Of Men Made Gods

Chapter Two

  A Welcome

  WATER GURGLED ABUNDANTLY in fountains cleverly hidden around the lush garden. Insects paid court at each of the lanterns that hung swaying in the warm night breeze, trying vainly to get closer to the enchanting brightness denied them by oiled paper sheets. The air was filled with the sharp, lulling sound of crickets' singing while leaves spoke in a thousand whispers as they moved in a flutter, almost shadows in the starlit darkness.

  Avon stood in a brightly lit doorway, trying to take it all in. The murmur of people came as a low drone from behind him while he tried to lose his thoughts and relax. All day he had been thinking of what the Hall members were going to decide about his proposal, but the thing that occupied his thoughts even more than that was what his wife had told him yesterday on their way back from the gathering. Now, standing with his back lit and his face in shadows, her words came swooping down into his mind again.

  "Do you remember that Elizo left on some adventure to the east a while back, even before your own journey abroad began?" Caenphis had said, sitting beside him as they went to their home. "Well, he got back about a year ago and has been claiming to have spoken with beings of unimaginably immense powers ever since. He calls them gods, though I don't know if he's being serious or not.

  "He said that his travels had led him south, beyond the waters at the shores of our old homelands and beyond the mighty forests after those waters, where he found an empire of black-skinned men. His descriptions of the animals from that place at the time were quite dramatic and almost unbelievable though he did bring some crafts, skins, feathers and bones that were exotic," she had paused here for a time, as if she was seeing those bizarre parts of the fantastic creatures before her again. "Everybody was excited to learn more at first, and there was great support for the gateway through which he had met the gods that he wished to create here. But months had passed and the rumors of wars and sightings of the Vardrakus were finally seeping into the city so he and his gateway had sort of faded into the background of that growing certainty. And when even more time passed, his project had become a kind of shared joke among everyone else. You know how people are here. It was at this time that he even closed his doors on the few supporters he had left, politely saying that the works on the gateway had reached a critical stage which needed the utmost secrecy from then on. But, all of us knew that he did it because he had finally somehow heard of the snide remarks uttered behind his back by those he had taken into confidence.

  "I don't even think he had come to the gatherings after that because people were whispering in surprise when he stepped into Hall this morning before your arrival," she had said, turning to him as she spoke, "You know, now that I think about it, he had disappeared after that incident of barring his home and work place to most people."

  "But where does this gateway lead to?" he had asked, still slightly irked that the presentation of his plan had been interrupted by the man he had last seen years ago.

  "He was a bit exaggerating when he said 'the land of gods'," his wife had replied, a small smile playing at one corner of her lips before a slight frown appeared on her brow and she continued, "at least that's what I think. If what I've heard is true, then the gateway only leads to a meeting place between our world and the world of those other beings."

  All the way to their home, she had gone on speaking about that place between two worlds, telling him of the various imaginative descriptions people had made up about it when the truth wasn't forthcoming from the one person who had ever been there. Yet, with most of his mind filled with an elusive unease, he had listened to her words after that with only half an ear.

  "Why don't you give some rest to your thoughts?" the words came from right behind him, piercing through the night to reach his almost absent mind.

  Sighing loudly, Avon turned towards the person who had spoken the question. His eyes still adjusting to the shift from darkness to light, he looked at his wife. For a moment shorter than a breath, he looked and actually saw the little changes time had wrought on the woman he loved. He saw the slight creases around the eyes, the little stretched skin that hung beneath her jaw, and, almost but not fully hidden under her clothes, the curves of her body which suddenly seemed more softer than they should. It was in a split second, when the lights and shadows were just right and his mind was still a bit hazy, that he noticed these things and more. And, with this new view came a sadness that numbed his heart for a time. Without saying a word, he simply watched her while his heart filled with a fiercely protective love, silently thinking how life was surprisingly long as well as being maddeningly short.

  "What?" said Caenphis, a confused smile blooming over her features and showing how most of the lines on her face had formed.

  "Nothing," he answered, moving closer and giving her a kiss that said his thoughts were anything but nothing. "Is my absence starting a murmur?" he asked leading the way back into the house.

  "Well, the person they came to see was hiding in the garden," she replied, following him as she spoke.

  "I wasn't hiding," said Avon, halting his walk for a second to turn to his wife with a half-serious indignant expression on his face.

  An indulgent grin leaking from her lips, his wife said, "You were, dear," bringing up her left hand to pat his cheek as she continued, "only you didn't know it." She let her hand linger on his cheek while she hesitated for a moment.

  "You know," she began, her voice carrying a levity they both knew was false, "worries are made to be shared, don't you?"

  He was silent for a time, struggling to find a lie that would satisfy his wife. He didn't know why he was trying to lie. He told himself he was trying to shield her from his own worries, but he knew that was just another of his self-deceptions. The truth was that he had grown comfortable as he fell back to his old habits. Over the past three lonely years, he had begun again to trust only himself as he always had before meeting the woman standing right before him now.

  So, it was a lie that he begun to tell as he said, "I...," before being interrupted by Caenphis.

  "No," she said, her voice filled with sadness rather than anger as she read from his face what he was about to do. "If you'll not tell me the truth, at least don't lie." With that said, she passed him and entered the room where the last of their guests waited, leaving her husband feeling worse than when she had come to pull him out of his gloomy thoughts.

  Throughout the day, people had been pouring into their house to welcome Avon back. He had greeted them all as warmly as he could, spending a time with each new arrival as he glided from group to group. Usually he would have loved mingling with his old friends or even complete strangers in a festive atmosphere, easily finding the oddest of topics to talk about. But, with all his worries weighing upon his heart he had enjoyed none of it this time.

  He would smoothly start a conversation and begin to relax but next thing he knew he had completely lost track of what the person in front of him was saying while all his attention wandered off into his worries again. Whenever he paused even for a moment, his mind would quickly become distracted. He would suddenly drift off to become lost with his thoughts.

  Willing himself to do better in the few hours left of the night, Avon followed his wife's example and moved to join the last of his guests. He had known most of them since childhood. But the one he was closest to sat with some people around a table talking about something that seemed to captivate all of them.

  "I'm telling you he's got the best collection in the whole city...," was all that Avon heard before the man who had been speaking paused as he noticed his approach. "Avon!" he called out unnecessarily, pushing back his long dark hair out of his face as he turned his brown eyes to him.

  "Braetieus!" he called back, in mock imitation of the man's voice. "What ridiculous nonsense are you spouting now?"

  "Just the usual," replied his oldest friend, a smile flavoring his words as he picked up a goblet of drink from a passing tray for the man taking a seat beside him. "I was
telling them about the one with the largest number of exotic slaves in our blessed land."

  After taking a large gulp of the drink that had just been given to him, Avon nodded at the people around the table before turning back to the man he had known for most of his life. "And who might that be?"

  Swallowing the food in his mouth first, the man besides him said, "Elizo of course, " before picking up another leaf wrapped spiced meat from the platter in the middle of the table and dipping it in the creamy sauce that sat in front of him as it did in front of every other seat around the table. "Ever since his return from that adventure of his in the Stars know where, he had been buying all the new arrivals in the slave markets."

  "Why?" he asked, throwing a wrapped meat dripping with sauce into his own mouth himself. The first thing his tongue noticed was the dull, sour taste of the creamy sauce, but as soon as his teeth broke through the green covering and sank into the meat within, his mouth was flooded with a rush of flavors. While mixing with the deliciously rich salty oil formed when the tender flesh was roasted, the spices burned his tongue with pleasure as the herbs filled his mouth with cool freshness.

  "Nobody really knows," Braetieus answered, wiping his fingers on a cloth beside the creamy sauce before picking up his drink. "They just go to his house and are never seen again. But, what about you?"

  "What about me?" asked Avon a bit confused.

  "Come now," said his friend, waving towards one part of the room as if the thing he was implying was so obvious that it didn't even need stating.

  "What?" he said, seriously confused as he tried to figure out what the man was talking about.

  "Oh, for the love of the Stars," said Braetieus, frustration dominating his tone for a time. "The woman, man! Your new slave!"

  Not trying to hide the smile that came from seeing his friend's sudden burst of emotion, Avon simply said, "Ah…" Following the gaze of everyone around the table, he looked at the woman. Having traveled with her for months, he now realized that the novelty of her appearance had dulled in his eyes.

  Willing himself to look at her as those around him might view her, he noticed the things that made her standout in the roomful of his people; the things that had caught his eye in the first place in a snow filled land that suddenly seemed like another world to him now. With her pale skin sprinkled with freckles making her fiery hair stand out more than it already did, she seemed so odd among the darker skinned and black haired guests she was serving. Even to his eyes she looked like another creature.

  "She is amazing, isn't she?" said Avon, pride clear in his voice. And, before anybody could interrupt him, he nodded towards a man just stepping into the room as he continued, "Have you also noticed him?"

  As all eyes around the table turned to the man he had pointed out, Avon watched with satisfaction as amazement invaded the faces of their owners. The man's skin was a slight shade darker than the woman though all his hair was an unusual golden color, and while she was small of figure he was almost like a giant compared to her. He had spent a considerable amount on the man even if it wasn't anything close to what he had spent on the woman. He had bought her first thinking of giving her to his wife as a present but learning a bit later that he was her lover while she cried her goodbyes on the man's arms, he had made the rash decision of buying him too. It wasn't the first time he had proven what most said about him being too soft hearted with his slaves, and he was sure it wouldn't be the last time either.

  It was Braetieus who broke the awed silence that had fallen around the table by asking the question that must have been running through most minds around him. "Where in the darkness did you get them?"

  "Would you believe me if I said Manotius?"

  "Wha...?" said his friend, the shock on his face having no time to completely settle on his face before it was quickly replaced by pure disbelief. "Now you're just making things up."

  "No," said Avon, readying to tell his remarkable encounter with the legendary slave trading company that had become almost a myth in recent years. But before he said one more word, his wife's voice interrupted him as it filled the room.

  "I have just received a terrible news," said Caenphis, standing up from her seat as the man who seemed to have delivered the news retreated behind her. "The Master of the Hall has fallen unconscious."

  The stunned silence that had suffocated the room for a time after the last words left Caenphis's lips quickly dispersed as disturbed murmurs suddenly filled its place.

  Made speechless by what his wife had just said, and his little story completely forgotten by the happenings of the present, Avon sat in his seat silently cursing the world that seemed to be bent on making the coming days darker than they already were. He sat feeling an overwhelming sadness while at the same time his mind wondered if the night was going to be the last for the man he had known and respected for most of his life.

  *