In The Beginning
By Richard Webber
Copyright 2015 Richard Webber
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This novel is a work of fiction based very loosely on actual people and events from the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Table of Contents
Prelude
Part I – The Journey
Part II – The Meeting
Part III – The Village
Part IV – The Kingdom
Part V – The Awakening
Part VI – The Future
Epilogue
Prelude
“In the beginning, there was evil.”
“Now of course I know that this is not correct. First there was good, and evil came into the world later. But this is my story, and I shall begin it however I wish.”
I looked around the crowded room for a long moment as I judged their interest, and eventually continued.
“Every heart holds both evil and good in different weights and proportions, and it is up to each individual to decide how the evil and the good in their heart shall be measured out. As one who has long tried to change the balance of my life, I know this better than most.”
It was early in the day and there was bright, clear sunlight streaming in through the open windows of the large common room. Once again I carefully studied all that were gathered around me. While I was surrounded by a great number of children and youths, there were also quite a few parents and other adults scattered throughout the crowd.
The children ranged from little ones that were being bounced on their mothers’ laps to young men that were showing the first signs of beards upon their chins. They all watched and listened to me with rapt attention, though if I held their attention out of respect, fear, or only because they were forced to be there by their parents I did not know.
“Now some of you have heard this story before, and you may have already learned the truths of what I will speak. But most of you have yet to take your first steps in my lesson. As I have said, this is my story, and though you may have heard it told by others, you have not heard it from my own lips. Well, now you finally shall.”
“I do not begin at the true beginning, since that is not what you need to learn at this time. But someday, that also may be revealed to you. Hopefully one, or perhaps even more than one of you shall learn something, and leave this room a little wiser then when you entered.”
Once more I looked around the crowded room, and with a firm nod I said, “I shall begin the story where I deem it best, and it shall end when I have finished.”
Part I – The Journey
Chapter One
It was just another desolate, rocky valley.
I had forced myself to believe that when I reached the top of this slope there would be something different to see. Disappointed once again, in front of me was more of the same barren landscape I had been walking through for weeks. I couldn’t see evidence of one drop of water in the entire valley. Only sand, rock, and scattered patches of long-dead scrub brush stretched almost as far as the eye could see.
Almost, because for the last three days I had seen mountains in the distant east.
But those mountains were still far away, and I had not found water since I left home. My second water skin was down to its last few mouthfuls. I had five, maybe six days at the most before it was completely empty. After that, it was only a matter of time.
But how much time was the question. The desert haze made it impossible to judge distances, and I could not tell if I was five or twenty-five days from the slopes. Once the water was gone I could only hope that I would be able to hold on long enough to reach them.
I looked over the sterile landscape, devoid of any sign of life, and once again thought gratefully about the abilities I had discovered in my long days of walking through this wilderness. Right now I was most grateful for my recently discovered ability to go for extraordinarily long periods of time without the need to drink deeply. As I had been forced to conserve my water, I learned I could live on only a few sips each day.
I had not known this before starting across the desert, since I had never needed to go without water before I began my journey. Even though I now walked almost nonstop day and night, I was able to get by with only two or three sips each day. I spaced out these drinks as I walked through the burning hot days and only slightly cooler nights.
Though I had no idea how many days I would need to go until I reached the mountains, I hoped I could travel at least five days after my last drops were gone. Perhaps that would be long enough, and I still had a chance to stay alive.
I had begun my journey forty days earlier. I left home with only a rough leather pack and the cloths on my back. The pack had held two full water skins, a bag of food, a heavy wool cloak, a firestone, and the drawing my mother had made for me when I was a child.
Though it was now almost empty, in the beginning my food bag had contained four large loaves of bread, a round of hard cheese, a package of various dried fruits and nuts, and several fresh oranges and apples.
Besides what was in my pack, my possessions consisted of the clothes I wore and my knife. I was wearing a tunic of wool which my mother had woven just a few weeks before I left. It was made of a lighter weight cloth and dyed a dark reddish brown color; it was good material and very well made.
I had sturdy sandals on my feet made from the hide of a wild boar. They were thick and strong and would last a very long time. Knotted around my waste was a belt of supple leather, made from the skin of one of my brother’s sheep. To the belt was attached a sheath, which was also made of the wild boars’ hide.
My father had devised an ingenious way of attaching the sheath to the belt with leather cords, which held the sheath in place just as you wanted. He had discovered that by repeatedly wetting leather in water and then drying it under the sun, it would become very rigid and hard as a rock. The hardened boar’s skin was tough enough to resist cutting, even from the extremely sharp blade of my knife.
The knife I carried was absolutely beautiful. It was perfectly balanced and always stayed incredibly sharp. The blade was made from a special stone which was found in one of the farthest corners of our land, and it had an intricately carved wooden handle that was inset with a large, highly polished dark red stone. I considered the knife to be a work of art, and it was my most prized possession. It had been made for me by my father, and had been a gift from him many years before.
The memory of the happier times from my youth brought the darkness into my heart, and caused an angry frown to settle on my face as I thought about the home I had been forced to leave behind.
My family lived in a rich, fertile country, but it was a place that was almost impossible for us to leave, or for other people to reach. Our land was bordered on both the north and south by great rivers that were wide and deep, and impossible to cross. To the west between the rivers ran a range of mountains which were so steep and dangerous they were threatening even to view. The mountains were so tall that there was no growth on the tops and well down the sides, and my father had said several times over the years that there were no passages through to the far side.
He also said there were fierce predators in those mountains, though I had never seen any on the few occasions I approached their jagged slopes. My father had made it very clear that the mountains were dangerous and there was no reason to ever try to cross them, since on the other side there was a great sea that blocked your passage any further. Those mountains and what lay on the
far side were one of the few things outside our homeland that he had ever spoken of.
I had come to believe that my father was not telling the truth; that my parents had once lived on the other side of the mountains and that was why my father was so adamant that I not try to venture into them. I believed that God had made sure there was no way for them or anyone else to go through those mountains to the far side.
To the east of my home lay the wasteland I now walked through. Years ago in a rare moment of volubility my father had told me this desert stretched eastward for many days, but eventually it ended at a fair green land. I hoped he was right.
My homeland was very large, much larger than my family could ever have hoped to fill. It took many days of steady walking to cross from the northern river to the southern river, and a similar length of time to walk from the mountains to the start of the wasteland on the eastern border. While we actually farmed only a small bit of the land and our flocks used a tiny portion of the lush meadows, the rich soil and numerous streams would have been able to support thousands of people. But of course, it only supported the four of us.
Though my parents never seemed completely satisfied with our home, it was as close to a paradise as I could imagine. I loved my home and never dreamed I would be forced to leave.
Except for the one brief statement by my father years earlier, the wasteland and what lay on the other side was never discussed by my parents. I felt confident my father knew exactly how large the wasteland was, and what I would see if I was able to cross it successfully. I was certain my father knew almost everything there was to know about the world outside our homeland, but he was never willing to share anything with me about the lands past our borders.
For that matter, he would not discuss anything that had happened to him and my mother prior to their arrival in our land. My parents were so unwilling to talk about their past that over the years I had become discouraged about ever learning anything, and finally given up asking questions. I cared for my parents and respected their knowledge, but they were an intense source of frustration to me because of their unwillingness to teach me what they knew about the world.
I could not understand why they would not tell me everything I wanted to know. There was so much I could learn from them. While I was still young I had realized that knowledge was very powerful, and their unwillingness to answer my questions disturbed me and would often make me very angry.
My parents knew so much about the world. They had been alive since the beginning and they had an abundance of wisdom and knowledge that they could share. Knowledge that could help me to achieve great things in my life. Yet they would tell me nothing! My parents refused to acknowledge that I knew more than them about what was best for me.
Their unwillingness to teach me everything they knew made me even angrier as I became older. When I was young I believed it was my youth that caused them to be so close-mouthed about their history. As I aged and they still refused to answer my questions, I realized their past was something they would never be willing to discuss.
My parents always said we needed to live in the present. But for them to have knowledge about the very beginnings of the world and not be willing to share it made me furious. My brother always told me to forget about it, that they had their reasons and I needed to focus on the present. Then again, my brother always took their side; our parents could do no wrong according to him.
My younger brother always tried to do what he thought he was supposed to do, whereas I needed a reason to act a certain way. I would never do something simply because my family wanted me to. If an action didn’t benefit me, why do it?