Chapter Forty Five
10,028BC
Sun rise
He had not wanted to believe his son was responsible for what laid before him.
What he had laid eyes upon were not the actions of a soft hearted boy trying to find manhood.
Those were the actions of something else, something evil.
The sage had gathered his wife and children and had fled before his son had laid waste to their tiny society.
Many winters had past.
He could not count them, he had lost count, but it had been a long time. He was reaching the end of his life, a life that had not found another wife or bore any more children.
The sage's children, both girls, had been intended to be replacement sages in the blood line – gender was no issue for that position. There were gods who were of one gender or the other, or of none or of both and they all had great power. It was not of man to decide a woman could not act as an avatar for those great powers.
Instead of being sages for the next ruling generation of their tribe, those two girls had been trained to be hunters, to seek this monster that lived within that boy, no… he wasn't a boy any more, not physically at least. They had been trained by the boy's father to be hunters, to seek that creature, to destroy that seeker, and their father had taught them the rituals and spells they would need against such a thing. Their mother had lamented and had begged that such a fate not befall them, and she even promised to bear a male, but no child crossed her womb again – they all decided the blame for that lay at the feet of the creature, of the evil.
So it was at sun rise, on this day, many years since, that the father died. He walked over into the land of the rotten and much to his annoyance, was unable to take his youngest son with him. It would lay within the hands of others now to do that unpleasant task.
He was an old man, comparatively, having reached 53 years; of course, he didn't know that's what his years equalled to. But death doesn't care about age, nor gender, race or wealth, and so it took him by the hand that cool morning, just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, death took him by the hand. Took him by the hand and led him into the land of the rotten.
Perhaps if he hadn't eaten that odd smelling meat, the rush of fluids wouldn't have been so cruel to him.
Perhaps if he had been able to eat those herbs and plant roots that the young sage girl had told him would cure him.
Perhaps if he had tried to fight to stay away, to look death in the eye and say no. But he could not.
And so, father, man, slipped from this world into the next, leaving behind those two sage girls and their ailing father. The woman who counted herself as their mother had lost her battle against the shadow many years prior; all it took in the days before antibiotics was a rather small piece of twig which scratched infection deep into her flesh.
Father's body was placed into the large funeral pyre and left to burn away as the two would return to the cave where their own father lay reaching gingerly into the next life.
A discussion took place between them as they wandered:
"Sister, I believe the prudence would be given to our separation once father has joined the man".
"I give assumption, sister, that you are desiring that such a separation would give us a better option of finding the youth".
"Indeed. I was given dream last night, sister, before the man died. In it a form came to me, a form unknown to my eyes, but of a man, that form was".
"Speak to me more of this man, sister, for I too have been given dream of a man unknown to my self".
"This dream was placed many many winters from us, and it in, this man came to me, as a man does".
"What filth do you speak of? A secret man with unknown blood, sneaks into your dreams as only a groom would? Haha! You are indeed a feisty woman, sister!"
"Haha! Hush! Sister, it was not intended by the gods and spirits that such a dream bring me any pleasure the way a woman begs her husband for it. Instead, this man came into my bed and sitting upon the many fine furs spoke these words to me, and spoke such words with a tongue and accent I could not deem relevant to our culture, but in this night time vision, I was given the ability to translate, to decipher".
"Yes, sister, tell me what was spoken in a foreign tongue".
"He stated that the evil had come again. And he asked me for guidance to destroy it! But I told him we had not yet caused a cessation of such activity! He implored that I give knowledge of its destruction! But I continued to press that we had not yet given death upon the creature! I told him in many words with many faces of my own stress that if he were too come to me in the future then perhaps I would have been successful at our task".
"Did he leave you at that point, dear sister?"
"No! He showed me weapons and tools and sorcery like none I'd ever seen!"
"Sorcery?"
"Yes, sister! He had found a way to capture the light of the sun in a small chamber crafted with invisible walls!"
"Such magic is indeed beyond our skill, perhaps he would have told you his knowledge had you given to him what men desire".
"Silly girl, it was but a dream! Where no physical action means a many thing to any".
"Apologies, sister, I had no mind that you had lost your humour".
"Speak easy, sister, my conversation with the strange man continued. He told me his kin had disturbed the evil by removing its bed from the earth!"
"What do you speak of sister? What could he mean! Remove its bed from the earth, for it has no bed and how would it find its location deep within the realms of mother earth?"
"Sister, the man, not known to himself, had told me that to end the evil we must burry it! We must find its bed and fool it into sleep! Then while slumbering we must hurry with hand and shovel and place many mountains upon it, and so thus, it will slumber till the gods return to claim this earth we walk upon".
"But sister, you and I only have two hands to ourselves, together that is only four, how can four hands burry such darkness?"
"I am unsure, sister, but the strange man left me after".
"Perhaps father will know".
"Perhaps. But, sister, I fear, and truly believe, that father will leave us for the land of the rotten shortly, and we cannot utter words of this dream to him. For as cruel as this is, as poorly as our familial connection be by such actions, we must hurry him along, if only so we ourselves can venture with a quicker pace towards the removal of such a creature".
"Sister! I am in gasp! Do you suggest we push into the land of the rotten the man who from his loins gave us life?"
"To end the creature's reign upon our world, yes, sister, that is what I suggest. But do not fret yourself with such guilt, for I, as the elder, will take the responsibility, and many would say what we do is of more mercy given our Father's current state. Yes, sister, I will do the deed, if only to end the deeds of that creature".
The conversation ceased and the two young hunter sages carried their journey on in silence until they reached the cave.
The younger sat on a rock and sung hymns in a tongue to her patron, the elder entered and after several verses, the deed was completed and she returned.
She held the staff in her hand and stood before her sister.
"Sister, the staff can defeat the monster that walks the earth in the body of the youth for sure, but it can only travel with one of us".
"You are the eldest, it is your birth right, you must carry it, also, sister, as you know, I am too inexperienced in the ways of its usage".
"No sister, you will carry part of it, as you carry part of our father and part of our mother".
The eldest lay the staff on the rock and using another split the long staff down the middle. The two spent remainder of the morning strengthening the splintered form by wrapping it with strips of leather and flax.
--
The sisters having lived their lives together until this point and having spoken many words between them, did not need or feel such a need to utter any other phrase or word. For their feelings were known to both and time didn't need to be wasted by speaking them again.
They stood before each other, eyes locked, they nodded in acknowledgement and then before the emotions of their sex would take them, they parted. Neither knowing nor desiring such knowledge as to whether they would meet again or if their meeting would be after the moment that the creature was gone from this world.