robert turned to
his surprised face. "You mean, you
don't know who I am?" he asked in support of the surprised look.
"No," answered Robert.
"I was sure Mother Earth would have told you
about me, but I see she's forgotten again.
You know, she'd forget to make the oceans move if she didn't have the
wind to remind her."
Robert didn't quite understand what he meant
by this, but it didn't matter. The man
was talking again and Robert lost his train of thought. "I bet she told you all kinds of stories
about dancing with the moon at the dawn of time, or the time when she got her
trees caught on Mars' ice caps and it took years to get themselves untangled,"
Robert remembered the stories, "but she couldn't be bothered to mention me, not
once."
The man seemed quite disturbed by the fact
that Mother Earth had never mentioned his name to Robert. Robert didn't quite understand why, but it
seemed important to the man in white.
"Alright, since she can't be bothered, I guess it's up to me to tell
you. My name is Angenog. I am of a mythical race known as The Cloud People. We're called that for one distinct reason,
which is, of course, that we live in the clouds. There was once a relative of mine named Mary; maybe you've heard
of her. No, you couldn't have. Anyway, I have many things that I can tell
you to aid you on your quest and I shall be there when I know them to tell
you."
It was a lot for Robert to try and take in at
once. The only thing that made some
sense to him was the possibility that the man might have something to tell him
that would help him in finding the truth about what happened before The Great
Beginning. "Do you have something to
tell me now?" he asked.
"Of course," said Angenog, "I will whenever
you see me from this day forth. That
was something Mother Earth was supposed to tell you ten years ago, but
obviously she forgot."
"Why hasn't she talked to me?" asked Robert,
suddenly overcome by the realization that this man might know the answer to the
question that had been bothering him for several years.
Angenog looked at Robert for a moment, "I
was under the impression that she had been," he said.
"I haven't heard from her since my journey
began over ten years ago," said Robert.
"You haven't heard from her," repeated
Angenog, "By saying that you haven't heard from her, does that mean then that
you haven't spoken to her?"
"Well I…" Robert didn't know what to say,
but he was starting to realize the problem.
"There's your answer, my friend," said the
man, confirming that what Robert was beginning to realize was the truth, "When
Mother Earth doesn't need to talk to you, she wont do so willingly. You have to talk to her in order for her to
talk to you."
Robert whacked himself in the head. He felt stupid and knew that Mother Earth
was there listening to everything that was going on between the two men. He hoped he hadn't insulted her, though he
was sure he had. After a moment, Robert
remembered that Angenog had something to tell him, "You had something to tell
me, right?" he said, trying to remind the man of his purpose.
"Yes, that's right," Angenog said, "It has
come to my attention that there is an old ruin buried in the Chainsaw mountains
further south from here. These ruins
somehow survived The Great Beginning and may hold a key to the past, which
Mother Earth so carelessly forgot," he called those last few words deep into
the forest to make sure he could hear his contempt.
Robert's eyes lit up with this new possibility. After ten years of searching, he was finally
on a path that seemed even remotely possible.
"Thank you," cried Robert with great enthusiasm.
"Don't thank my now," said the man in white,
"Thank me when your quest is over."
Robert didn't take the man's advice. He thanked Angenog and shook the man's hand
again. Excitement began to race through
his blood and every hair on his body seemed to stand on end. He backed away from Angenog as he began to
make his way south.
He didn't want to turn away from the man
just yet. He felt that it would be
somehow rude of him to turn so soon, but he knew he had to turn sooner or
later. As he let his eyes fall away
from the man in white and he began to turn, his eye caught a glimpse of
something in the dirt at the base of a tree further up the path from where they
had come. Robert was suddenly reminded
of something he had been meaning to ask Angenog, "One more thing," he began,
"What were you doing at the top of that tree?"
Angenog looked at
Robert with a sly grin, "Playing chess with the wind, of course," he said, and
promptly disappeared.