Gods of Earth (42 page)

The Guardian told Sarah that he wanted her to ensure that Chance slept in the boat.

“The terrorbirds that I told you of, those are the only beasts I think we need fear, and they would not come to the beach. But, for safety, I think it best to stay in the ship.”

Sarah agreed. The ship had a bed, after all, and privacy. There was no attraction for her to sleeping on the stone floor of the tower. She had seen in the day the black scorpions that prowled the dark corners of the abandoned building.

Hours after they went to their bed, she lay on Chance’s left side and ran a hand through his hair, and asked him, in a whisper, “Chance, you shook when Seth spoke. About that—what did he call it?—the demon.”

Chance nodded, a dimly visible movement in the dark. “It reminded me of something my father once told me. Many years ago. A story.”

“Tell me,” Sarah asked.

“It was storming, one of those short but terrible thunderstorms of August when we would sit in the house and watch the vineyard with worry. The vines were shaking, their leaves being torn away.
I said, ‘It seems the devil is after us.’ And my father grabbed my arm, hard.

“‘Don’t speak like that!’ he said.

“‘I’m sorry, father,’ I told him.

“He shook his head and then he told me, ‘I’m sorry, Chance.’ And I think he felt bad, he needed to explain himself, because then he said, speaking quietly, almost whispering, ‘I will tell you something. Your brother has little interest in spiritual matters, Chance. And I don’t want to frighten your mother.…’ And he looked toward the kitchen, checking to see if they were coming or looking at us. They weren’t. So he went on, ‘I’ll tell you something I never told anyone else before: the devil is a real creature. I have seen him.’

“I was shocked. We were alone in the large hall, looking through the streaked windows. It was as dark as dusk, though little past noon. Thunder hammered nearby, making us both jump.

“‘You saw him?’ I whispered.

“‘Many years ago. I was in the fields, late at night. By that cursed black boulder atop the hill. And the Earth opened, and a thing in the shape of a man came out. An unman. A thing of black and white. Or, it seemed all light, but then also nothing but dark. We cannot speak of such things clearly. Words aren’t strong enough.’

“‘But it groaned, and mumbled, and then it said to me, ‘Do you want to live a second life?’

“‘Only the one true God can give the second life,’ I told it. I was terrified but I relied upon my faith.’

“‘I can give you a second life,’ it said.

“‘Not a true life,’ I said.

“‘No. That is beyond me, yet. But a second life.’

“So I told it, ‘Begone, black spirit.’ I told it, ‘I put my faith in the one true god.’ Then I told it that it could be better, and accept God.”

“‘God is absent,’ it said. It said, ‘Why doesn’t God hear me? One as great and as powerful as I?”

“And I told him, ‘Smaller and more meek than an ant is to a man, so you are to God. God cannot deign to speak to man or to devil.’

“‘It disappeared then. I heard it weeping, as it disappeared. Weeping to have tried for and lost my soul. Maybe weeping to be lost to God. That’s how powerful just the name of the one true God is: it banishes the devil.’”

Chance looked at Sarah. “That’s the story my father told me. I never repeated it before. But it was burned in my memory. I was afraid for weeks, of the thought that the devil could rise from the ground. And that way he described it: ‘A thing of all light but also all dark.’ Just like Seth said. Exactly as Seth described. Does that sound crazy?”

Sarah thought of her own mother, mocked for having claimed to have met Lucenfolk. “No. No. We see now that there is so much more than people imagine, even in our little valley. No, I don’t doubt your father.

“But,” Sarah added uncertainly, “I don’t know if it has anything to do with what happened to Seth. I know that Seth is good, and loves you, and so whatever happened to him did no harm to him or you. Maybe it was an angel of God, helping Seth because he is good. Perhaps all things divine and all things cursed look similar to mortals, when seen by us. It could be that Seth’s demon was nothing like your father’s devil, in the end.”

“That’s right,” Chance said. “All these things are beyond us, and so we describe them in the same useless ways.”

They lay a while in quiet. Sarah felt herself fading into sleep, but then she saw in the dim moonlight a glistening sparkle on Chance’s cheek. She touched it and found a tear.

“You think of your father,” she whispered.

“Yes. Yes. I’m so sorry that because of me.…”

“No, Chance. It isn’t your fault.”

He didn’t answer her for a while. Then he whispered, “I know my father’s death is not my fault. And I also know it is my fault.”

Sarah understood what he meant, and it would have been dishonest to deny what he said. After a long while, she whispered, “I miss the lake. I’d like some of your Ries, like you and Seth were saying today.”

“It shall be hard to go back,” Chance whispered. “People will remember. They will not be accepting.”

“I am a Ranger of the Forest Lakes,” Sarah said with determination. “They will hear me. A bandit attacked, I was captured, you saved me, we came home. That’s as true as not.”

“It’s not the whole story.…”

“Chance, the Rangers never tell the whole story. Purimen and Trumen alike don’t want to hear it.”

Chance grunted.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“I’ve learned something important about you in this last week: when you speak with that tone, I would be foolish to disagree.”

“I’m even more stubborn than you, in some things.”

“But, Sarah,” he said, after a long while. “The Purimen and the Trumen of the Forest Lakes are worth saving.”

“Of course they are.”

He furrowed his brow. “What I mean is that—there’s a lot wrong with the Purimen. I can say that to you, now. I see the world is so much more in need, and all these peoples are not talking to each other, not helping each other. And we have something to offer. It’s.…” Chance frowned.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“I just remembered something Elder Sirach once said to me. He said, ‘Who should rule, Chance: the man who seeks to rule or the man who seeks not to rule?’ And I answered, ‘No man should rule.’”

“That’s right,” Sarah said.

Chance laughed softly. “‘But suppose it were necessary?’ he asked. So I said, ‘It cannot be necessary,’ but before he could protest my stubbornness I added, ‘But I will say, of course, the man who
seeks to avoid this power.’ ‘And why?’ Sirach asked me. The answer wasn’t so clear to me, but I managed to say that perhaps such a man would avoid using power to remake the world in his own image. ‘Yes!’ Sirach answered. ‘And you see, this is a gift, this wisdom, that Purimen can give the world.’”

Sarah sighed. “I respected Elder Sirach, but I don’t believe much of the world waits for Purimen council.”

“Well, it’s not so clear to me either, why he would talk to me of rule. But there’s something there, no? The Purimen can help. Sirach was right to say at least that we should tell of our way. We live without all this killing and violence. We share with each other and help each other. We are not overwhelmed with greed—”

“Oh,” Sarah interrupted. “There are greedy Purimen. Greedy of their lands, especially.”

“But we’re not overwhelmed by it.” He sat up on an elbow to look at her. “Or, rather, I mean—it’s not the heart of what we are. We need to tell of our way. That’s worth saving and returning to and telling of.…”

They were silent a long while more. Then Sarah spoke. “Chance, my father and brother—”

“I think they are well, Sarah. I do. The false god would have taunted me with them, if he had any control over them.”

“I do too,” she added quickly. “But, I know my brother Adam insulted you. About being adopted. And about Seth. And even being a favorite of Elder Sirach.”

“It’s nothing, now.”

“How did you become Sirach’s… friend?” Sarah asked.

Chance shrugged. “I was walking in the forest one day, and Seth and I just ran into him. You know Sirach: with his long gray hair, he looked kind of wild, but he was always also… precise. Almost fussy. And he called to me, and said, ‘You’re the boy who runs with the soulburdened coyote.’ I was wary. I thought he was going to be another person criticizing on me for being friends with Seth. But
then he turned to Seth and said, ‘You’re the coyote that runs with the Puriman boy.’ And he just introduced himself, and walked with us. That was it.”

“But you became close friends,” Sarah said.

“Yes. Sirach believed that Purimen have a mission: to see the face of God by turning away from the vanity of men.” Chance smiled, embarrassed. “That’s how he put it, I mean. And that was something very important to me. Up until I met Sirach, I thought being a Puriman really just meant being pure of blood. But Sirach thought that didn’t really matter much. It was the decision to live in the world as we find it, and to appreciate what already is, instead of what could be. That’s what matters. Or so he said.” Chance’s voice was a mere whisper as he added, “That changed my life. I’d been a trouble-maker before that time, but Sirach made me realize that the things I… doubted, the rules I couldn’t obey, those weren’t Purimen rules. They weren’t scripture.”

Sarah nodded. “He sounds like he truly was wise, as some claimed he was. But, about my brother and father: well, I’m sorry that they weren’t good to you.”

“I was not good to them. I thought few liked me, or accepted me. So I told myself it was because I was a better Puriman. It was the way I carried the loneliness.” Chance shook his head. “It’s funny. I didn’t really know that till I said it. Anyway, so I said things, acted in ways.…”

Sarah pushed back his hair.

“Still,” she said. “A single kind word and you would have been kind. And I know it’s not true, what you say. You did them a great kindness. I know about the grapes, Chance. The unripe grapes you bought.”

“They weren’t so bad.”

“They were terrible. Don’t ever give me any wine you made with them.”

He laughed.

“No, Chance,” she continued. “They are at fault. I ask you to forgive them.”

There was a long silence, and then Chance began to laugh, quietly.

“What?” Sarah demanded. When Chance just continued to laugh, she punched his arm.

“Ow!” he protested. “Have charity, that’s my only good arm.”

“Why do you laugh?”

“Well, it’s just that—I took the worse possible revenge on your brother and your father. I ran off and married you, without their say!”

Sarah punched him again, but she flashed her lopsided smile.

When Sarah had returned home that last August to find the vinfields of her father’s land had been picked, she asked her father about it.

“There was some rot in the Ries,” he had said, his tone defensive. “We could have lost the whole crop. They sold already.”

She nodded. “So Adam told me.”

Her father had stopped growing potatoes and onions, as he had done for years, and attempted now for the profit of it to grow only grapes for sale to the winemakers. It was a terrible gamble, with a whole year spent just waiting for their fallow vines to mature after being trimmed and cleaned out, and even more years to wait for the new plantings to grow to bear fruit. He did not make wine, but hoped someday he might. Many farmers did the same. For them, the late summer was a time of fear, when the growers waited each day apprehensive that rot would take their crop. It drove many to pick too early. But the early pickings were poor grapes, with little sugar and even less flavor; they could not ferment into fine wine.

The next morning Sarah rose early and went into the village. Before the tall cobblestone building of the grape hold, which stood
at the end of a stream in the narrow mouth of a gorge, two men just nodded at her and left her to wander the vats.

She circled the rows of tall wooden tubs. Most were empty. Those that were full held gleaming heaps of purple Caffran grapes. Not one was full of the white Ries grapes. She circled again and found that one of the empty vats had a few clusters of Ries at the bottom, as they always did after being emptied. She climbed into the vat to fetch a stem. The grapes on it were as hard as nuts. She bit one, and found it was crisp, with some sugar but not much flavor. Far too young.