local settlement date 36,006
Say enough and your contradictions will swallow you in noise.
King Namor Zujahrah
34 dead lie
Barbaralba, the ship, set sail back along the coast on its return voyage to Salt Lake 36 without Barbaralba, Namor, Janyah and Estan.
The world would have to go on without them for a while. As long as it took them to travel across Barbancor to Snow City and down the river to Gadavida.
For travel outside the city, a wagon with two small beasts of burden was most practical. Before crossing the ice fields to Snow City, they could sell everything, give it away or eat the beast over a fire they made from the wagon.
Though Sacred City had undergone much change in the last years, the road to Magalax was the same. Barren and lonely for days at a time. A few small villages on small rivers. The people that lived in the Hinterland were not accustomed to visitors.
The village dwellers still held to the laws of the priests. They waited in vain for their next visit. The rest of the world was of no interest to them. They prayed for and blessed the visitors. Some of the children were curious about Estan and Barbaralba kicking a ball back and forth.
And when they finally came to the valley that was once the high holy city of Magalax and the seat of the over invisible monster god, it looked like it had never existed.
"Look, Estan, there are the bones of the now extinct Magalax killer dog."
"Like a dinosaur."
"Extinct like the dinosaur, or at least most of the dinosaurs. Chickens and snakes are still pretty much dinosaurs. But he's dead and hopefully anything made by man to kill will stay dead."
Namor picked up the skull and examined the jaw that could bite through bone.
"Can we take it with us."
"If you feed and take care of him."
Namor had expected to have some kind of revelation standing beside the fallen seat of God. He noticed that he noticed Barbaralba, Janyah and Estan. He noticed the sky above the broken mountain. He understood the massiveness of the destruction. The solidness of the field of rock. He noticed plants and insects. Birds and rodents. He noticed plants taking root in between the fallen rock. Small ones. He saw life as one thing, moving itself to take hold of a place and space.
When he felt the life laughing back at him in its subtle way, he accepted it as his revelation and gathered his family and traveled westward. Over roads charted but seldom traveled.
After many days of travel on a road that was not really a road and no longer traveled, they came down from a mountain pass and came to a village. The villagers knew that not a priest had crossed the mountain pass many years. They did not know that the city temple of Magalax had vanished under the fallen seat of God.
They could believe in soccer after seeing their children play it. They were not prepared to believe God was a lie or that they had come to the present planet on a space ship. Namor did not feel he had the energy to explain the world to them. It was all he wanted to answer questions from Estan and Janyah and watch the world do what ever it did without listening to him.
Many of the villagers, especially the villagers many days from any other civilization, believed that the strangers were strange, had strange accents and used many words that did not hold any meaning. Some settlements did not understand money. Some understood only about plants and hunting. And they were happy to see that Barbaralba was a skilled hunter and were very impressed with her bow.
When the parents of the children that had been charmed by Estan and Janyah started understanding that their children wanted to know of the new world, the big outer world. They usually asked Namor and family politely to carry on their journey.
So they did. Traveling westward, spending little time in villages and much time making camp on little lakes and rivers, catching fish and shooting animals. Bathing in the water and the sun and playing soccer.
Many days later, a few moons, they crossed another passable with animals pass to come to the tributaries of Havatara River. There they were known. Though it had made little difference in their villages, most of them had heard about the end of the priest rule and their books of laws.
There never had been much to tax so there were seldom priests to be seen. They had heard of Barbaralba and her fighting skills. In some villages there was the odd challenger. But the only fights that took the stage were fights to get to the ball when Estan rounded up enough players for a game.
Many of the villages on the tributaries of the Havatara River insisted on a small feasts before the family from Angel Island moved on.
Estan took his dog head out to show the other children in almost every village.
"One just like this one almost ate my father's face but my mother killed it. You can see the teeth marks in his arm."
"My father got a big scar on his leg where a wild pig bit him. He killed it and we ate it."
"My sister got scars across her belly from a big black jungle cat."
"I got a scar on my foot from when I threw a knife in it."
"If you want, you can keep my dog head. We're going over the ice fields and he doesn't like the cold."
"You are going to let me keep you dead dog head."
"He isn't hard to take care off."
"Thanks, Estan, that is really great."
"You can remember me some times and I'll remember about playing soccer with you and your friends here when I am playing with my friends in Salt Lake 36. And if you ever come every one knows where to find my parents."
"We will see each other again."
In the village before the ice fields, Namor traded the animals and wagon for the service of four guides.
And there was much rejoicing about their return visit.
"The King has returned with his Queen and children. We must have a feast. A feast to celebrate the end of the priests and their rules and prisons."
"It is good to be back. But please let us feast because we can and let us talk nothing of kings and kingdoms or priests and prisons."
So they feasted and pomp was dismissed and Namor was permitted to commune with distant relatives from an age somewhere in history. He told them a little about their history and when the night was wearing down he talked about Space Ships. And in the morning. Namor talked about dinosaurs and Snow City with the children.
And they set off over the ice that was a little farther away from the village than last time. Namor remembered the guides saying it was moving back.
"Tell me, Hoisy, about the ice."
"My grandfather, he always said, back when he was a kid, like most grandfathers like to do. The ice came up to his back door. In winter you were sometimes buried in snow until you dug yourself out. But now the ice is going away."
"That is an odd coincidence, if one dare use the old world word."
"What then."
"The Old Priest said the water in the ocean was higher than when he was a child. That is simple math really. So only coincidence that I should get both sides of the picture so that I can't ignore that perhaps we might have a new battle ahead of us."
"A new battle."
"How much ice is on Barbancor."
"Ice. The ice goes a long way. Toward the north there is only ice. Ice forever."
"Not on a planet, they tend to be round. But if there is much ice and much of it melts, the land near the ocean will be under water. And for Barbancor that is not good. For Angel Island, it would be the end."
Namor was flabbergasted the first day of the hike thinking about 30,000 years of ignorance of his family living in luxury and the ignorance of the poverty of all the others. Using all resources to protect the big pile of resources. There was not a map of the planet. No one knew where Barbancor and all its ice ended. No one knew if there were other lands. They knew how to store treasures in temples and castles. And if the ocean was rising Angel Island would have to be abandoned.
"If this is a test, Barbaralba. We may fail yet."
"Nonsense, Drave King. You will have to find out what the problem is and find a solution, perhaps we are already started and we can get the Old King to build an ice machine to freeze the water back out of the ocean and pile it back up on Barbancor. Or somewhere else."
"True. If it is only nearly impossible than we will find a way. If not, something else will happen."
Namor would organize an expedition around Barbancor with a ship. Calculate the curve of the planet to know the distance around it. Make an expedition around the planet. With a larger ship or an air ship. A space ship. People loved to fight. They could fight to find a way to survive on their little piece of land on a wet rock with fields of ice.
It was too cold for playing much soccer but they had long beautiful days with short nights that seemed to end just after they started. It was often warm enough during the day to melt snow on their big black tarp and enjoy the luxury of washing. Sitting naked on the tarp with sun warmed clean water was almost an absurd luxury for creatures on a field of ice.
Namor was most happy when the event around him were all that he perceived.
Cardinal Saharah had noticed them coming across the last distance of ice. She knew when she saw movement on the ice as only a dark mass, that Namor and Barbaralba were returning. No one else would bother to challenge the near impossible crossing. But they were crazy enough to do it twice and find a simple way to enjoy it.
She walked out to meet them when they approached the city.
They greeted with embraces.
"It may seem a funny thing, but I am not surprised to see you coming across the ice fields."
"We were smarter this time and got lucky to travel at the warmest time. The nights were short and seldom cold enough to shiver."
Cardinal gave them all an apple to eat on the walk through the city to the garden temple. Janyah and Estan were very happy to see where they would be sleeping. They were happy to drop their heavy thick clothing and bath in the pool.
Janyah climbed out the pool to climb a tree to have a closer look at the sculpture above the entrance.
"Papa. This is very old."
"Close to two thousand years."
"But it is you and Mom."
"It bares a close resemblance."
"Close resemblance. What are the chances that you and Mom cross the ice fields and there is a temple in a village in the middle of nowhere where they have no priests or a God. No royal family. And a temple not really a temple and carved in rock at the temple entrance is a life size sculpture that resembles no one like it does you and Mom."
"What are the chances of almost everything. Maybe with enough time, everything is inevitable. And perhaps it is always us. All of us becoming and being when and where we can for no reason beyond the chance to know that it is beautiful and how much pain and endless nothing we must endure does not compare to this moment when a father can see that his daughter loves him. It's a wonderful magic, life."
"Help me down."
Namor helped Janyah out of the old olive tree.
"What are the chances of an olive tree in a snowy mountain."
"I don't know. But I hope I'm in love like you and Mom one day."
"You have the magic, of both of your parents, Janyah. Birds look at you and are happy to see that you are here. You will find the one you want to love and he or she will do all they can to give you the love you require and desire. They will beat their way through walls of doubt and fear to get a clear look into your eyes. They will do what ever must be done to have your love."
"Is that a promise."
"No. I make no promise. It is how it is. The magic is playing with us. We do best when we play with it."
Janyah kissed her father and gave him a hug.
"I'm glad we came here. I'm glad my parents are crazy enough to take us over the fields of ice to be in a place that is so magic. It is so beautiful."
They stayed a full outer moon cycle in Snow City, enjoying the fresh mountain air and the seclusion from the rest of the world. Something had gone extremely right with Snow City. They had avoided the necessity of dictatorship through almighty God laws or Royal Family ownership laws. It was what the history books called attempted to define as communism or socialism. A community that did what had to be done so the community could survive and it also allowed for individuals to have or do thing they chose to do. Make things they chose to make.
"What are you thinking, Namor."
"I find it hard to imagine the royal family. How so few could enslave so many for nothing really. Nothing really real."
"Luxury is vaguely real."
"Even that is a prison though. It's a madness. I had a dream once where a creature suddenly woke up to its condition and it was outraged. It found its condition hell and the first thing it did was kill the creature beside it. The same creature. And when it comes down to it, if we decide we are in hell, we are and we make it so. If we decide we are in paradise, we are and we make it so. And it is the same place."
"It's both. A marriage of the two."
"Monsters and angels. But I'm certain even the worst of it beats the hell out of nothing."
Barbaralba laughed.
______ . . ______
The road from Snow City to the village where tributaries made the river deep enough for a boat had been made passable for wagons. Namor hired one that had come with grain that had been grown down river. It returned with Snow City perfumes and combed white rabbit fur clothing and mountain goat hair shoes.
The wagon driver accepted a small fee and took good care of his passengers on the many days journey to Deep River village.
Deep River had grown since Barbaralba and Namor were last there. Many from Angel Island had come for a visit and fallen in love with the mountains. Sometimes someone who lived there. Aside from signs of tourism, there were young trees struggling to grow on burnt land.
And Little Barbaralba was a grown woman and a teacher in a school for all the children and women and men of the village. She taught about the planet they had come from and the story of the dinosaurs and the reign of the royal family that built a space ship and took what they could of life to another planet and after 6 thousand years of establishing life, started governing life how they did on the last planet. Until a Drave King was born and left the castle in search of lost knowledge.
She and her students preformed for Namor and Barbaralba a play about the coming of a King and Queen that came to their land to bring and end to the kingdom of the prostitutes of war.
The play was performed in a natural theater. The audience sat on the grassy hill and watched the actors from above.
Afterwards, they drank brew and ate soup. They talked of the 30,000 years of blind obedience and the dawning of a new age with love for life.
Before the Drave family left, the children knew the rules of soccer. And the village leather craftsman added soccer balls to his inventory.
Though in appearance little had changed, Namor could see that the world was different. Fear was fading and angels emerging.
After many days, Namor bought three hammocks and hired space on a riverboat to tie them onto.
The river was long and Namor was glad of it. He loved hanging in the hammock with Barbaralba, watching the trees with their birds go by them. And listen to the rhythmic sound of Estan bouncing a ball on his knees.
And listening to Janyah sing and watching the trees or her brother of the boat driver. Sometimes she jumped in the hammock with her father when her mother swung her sticks or dove in the river for Estan's ball or a fish. Or just to swim beside the boat. Sometimes Janyah jumped into the hammock with her mother when her father talked to the boat driver about space ships or God.
About the time they reached the outer limits of Gadavida, an unusually brutal storm wandered out into the ocean and over the horizon to let the setting sun illuminate the wet damaged city.
Anyone on the river when Barbaralba went by standing at the front of the boat told of her blowing the storm out to sea with her magic powers. It was not magic powers. Angels had subconscious timing. An evolutionary talent that changed the borders of probability by opening a new niche of opportunity. Barbaralba and Namor had seen it happen enough to modify the meaning of chance and coincidence.
The first thing Namor noticed that he had not noticed last time he was in Gadavida was the business of sport. Many children wore shirts with names and numbers.
"It's like a new cult to replace the loss of state religion."
"And does that surprise you, Drave King."
"I guess not. But it is a funny thing, this need for, what when looked at in relation to survival of a species, it's fantasy. We love fantasy."
"Entertainment. A big mind needs many things to perceive."
Compared to Salt Lake 36, which was a new city, Gadavida seemed dark and frightening. Full of freaks and monsters. At the core of it, however, it was a collection of humans living with humans and all the other animals that lived with them.
Namor knew there were many from Angel Island but he couldn't be certain who they were. Whatever it was that had held everyone separate had ripped open. And the illusion of the royal family was simply fading away like the illusion of the priests and their old world god lie.
"Papa. I'm going to be a great soccer player."
"I can see that. I'll be your greatest fan. Or maybe second to your mother."
"Will you and Mom present the trophy when we win."
"I hope so. Salt Lake 36 will be famous for their brilliant soccer team. Maybe they'll be the first team in history to be part of history. Especially if your father or the Old King writes you into it. It's an evolutionary step. With stones from the castle, a stadium of sport without blood."
chapter 35
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