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The bags over his shoulders were heavy with books, but Faunos had only managed to bring out the dozen most valuable. These were the books that described the magicks, the prophecies and the secrets of his forefathers' power. He had left behind the histories of Zeheft, the poems and stories of his ancestors, which had been suppressed since Vayal’s last great victory, and was burdened with the knowledge that he must go back for them -- soon, before the sea destroyed everything.
The Zeftimen who had fled with the overburdened fishing fleet were the children of these latter years, and Galen was rightly scornful of them. They had no concept of who they were, who their ancestors had ever been, what was their birthright, and of what they were capable. Worse yet, the youngest had ceased to care.
Time, ignorance and hardship had reduced the to simple fishermen and shepherds who bowed politely when the soldiers of Vayal passed by. They walked to the great new city by the hundreds to watch the games, and prostrated in the temple of Helios there, when the high priests of the Vayal called them to devotions as dawn, noon and sundown. Their young men and women were flattered to be chosen when the priest king passed by.
His litter would stop; a jewelled hand would extend through the gauzy curtains, a gold-taloned finger would point out a boy or a girl who had caught the eye of the great one, and he or she would step up into the litter. Mahanmec Azhtoc could have any body he desired, and he desired so many. His progeny were scattered like autumn leaves across the island -- bastards, worthless in Vayal, nameless, and yet the young people of Zeheft greatly admired them. Galen was scathing.
The young of Zeheft were no more than traitors, he said. They had forgotten their heritage, and when one like himself sought to remind them of who they were, they laughed in his face, or they swiftly grew angry, as if Galen were lying to them, maligning them -- or worse, enjoying a jest at their expense.
Every word he said to them was true, but they were furious to hear his thoughts, and it was decades since the common people had lost the ability to read the few old books what had survived the burning.
The future was unclear to Faunos. He could read, and for fifteen years Galen had taught him everything he should know, as the seventh son of Mykenos, in whose body was born the terrible power that had possessed, elevated and ruined the kings of old.
Faunos had never told Galen the truth, and never would. It was an inheritance he did not want. To be the custodian of the power of forgotten ages was a burden he would have set down, if he could.
But the power was in him whether he wanted it or not. It flowed like the blood in his veins, the passions in his heart, even the thoughts in his head. As he grew older, he could not move or breathe without feeling it, and when he was twelve years old the lessons began in earnest, lest the power command him.
It was dangerous. Lethal. Faunos knew it could so easily be the death of him, and if it were, then Zeheft was really gone. This was Galen’s first and greatest lesson, and he made sure Faunos learned it well.
"Can you walk again?" Faunos asked quietly. "Take my arm. Let me help you. It’s getting very dark, and we'll be climbing over a lot of rubble. It’ll be difficult without the light." Just enough twilight remained for them to get around the ruins, if Galen could move, and Faunos heard the urgency in his own voice.
"I can walk," Galen told him, short tempered because he was angry with himself, annoyed at his own infirmity.
At the time when he needed to be strongest, his body was failing, and he knew it. He hauled himself to his feet an stood breathing deeply, one hand on Faunos’s arm for balance. The sea stretched away like a silver-green carpet and the brightest stars were already glittering. Galen was not as tall as Faunos now; his back was stooped lately, and his hips were stiff. His hair was white like his beard, and cropped short about his skull. Even now, even here, he wore an old brown robe, like the cassocks worn by the most lowly of the lay brothers at the temple.
"It’s not so far," Faunos promised. He shifted the weight of the goatskin bags over his shoulders and took Galen’s arm. "I know the easiest way through. I’ll build a fire and get you some food, and then ..."
And then? Faunos breathed a sigh, and as Galen began a determined shuffle, he put himself between the old man and the clifftop which had lately been the middle of the marketplace. Careful, patient, he guided him around the tumbled wreckage of Zeheft.
Return to Chapter Four part one...
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