Ancients of Gondarash [Ethereal, Eric]

[Treijim]

She smiled slightly and tilted her head. "Who told you you would be thrown out? Certainly, the opposite is apparent; we wish to ask you things. The others here first suggested that you came here intentionally when we first saw you, but you are only a boy and you hiking here is essentially impossible. You are also not a monster... that much I know for sure. You did not emerge from the blue. I know as much about you being here as you do, Cliff."

She motioned for him to sit, seeing how awkward it was for him to be standing.

"We do not wish harm to come to any of you. On the contrary, we aim to protect the children here, yet we also give them a lot of space to learn and grow and gain new skills. As you are not yet one of them, I cannot promise you the same treatment, but I can at least assure you, once more, that we do not want to harm you. Hmm... My elders wish to ask you questions. Would you accompany me to the hall? That is, unless you have questions which require immediate responses."

[Ethereal Panda]

"Not a monster," the boy repeated quietly. When he shifted his weight, his back left a crimson smear across the crate behind him. "I had a bad dream, again," Cliff said with shaky emotionally in his voice. His hand began to shiver, forcing him to clench it shut. "I was trapped in the warm dark," he muttered.

Rather than sitting, he stepped forward towards the woman. With his walking stick no where in sight, Cliff reached out grabbing the woman's sleeve to allow her to act as his crutch. Still staring at the floor, the boy inquired, "What is this place?" He looked up for the first time meeting her with sleepy eyes. In a dry tone he asked, "Who are you?"

Before letting her reply, his gaze drifted to the light coming in from the window. Finally waking from his daze, the boy's eyes became sharp. "I want to speak with them."

[Treijim]

When hearing about his dream she looked somewhat saddened, but she didn't make any effort to console him or check if he was at all hurt. It was almost as though she didn't even want to entertain the dream's effect. His questions seemed to fall on deaf ears. She looked away and headed for the door, giving him no answers.

Cliff was taken to a hall that could best be described as an old tavern. The room was long and seemed hazy. Thick dark boards made up most of the surfaces, though the central leg of each table was carved of stone. There was a long counter along one of the ends. There were numerous adults about the room but they all seemed different. They all appeared larger, harsher, and less distinct. The shadows on their features seemed stronger and their eyes were darker and harder to see. At the other end of the room, a few of them were seated around the largest table with drinks and a plate of some vegetables.

"Sit," the woman said, guiding Cliff to a chair.
"What have you told him?" an old man asked once Cliff sat.
"Very little," she replied with a slight bow of the head. "I thought it best for you to tell it."
"Mm, very well." The old man turned with some effort to look at Cliff and he gave the boy a decent stare. "You aren't a monster which means that the Child sent you here. That means that he has a plan for you but it's not like the others. We don't know what it is; we're not godly beings like the childen pretend. We are simple humans. Take my word for it. Ah, but listen to me ramble. This probably isn't even reaching your mind because other questions are blocking it. So go on, ask us something and you'll get answers. Just be careful, as you certainly won't like a lot of the answers we give..."

[Ethereal Panda]

Releasing the woman's sleeve, Cliff sat down in the seat and squirmed into place. The boy's dangling feet swayed slightly back and forth as he listened to the man's words. Trying to heed the warning, he contemplated for a moment. However once he opened his mouth, Cliff found himself unable to stop asking questions.

"Why did you take Arka and where exactly is he now? How did all of these children get here? Where are all of their parents? Is that who you are? Who is the Child and what does he have planned for the others?" The boy rattled off every question he could remember that had pestered him over the recent days. Somewhat out of breath he stopped. He looked down at the chair as though he no longer wanted to hear the answers. With great trepidation, he finished, "Can I go home?"

[Treijim]

The man paused and took a long, hard think about the questions.
"It is as I thought; I can only answer those by saying what I was going to say originally. It's like this: All of the children you know at Gondarash have died." He watched Cliff to check for a reaction, but he didn't let it stop him talking. "When somebody suffers an unfair death in the eyes of Nikina -- the Child -- then he brings them here and when there is an opening for a position, we take them from the camp where they've been coming to terms with what happened, and place them in a circumstance where they will be able to regain their dignity through opportunities that the vast majority of mortals cannot even dream of."

He stopped and scanned the table, as though he was reading straight from a book. When he found his place again, he continued: "Arkatang was taken to such a place. He has been given the role of guarding a dangerous region which you aren't familiar with. He protects people by warning them of proceding down a certain path. By doing this, in time, he would have saved enough lives and honoured Nikina enough to give his soul the rest it deserves. Clifford, we are not their parents. We are the ones who make sure everything in this valley goes according to plan. You were not part of the plan, so a lot of us were weary of you, but perhaps Nikina is trying to tell us something via your presence."

[Ethereal Panda]

Cliff sat quietly after the man finished. He did not move or change his expression, but he instead simple blinked several times. The boy glanced between the other men at the table, expecting some sort of outburst. "What? Is this some kind of joke?" Crossing his arms as though unamused, he stated, "They are not dead. You cannot trick me. I have seen them myself. I have touched them with my hands." He held them out trying to make the point.

When his response was met with silence, a physical discomfort manifested in the boy. It was as if all the oddities of the past few days were becoming clear. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair and started taking short rapid breaths. "Larr is not dead!" His voice echoed against the walls within the room.

There was a slow transformation across his face. His jaw grew slack and his eyes wide. Standing up with such haste, his chair tumbled behind him. Forgetting completely about his foot, the boy cried, "I am not dead either! See?" He pulled at his shirt in a gesture to make his presence clear, but the tug only brought attention to the blood clotted shirt stuck to his back. He quickly looked to each man looking for some sort of reassurance.

[Treijim]

The group sympathised with Cliff with a modest silence. Even when Cliff shot to his feet, they said nothing. The old man motioned for him to sit back down eventually, but Cliff didn't comply. He stroked his beard and the scratched it with evident awkwardness.

"I understand this is difficult to digest. Indeed it takes most of the children several years to come to terms with it. Death isn't as you've been told it is. The death most apparent to the world of the senses is the end of the known senses, but there are things beyond that which you consciously comprehend. This valley is one of those things. As you are here, you too must be at least partially dead. All of us here are dead, but in a different way to the children; we are chosen guardians of the other chosen guardians."

Seeing Cliff wasn't really taking much in, he frowned and tried to reword it in a simpler manner. "Look at it this way... If you were alive and sitting here now, you would be in cold darkness, sitting at the bottom of a lake in the freezing mud. There is Riiga as the majority sees it, and then there are other facets beyond the purely physical. This valley is one of those facets. Child, do not be disheartened by the way the facts measure up. Just because you are here now isn't to say you can't be back home. Of course, it depends what it is you want. Your arrival here is unprecedented to our knowledge, and so we treat you with both caution and respect. I hope you understand. And now... Well, what is it you want? I am able to speak with Nikina but I can tell you I am quite sure that, if you so desire, we can return you to your home with renewed life."

[Ethereal Panda]

During the man's explanation, Cliff's shoulders slowly went slack. Both his posture and expression showed defeat and a hint of remorse. Although he already knew any argument made was just a manifestation of denial, his mind churned seeking holes in the man's statements. Frustrated and a bit angry, he unsuccessfully started several sentences decrying the man's claims. Cliff turned seeking escape from the room, but he abruptly stopped when he found the woman in his path. He spent the next minute pacing back and forth between the men and the door, muttering thoughts to himself.

He couldn't stop thinking about Larr. Recalling his random acts of kindness over the previous days; Cliff didn't want to abandon him so quickly. He yearned to see the boy at least once more. On the other hand, he wasn't certain that he would later be able to return home if he passed up this opportunity. Cliff sat down and hugged his knees. With a weak sigh, he buried his head between his knees. His thoughts fell on Velisies, vividly recalling a particular event.

Two months back, he and Velisies had planned an excursion into some nearby caves. Cliff had found a rare bug in one of the ancient texts and wanted to see if they could find it. That morning, he knocked over a candle setting one of the curtains ablaze. The boy and the priest spent the next hour fanning smoke out of the room in order to prevent damaging the books. With both of them exhausted, Velisies canceled the outing leaving Cliff disappointed.

Not fifteen minutes later, torrents of rain were falling from the sky. It poured the rest of the day and all through the night. The next morning, the two ventured down to the cave to which they had planned to visit, only to find that part of the mountain had broken away with the rain. All that remained was of the area was a sheet of mud, with no entrance in sight. The boy recalled how he jested that maybe him setting the church on fire wasn't such a bad thing after all. With no humor in his voice, Velisies replied, "Everything happens for a reason."

The words echoed as clear in his mind as the day he had heard them. If Nikina placed him here, it was for a reason. Velisies' last words to him were words of courage. Trusting in the old man once more, Cliff tried to be brave. Although the fear and apprehension still lingered within the boy, he was instilled with a new sense of purpose. He rose to his feet and looked the man in the eyes.

"I will stay. If you can speak to Nikina, all I want is to know why I am here."

[Treijim]

Everybody sympathised with Cliff's eventual answer with compassionate faces; all but one man who had a face that seemed permanently twisted with anger on the other side of the table. He only glared at Cliff and then looked away. They nodded to one another, mumbling agreeances and gesturing subtly. Slowly they began to leave the table one by one to do whatever orders they had been given.

"I will speak to Nikina. If you do not mind, you are to sleep in the grain shed at the back. I'm sorry but that is the only place you will have any privacy without me having to coordinate moving a dozen of us out of one of the sleeping quarters."

The old man, who revealed his name to be Gelthasea, took Cliff outside into the warm sun. He looked up at the sky as if momentarily contemplating exactly where they were... 'If you were alive and sitting here now, you would be in cold darkness, sitting at the bottom of a lake in the freezing mud.' He sighed, smiled at Cliff, and showed him to the shed. It wasn't as drab as it sounded; crates were stacked high towards the middle of the room from one of the walls, making a sort of barrier which divided the room into two halves. Behind the crates, lit by a window with a horizontal shutter propped up by a small support, was a large hessian bag on layers of straw with an old quilt folded across it and another bag for a pillow.

"Just shut that if you want to be in darkness," Gelthasea said. "I will try to get you a lantern soon, too."

Gelthasea then showed Cliff around the rest of what the children called Gianthands. It was certainly large, to say the least; dozens of rows of varying vines were strung across beams and large fruit trees marked the top ends of the rows. The building they had been sitting in was quite large in all aspects as it had two stories, a steep thatched roof, and looked long enough to be able to throw stones across its length and not hit the far wall. There were shorter, longer buildings arranged to the west of the main hall and numerous cabin-like structures between those and the vines. To the east was the grain shed along with several other large storage sheds. There were more buildings, but Gelthasea seemed disinclined to explain every single facet of Gianthands to Cliff.

"I must prepare a meeting with Nikina. If you require anything, locate the woman whom you met when you awoke. Her name is Anya." And Gelthasea left without taking any questions.

Only a few minutes after he left, Anya entered of her own accord and spotted Cliff standing awkwardly beside a table. She went to him and, after a brief check on his wellbeing, she asked if he knew anything about Nikina.

[Ethereal Panda]

Cliff placed a hand on the table and leaned against it. Swaying back and forth slightly, he appeared uncharacteristically antsy. At first he avoided the question by studying the table's grain, but after a slightly awkward delay he took a deep breath. With a hint of embarrassment in his voice he stated, "My parents were not very religious." He looked up to Anya to gauge her reaction. "But, I learned much at the chapel. Nikina is the God of creation, Garukavar's opposite. He is the one who made everything around us." The boy made a encompassing motion with his arm, but stopped retracting his arm. Suddenly Cliff didn't seem so certain. He tilted his head and squinted his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

[Treijim]

"You are about to meet with the most ultimate being. Does it not seem like a meeting of any significance or are you just ignorant to what it all means?" She looked at him with fiery judgement and then dragged her gaze away slowly. "Nikina looks like a child but don't be deceived. He will not be acting like one in any sense. Speak to him as though you are speaking to a manifestation of all wisdom, if that's something you can even fathom. Don't answer him unless..."

Gelthasea rushed into the room and hurried across to the where they were standing. For a minute, the old man searched Cliff's eyes for something, as though the boy was supposed to know everything he had just witnessed. Then he sighed loudly and rubbed his head slowly.

"Nikina would not speak of you," he muttered. "What this means, I cannot say... He did not confirm that you are a threat to the valley; this in itself is reassurance enough for me, so I too do not see you as a threat. But I have no idea of why you're here or who brought you here. I ought to search through our scriptures again... There must be something I'm missing. Indeed child, it is as you say -- you are not quite dead -- yet you may be dying. I regret there is no kinder way of arranging those words without losing the importance of them."

Anya suddenly looked at Cliff with wide eyes. "Perhaps... he has some ideas of his purpose. He has, after all, spoken with others of the camp, and he has been to see the King."

"Who? The boy?" Gelthasea looked from Anya to Cliff. "Come on then, boy. Speak. What have you noticed?"

[Ethereal Panda]

Cliff stopped fidgeting with the table and took a step back. "Dying," he repeated. Twisting his body, he crossed his arms and shook his head. "I have not noticed anything, and I do not know why I am here!" He backed into a wall.

Looking down at shoes, the boy mumbled to himself. He could feel this place taking a toll on him. Distressed and tired, he yearned to return home, despite not knowing where home was anymore.

"The children did not talk to me about anything. They do not talk to each other either." Cliff took his right foot and pressed down on his left. He stopped with a grimace on his face. "They are just kids, and they are afraid of you."

Fragmented and saturated with emotion, Cliff spilled his story to the two giants. Although many parts were missing, the giants took great interest in every word the boy uttered. By the time he was finished, his eyes were red and his body seemed limp. Nothing Cliff had said was particularly sad, and yet tears welled up in his eyes.

[Treijim]

"Nothing we didn't already know." Gelthasea pulled his robe around with a swish and headed to the door.

Anya remained and tried to console Cliff simply by being present. When she saw that he had calmed, she suggested they go to his "room" where he would be more comfortable and they could talk. So they withdrew to his corner, her with a lantern, and they discussed the things Cliff had experienced.

"It's difficult," Anya explained. "Just as you and the children at the camp are clearly still human and do not boast any immortal qualities of stable-mindedness and such, us so-called "giants" are quite the same. We have tempers and we make ridiculous decisions void of logic and reason. Nikina's voice is a mere thought at the very strongest, and even then nobody can be sure whether it's a thought of our own or whether it indeed came from our god. Everything must be measured against our scriptures to discern its origin. Your existence here doesn't grate against the scriptures, but neither does it compliment them. Gelthasea is frustrated because he has exhausted all of his usual means of dealing with things; he is very old and has been doing this for a very long time. There are others like him who will probably try to talk to you again and again, asking the same questions. Simply tell them you have spoken to Gelthasea on those matters already. But..." She paused and watched Cliff's face. "If you do think of something new, it would be best to speak up about it."

She drew fruits out of her pocket and after a brief inspection, handed one to Cliff. Biting into her own, she stopped chewing to add, "There is something I would like for you to see. It is a short journey, but I think it will help you understand the position we and the children are in. Are you up to leave at dawn tomorrow?" And for the first time in too long, somebody gave Cliff a smile.

[Ethereal Panda]

That evening Cliff laid quietly on the hessian bag waiting for sleep to overtake him. With his arms crossed, he looked up scowling into the night's sky. Endlessly, Cliff trudged through everything he could remember. The moonlight contorted the boy's features. He twisted and grumbled as every minor distraction seemed to disrupt his line of thought.

Crickets chirped, an owl hooted in the distance, and faintly, Cliff heard other members of the camp mumbling. With time, Cliff found these sounds of the night echoing within his ears at a deafening volume. Slinging upright, he yanked the shutter's prop slamming the window with a piercing crack. In the dark silence, the boy fell into a dreamless slumber.

Cliff awoke a half hour before dawn. Despite and undisturbed sleep, shadows hung heavily under his eyes. Due to the nature of the previous days, his filthy appearance now left him looking more like a time worn vagrant than a boy. Leaving the quilt sprawled across the floor, Cliff pushed open the shed's door and ventured out into the camp. After shaking off the lingering weariness, the boy wandered off looking for Anya.

[Treijim]

As soon as Anya saw that Cliff was awake and ready, they set off almost immediately with a sensible amount of supplies. They headed first eastward, through the extensive vineyard, and then northward towards the great cliffs overlooking all the valley. Far to the northeast there was a waterfall, silently sending a plume of distant glistening spray into the early morning sky. Directly to the north, rows and rows of trees folded over one another from the top of the cliff and further back, crawling up the larger cliffs beyond and -- eventually -- to the mountains beyond that. Everything was clean and fresh, and at one point they turned around to find that they could observe a great deal of the valley due to the way it sloped downward to the south. From there, the southern end of the valley was hazy and those mountains seemed as though they were painted gently over the sky. Gondarash would have been too deep amongst trees and too small to be spotted.

Though this cliff was not as sheer as the one they climbed to get to Kingwood, it took some effort to climb it for as long as they did. Eventually they came to more level ground and headed westward so that they were now almost directly north of Gianthands. Here, it suddenly became evident that there were the ruins of a building; an uneven and once-mighty wall bordered the small area and half a tower stood at the far end. Against the cliff face there were more portions of walls, and there were bricks everywhere.

"We tried to build this," Anya said.

A bird sang a short song above them. Then there was silence. She looked across the valley and drew in a deep breath, finally sitting on a short wall to rest.

"They're children. They're so very old, but they're still children. We couldn't manage the construction of this fortress." She looked around slowly at the carved stones and then at Cliff. "None of the children saw a point in putting so much time and effort into something that they'll be leaving behind, so eventually they all stopped trying. Now, several dozen families later, everything here is as we left it."

She shook her head as though she wasn't making sense to herself.

"There's always a reason things are the way they are. Until we see and understand this reason, we will continue to think that things ought to be different."